Principal Engineering Manager- SDET

ESP Engineered; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,200,000; Full time

Job summary

ESP Engineered is looking for a Principal Engineering Manager – Quality Engineering in Bengaluru, India. This key role will lead the organization-wide quality strategy and oversee high-performing teams to ensure the delivery of reliable and scalable AI-driven cloud solutions. The ideal candidate should have extensive experience in quality engineering and test automation, along with a strong leadership background. This role emphasizes establishing quality engineering as a competitive advantage in a fast-paced SaaS environment.

Qualifications

• 12-16 years of experience in quality engineering/test automation, with 5+ years in leadership.
• Proven experience managing Quality Engineering teams, preferably with 10+ members.
• Hands-on experience with modern test automation frameworks (Playwright/Cypress).

Responsibilities

• Drive and evolve the organization-wide quality engineering strategy for a cloud-native platform.
• Lead quality platforms, automation toolchains, and engineering best practices across teams.
• Define quality metrics and KPIs to drive continuous improvement.

Skills

Quality engineering / test automation

Leadership experience

API testing

Cloud-native architectures

CI/CD pipelines

Test automation frameworks

Distributed systems validation

Observability tools

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

OpenAPI

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

We are seeking an experienced and visionary Principal Engineering Manager – Quality Engineering to lead and scale quality engineering practices for our AI-driven cloud operations platform.

This role is responsible for driving the organization-wide quality strategy, building high-performing teams, and ensuring the delivery of reliable, scalable, and high-quality products in a fast-paced SaaS environment. The ideal candidate combines technical depth, leadership excellence, and strategic thinking to establish quality engineering as a core competitive advantage.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive and evolve the organization-wide quality engineering strategy for our cloud-native SaaS platform
• Lead and standardize quality platforms, automation toolchains, and engineering best practices across teams in collaboration with platform and engineering groups
• Establish and govern quality gates, release processes, and reporting standards to ensure consistent delivery quality
• Define and track quality metrics and KPIs (e.g., defect leakage, coverage, release confidence) to drive continuous improvement
• Build, mentor, and scale high-performing quality engineering teams across multiple pods
• Drive hiring, org design, career development, and performance management for the QE function
• Lead the evolution of scalable automation frameworks and quality platforms across UI, API, and integration layers
• Define and implement test strategies for microservices-based and distributed systems
• Ensure effective integration of quality engineering within CI/CD pipelines with strong quality gates
• Drive API-first testing strategies, including contract and schema validation at scale
• Leverage observability (logs, metrics, traces) to enable production validation and improve system reliability (shift-right)
• Influence architecture and design decisions to improve testability, scalability, and overall system quality
• Partner with Engineering, Product, and Platform teams to embed quality practices early in the development lifecycle (shift-left)
• Support and evolve approaches for testing AI/ML-driven features, including validation of non-deterministic outputs
• Define and oversee performance and load testing strategies for distributed systems (k6, Locust, Gatling, etc.)
• Collaborate with SRE and infrastructure teams on test environments, tooling, and cloud-based execution
• Contribute to strategic planning and tooling decisions for quality engineering

Must Have

• 12-16 years of experience in quality engineering / test automation, with 5+ leadership experience
• Proven experience managing and scaling Quality Engineering teams (10+ members preferred)
• Experience leading modernization/migration initiatives (e.g., legacy to modern automation frameworks, tooling consolidation, platform upgrades)
• Hands-on experience with modern test automation frameworks (Playwright/Cypress, Pytest or equivalent)
• Strong expertise in API testing and distributed systems validation
• Experience working with CI/CD pipelines and quality gates (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI)
• Solid understanding of cloud-native architectures (microservices, containers, distributed systems)
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes-based environments
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS preferred)
• Experience with contract testing / schema validation (OpenAPI, Pact)
• Working knowledge of observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch)
• Experience with performance and load testing for distributed systems (k6, Locust, Gatling, etc.)
• Strong understanding of SDLC, Agile, and DevOps practices
• Familiarity with AI-driven or intelligent test automation tools

Good to Have

• Experience with AI/ML-driven systems or data-intensive platforms, including testing strategies
• Knowledge of event-driven architectures (Kafka, messaging systems)
• Exposure to security testing and compliance standards (OWASP, SOC2, etc.)

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Strong leadership and people management capabilities
• Ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders
• Strong decision-making and problem-solving skills
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment

Experience

• 12-16 years of experience in quality engineering / test automation
• 5+ years of experience in engineering management / leadership roles
• Proven track record of driving quality transformation initiatives at scale

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field