Staff Software Development Test Engineer - AI/​ML Focus

About the Role

We are seeking a Staff Software Development Test Engineer to join our innovative team at Tekion. This role is pivotal in ensuring the quality architecture of our AI-native platform. As a Staff SDET, you will lead the design and implementation of test strategies across various layers of our hexagonal architecture. This is not just a test execution role; it is a quality engineering leadership position where your expertise will directly impact the success of our platform.

What You'll Do

• Own the complete quality architecture: define test strategies at each hexagonal layer, including domain core unit tests, adapter integration tests using Testcontainers, service-to-service contract tests with Pact, and end-to-end scenario tests.
• Design and build the golden dataset evaluation framework, seeding realistic multi-tenant dealer/customer data across various databases like MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB, Elasticsearch, and Kafka.
• Establish AI quality gates by defining evaluation criteria for ML model outputs, ensuring high standards for scoring, recommendations, and overall workflow correctness.
• Architect test infrastructure to enable fully local integration test runs, utilizing Testcontainers configurations for various databases.
• Own the CI/CD quality pipeline by defining automated tests that run at commit, PR, staging, and pre-release gates, ensuring blocking quality thresholds are met.
• Define and track quality metrics such as test coverage, defect leakage, and automation ROI.
• Lead root cause analysis for production escapes, owning post-mortems and implementing preventive measures.
• Mentor Senior SDETs and QA engineers, conducting design reviews for test frameworks and golden dataset designs.

Requirements

• 8+ years of QA Engineering, Test Automation, or SDET experience with strong hands-on engineering depth.
• Deep expertise in designing test strategies for hexagonal architecture.
• Strong programming skills in Java and Python, capable of writing production-quality test frameworks.
• Expert-level experience with Testcontainers across various databases.
• Experience with contract testing for service boundary validation.
• Deep Kafka testing expertise, including consumer group behavior and event ordering guarantees.
• Experience in designing golden dataset strategies and integrating quality gates into CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong understanding of AI/ML output validation.

Nice to Have

• Experience with performance, load, and chaos testing against Kafka and Elasticsearch.
• Background in AI/ML quality engineering.
• Prior experience owning quality for a platform serving multiple engineering teams.
• Familiarity with Cosmos DB testing patterns.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation and generous stock options.
• Medical insurance coverage.
• Opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds from Silicon Valley's most successful companies.