Lead SDTE

Welocalize, Inc; Gurgaon; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 4,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Welocalize, Inc. is seeking a Lead SDET to govern end-to-end QA across frontend, middleware, and backend for a complex onboarding platform.

The role focuses on API contract testing architecture and data modeling of complex entity relationships, ensuring quality assurances are verified across layers rather than trusted at face value. The ideal candidate will drive delivery governance, mentor SDETs and QA analysts, and coordinate across cross-functional teams to meet delivery timelines and quality

Qualifications

• 8+ years in QA leadership spanning multiple testing layers (frontend, middleware, backend).
• Expertise in API contract testing architecture and governance.
• Practical experience with knowledge graph or ER data modeling and test/data traceability.
• Strong understanding of layered system architectures and independent quality verification across layers.
• Proven delivery governance experience with standards and quality gates.
• Excellent cross-functional leadership and stakeholder communication skills.
• Deep grounding across QA disciplines (manual, automation, systems-level testing).
• Experience mentoring SDETs and QA Analysts.
• Experience leading multi-week technical QA, API validation, or security assessments is preferred.
• Familiarity with knowledge graphs, ER models, or structured dependency/evidence modeling is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical governance across frontend, middleware, and backend testing layers.
• Establish and enforce QA delivery standards, evidence requirements, review processes, and quality gates.
• Review frontend constraint dictionaries and FSM/state-model outputs for completeness and consistency.
• Review API schema reconstructions, network evidence, and tracer replay outputs for technical quality and traceability.
• Coordinate with QA Analysts, SDETs, and Test Operations Associates to align technical execution with delivery timelines.
• Review test architecture decisions, validation approaches, and coverage strategies.
• Coordinate dependency resolution, evidence rework, and cross-layer reconciliation throughout the engagement.
• Act as the escalation point for cross-layer technical discrepancies and evidence-quality issues.
• Compile and quality-check the raw technical evidence dossiers produced by the workstreams.
• Identify evidence gaps, inconsistencies, or areas requiring rework before handoff to client stakeholders.
• Report on delivery health, technical risks, evidence quality, dependencies, and unresolved gaps.
• Prepare the technical evidence package for handoff to the client team responsible for final modelling and logic-gap assessment.
• Support technical readout preparation by ensuring that findings are traceable to empirical evidence.

Job description

Job Responsibilities

Lead SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) to provide end-to-end technical governance across all QA layers - frontend, middleware, and backend - for a complex, multi-layered onboarding platform. This role owns the architecture of API contract testing and the data modeling of complex entity relationships (e.g., hierarchical/parent-child style structures), while ensuring that quality assumptions made at one layer (such as client-side validation) are independently verified at every downstream layer rather than trusted at face value. The role combines strong technical leadership with the ability to set and enforce delivery governance across cross-functional teams.

Main Responsibilities

• Provide technical governance across frontend, middleware, and backend testing layers
• Establish and enforce QA delivery standards, evidence requirements, review processes, and quality gates
• Review frontend constraint dictionaries and FSM/state-model outputs for completeness and consistency
• Review API schema reconstructions, network evidence, and tracer replay outputs for technical quality and traceability
• Coordinate with QA Analysts, SDETs, and Test Operations Associates to align technical execution with delivery timelines
• Review test architecture decisions, validation approaches, and coverage strategies
• Coordinate dependency resolution, evidence rework, and cross-layer reconciliation throughout the engagement
• Act as the escalation point for cross-layer technical discrepancies and evidence-quality issues
• Compile and quality-check the raw technical evidence dossiers produced by the workstreams
• Identify evidence gaps, inconsistencies, or areas requiring rework before handoff to client stakeholders
• Report on delivery health, technical risks, evidence quality, dependencies, and unresolved gaps
• Prepare the technical evidence package for handoff to the client team responsible for final modelling and logic-gap assessment
• Support technical readout preparation by ensuring that findings are traceable to empirical evidence

Requirements

• Proven experience of 8+ years in a QA leadership role spanning multiple testing layers (frontend, middleware, backend)
• Demonstrated expertise in API contract testing architecture and governance
• Practical experience with knowledge graph or entity-relationship data modeling and its application to test/data traceability
• Strong understanding of layered system architectures and the importance of independently verifying quality at each layer rather than relying on upstream assumptions
• Strong track record of technical delivery governance, including setting standards and quality gates
• Excellent cross-functional leadership and stakeholder communication skills
• Deep technical grounding across QA disciplines (manual, automation, systems-level testing) to credibly guide teams at every layer
• Experience mentoring or managing SDETs and QA Analysts
• Experience leading complex multi-week technical QA, API validation, or security-assessment engagements is strongly preferred
• Experience establishing evidence/traceability models across complex technical workflows is preferred
• Familiarity with knowledge graphs, entity-relationship models, or structured technical dependency/evidence modeling is preferred; deep knowledge-graph engineering expertise is not required
• Ability to synthesize technical evidence into concise stakeholder-ready findings and handoff materials

Additional Job Details

Welocalize is a leading technology-enabled provider of translation, localization, and AI-driven content solutions, helping businesses communicate, innovate, and grow globally. Specializing in complex and regulated industries, Welocalize delivers precise, scalable multilingual content through a powerful combination of advanced AI technologies and expert human talent. At the core is Welocalize's AI-enabled OPAL platform, which transforms translation workflows by integrating machine translation (MT) and large language models (LLMs) to provide fast, accurate, and culturally relevant content in over 300 languages. With a commitment to excellence, Welocalize holds 7 ISO certifications. Welocalize is headquartered in New York with offices all over the globe.