Director, SDET

HighLevel; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

HighLevel is a remote-first AI-powered business OS supporting agencies and SMBs globally. We seek a Director of SDET to own quality engineering vision, mentor SDET managers, and drive AI-enabled testing across multiple product lines.

You will champion shift-left quality, build scalable testing architectures, and partner with Engineering, Product, DevOps, and Security leadership to deliver high-quality software at speed.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software testing/quality engineering, with senior leadership experience
• Deep expertise in test automation frameworks and languages (Java, Python, JS/TS)
• Strong CI/CD and containerization knowledge (Docker/Kubernetes)
• Hands-on AI/ML-based testing tools experience
• Performance and security testing expertise
• Experience architecting test strategies for microservices and mobile platforms
• Proven stakeholder management and leadership capability
• Ability to mentor SDET managers and leads

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end quality vision, strategy, and roadmap across product lines
• Lead adoption of AI-driven quality tooling and testing practices
• Set up quality gates, release readiness, and CI/CD processes
• Conduct architectural reviews to ensure scalability, reliability, and performance
• Lead and mentor SDET managers and senior engineers
• Partner with Engineering, Product, DevOps, and Security to align quality goals
• Define and monitor quality KPIs/OKRs and report to executives

Skills

Test automation leadership

CI/CD pipelines

Cloud platforms

AI testing tools

Performance testing

Security testing

Microservices testing

Leadership & mentoring

Stakeholder management

Tools

Selenium

Playwright

RestAssured

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Harness CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

Azure

GCP

Job description

About HighLevel:

HighLevel is an AI-powered business operating system that gives agencies, entrepreneurs and SMBs the infrastructure to build, automate and scale. Today, HighLevel supports SMBs across 150+ countries, fueling community-driven growth rooted in real customer outcomes.

To date, businesses operating on HighLevel have generated over $7 billion in ecosystem value, demonstrating the impact of shared infrastructure at scale. By centralizing conversations, automation and intelligence into one system, we help businesses move faster, reduce complexity and execute efficiently.

Behind the platform, HighLevel powers more than 4 billion API hits and 2.5 billion message events daily. With 250 terabytes of distributed data, 250+ microservices and over 1 million domain names supported, our architecture is built for performance, resilience and long-term scalability.

Our People:

With over 2,000 team members across 10+ countries, HighLevel operates as a global, remote-first organization built for speed and ownership. We value initiative, clarity and execution, creating space for ambitious people to build systems that support millions of businesses worldwide. Here, innovation thrives, ideas are celebrated and people come first, no matter where they call home.

Our Impact:

Every month, HighLevel enables more than 1.5 billion messages, 200 million leads and 20 million conversations for the more than 1 million businesses we support. Behind those numbers are real people building independence, expanding opportunity and creating measurable impact. We’re proud to be a part of that.

Learn more about us on our YouTube Channel or Blog Posts.

About the Role:

The Director of SDET is a pivotal role blending strong technical depth with strategic and people leadership.

You will own the quality engineering vision for the organization, mentor the next generation of SDET managers and leads, and champion the adoption of AI-driven tools and practices to modernize how the organization builds, tests, and ships software.

Responsibilities:

Quality Strategy & Architecture:

• Own the end-to-end quality engineering vision, strategy, and roadmap across multiple product lines or business units


• Establish quality gates, release readiness criteria, and CI/CD processes


• Drive a “shift-left, shift-right” quality culture — embedding testability into design reviews and using production observability to close the loop


• Conduct architectural reviews across new and existing products to proactively surface scalability, reliability, and performance risks


• Evaluate and select tooling, frameworks, and platforms (open-source and commercial) that scale automation across teams
  -> AI Adoption:


• Lead the org’s AI adoption strategy for quality engineering — building or integrating AI/ML-based testing tools to improve coverage, productivity, and defect prediction


• Continuously evaluate and leverage AI for all aspects of Quality Engineering ensuring quality strategy keeps pace with how product is built
  -> Stakeholder & People Leadership:


• Partner with Engineering, Product, DevOps, and Security leadership to align quality goals with business and release objectives


• Provide regular quality updates, metrics, and strategic recommendations to executive leadership


• Define, set up, and monitor key quality and productivity metrics (KPIs/OKRs)


• Lead succession planning and mentor SDET Managers and Leads to build the next layer of quality leadership

Requirements:

• 15+ years in software testing/quality engineering, including 5+ years in a Director or senior engineering leadership role


• Deep expertise in test automation frameworks (Selenium, Playwright, RestAssured, etc.) and languages (Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript)


• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Harness CI/CD), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)


• Hands-on experience building AI/ML-based testing tools that measurably improve coverage and productivity


• Solid grounding in performance testing, security testing, and other non-functional quality attributes


• Experience architecting test strategies for microservices, distributed systems, and mobile platforms

Preferred Exposure:

• Experience presenting AI or quality-transformation initiatives at conferences


• Prior experience testing high-transaction SaaS platforms (CRM, Payments, Automation, Email, Fintech, or similar)


• Experience building and testing AI products using Agentic AI, including evaluation frameworks


• Contributions to open-source testing frameworks or published thought leadership on QE/AI trends

Key Competencies:

• Quality vision and strategic execution


• Non-functional testing (performance, security, reliability) and continuous delivery


• Operational discipline within a fast-paced, rapid release environment


• Stakeholder management across Engineering, Product, DevOps, and business functions


• Team building and mentorship


• Data-driven reporting of quality and productivity metrics to executive stakeholders

EEO Statement:

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