Senior Technical Engineering Manager, SDET

Position Overview As a Senior Technical Engineering Manager, SDET at Alkami, you will lead, mentor, and scale a team of Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) responsible for delivering high-quality, scalable, and reliable automation frameworks and testing solutions. This role combines strategic leadership with hands-on technical execution — requiring you to stay close to the codebase and contribute directly to framework design, automation architecture, and quality infrastructure (approximately 20–30% hands-on coding and reviews). You will own and evolve Alkami’s quality engineering strategy, driving quality-first practices across multiple product domains. Working closely with Engineering, Product, DevOps, and Security teams, you’ll embed quality early in the development lifecycle through shift-left testing, continuous validation, and observability-driven feedback loops. Key Responsibilities - Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of SDETs focused on full-stack automation across Web, Mobile, and API layers. - Contribute directly to the design, architecture, and development of test automation frameworks, tools, and libraries (~20–30% hands-on coding). - Architect and evolve scalable automation frameworks and testing infrastructure to improve reliability, maintainability, and velocity. - Define and execute enterprise-level quality strategies across functional, regression, integration, exploratory, performance, and reliability testing. - Partner with Development, Product, DevOps, and Security teams to design and implement holistic testing strategies ensuring high-quality releases. - Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions) to ensure early defect detection. - Lead and analyze performance, load, and scalability testing (JMeter, Gatling), incorporating observability data into quality metrics. - Define and track key metrics (e.g., defect escape rate, automation coverage, stability) to drive continuous improvement. - Champion modern testing practices: shift-left, mocking, service virtualization, contract testing, and risk-based validation. - Ensure robust test environments, data management, and automation infrastructure supporting rapid delivery cycles. - Lead hiring, onboarding, and professional development for SDETs, fostering a culture of ownership, inclusion, and continuous improvement. - Represent Quality Engineering in enterprise programs, influencing architecture and design for reliability, performance, and customer trust. Qualifications Required: - Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. - 10+ years in software or quality engineering, including 5+ years in technical leadership roles leading SDET/QA teams. - Strong proficiency in Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Python. - Deep expertise in automation tools: Playwright, Selenium, Appium, JUnit/TestNG, RestAssured, Postman. - Proven success in designing and scaling automation frameworks in microservices/cloud-based architectures. - Experience integrating automation within CI/CD (Jenkins, GitHub Actions). - Understanding of performance testing (JMeter, Gatling) and interpreting system-level metrics. - Strong foundation in testing pyramid, mocking, service virtualization, and test data management. - Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills. - Data-driven mindset with proven ability to improve product quality and release velocity. Preferred: - Experience in cloud-native environments (AWS preferred — Lambda, EKS, CloudFront, etc.). - Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools (Datadog, Grafana, CloudWatch). - Experience in regulated domains (e.g., FinTech) with exposure to compliance testing and secure test data management. - Understanding of reliability and resilience practices, including chaos engineering, contract testing, and canary deployments.