Senior Software Engineer in Test – Test Strategy Lead

Socket.dev; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity RSUs

Health coverage

Job summary

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies seeks a Senior Software Engineer in Test to join the Consumer Applications Test Team, owning testing strategy, execution, and quality for consumer apps and platforms. You will lead, mentor, and drive end-to-end test strategy across domains like vehicle access, mapping, mobile apps, or cloud services.

You will design scalable test infrastructure, automate testing, and own CI/CD pipelines, while focusing on quality and end-to-end coverage for customers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years in software test engineering, including automation, test infrastructure, and CI/CD systems.
• Proven ability to develop and execute test strategies across unit, integration, SIL, HIL, and end-to-end layers.
• Experience leading projects or mentoring junior engineers to improve team effectiveness.
• Proficiency in Python, C/C++, Java, Shell, or Rust for building backend services and automation.
• Expertise in CI/CD (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Buildkite) and modern build systems.
• Background in designing automation frameworks for cloud, mobile, or embedded environments.
• Strong knowledge of testing best practices, including the test pyramid, mocking, and test data management.
• Experience with HIL, SIL, or lab bench setups is preferred.
• Proficient in Linux, Git, and standard developer workflows.
• Excellent cross-functional communication and collaboration skills.
• Self-motivated with an ownership mindset and a focus on continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Own product quality and release confidence for your assigned domain, ensuring high-quality releases are delivered on schedule through effective manual and automated testing.
• Define and drive end-to-end test strategy for new features, systems, and releases, including risk assessment, coverage planning, release-readiness criteria, and quality signals.
• Act with a customer-centric mindset to proactively identify, break, and resolve issues before products ship.
• Take clear ownership of the products and test outcomes that release from your domain, driving accountability across the full development lifecycle.
• Design, implement, and evolve scalable test infrastructure, automation frameworks, runners, lab or bench tooling, and execution services used by the broader test organization.
• Build reliable services, libraries, and internal tools that make it easy for engineers to create, run, debug, and scale automated testing.
• Own and improve CI/CD pipelines for unit, SIL, HIL, integration, system, and end-to-end test coverage across mobile, cloud, infotainment, vehicle access systems, and related services.
• Lead technical decisions for test architecture, test selection, parallelization, flakiness reduction, reporting, and reliability improvements.
• Apply deep domain expertise in areas such as vehicle access, mapping, mobile app, or cloud to drive high-quality test coverage and infrastructure.
• Lead junior team members through technical guidance, mentoring, reviews, and day-to-day collaboration.
• Raise the effectiveness of the broader team by standardizing best practices, improving tooling, removing blockers, and sharing expertise broadly.
• Be a multiplier for the organization by improving systems and processes in ways that enable other engineers to move faster with higher quality.
• Own monitoring, alerting, and service-level expectations for key test infrastructure and pipelines.
• Analyze test results and pipeline behavior to identify bottlenecks, flaky areas, coverage gaps, and high-value automation investments.
• Continuously improve the reliability and stability of test assets supporting both manual and automated testing across teams.

Skills

Python

C/C++

Java

Shell

Rust

CI/CD

Mentoring

Test strategy

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Jenkins

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

BuildKite

Linux

Git

Job description

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies seeks a Senior Software Engineer in Test to join the Consumer Applications Test Team, owning testing strategy, execution, and quality for consumer apps and platforms. You will lead, mentor, and drive end-to-end test strategy across domains like vehicle access, mapping, mobile apps, or cloud services.

You will design scalable test infrastructure, automate testing, and own CI/CD pipelines, while focusing on quality and end-to-end coverage for customers.