SDET – Native Mobile Automation Engineer

Inspired Testing; Stellenbosch; Presencial; ZAR 700.000 - 1.050.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Inspired Testing seeks an experienced SDET to drive mobile automation for iOS and Android. You will design, implement and maintain scalable automation frameworks, write automated tests across functional, regression, integration and end-to-end scopes, and integrate tests into CI/CD pipelines.

You will collaborate with developers, QA and product teams to improve testability and ensure quality across mobile applications. Strong debugging and API testing skills are essential.

Formación

• Hands-on mobile test automation across iOS and Android.
• Design and develop reusable automation frameworks.
• Experience in API testing and CI/CD integration.

Responsabilidades

• Design, develop and maintain scalable test automation frameworks for mobile apps.
• Develop automated functional, regression, integration and end-to-end test suites for iOS and Android.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and support debug of failures.
• Collaborate with developers, QA, product and other stakeholders to improve testability.

Conocimientos

Automation design

Mobile testing

API testing

CI/CD integration

Debugging

Agile/Scrum

Git

Herramientas

Appium

Espresso

XCUITest

Playwright

Selenium

Postman

REST Assured

Descripción del empleo

SDET – Native Mobile Automation Engineer

Software Development Engineer in Test | Mobile Automation | iOS & Android

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) with strong test automation engineering capability and hands‑on mobile application testing experience across iOS and Android.

The role is responsible for designing, developing and maintaining scalable automation solutions for mobile applications while working closely with developers, QA engineers, product teams and other technical stakeholders.

This is an engineering‑focused quality role requiring strong automation development, framework design, API and integration testing, CI/CD integration, technical troubleshooting and a sound understanding of mobile application behaviour.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain reusable, scalable test automation frameworks and components for mobile applications.
• Develop automated functional, regression, integration and end‑to‑end test suites across iOS and Android applications.
• Build and maintain mobile test automation solutions and contribute to automation framework architecture and technical standards.
• Write maintainable automation code and participate in code reviews.
• Execute testing across physical devices, emulators and simulators, covering multiple operating‑system versions, screen sizes and device configurations.
• Validate mobile functionality across navigation, gestures, device permissions, push notifications, biometrics, deep links, offline behaviour and application lifecycle scenarios.
• Validate integrations between mobile applications, APIs and backend services, including automated API testing.
• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD build, deployment and release pipelines.
• Investigate failed automated tests and distinguish between application defects, test‑data issues, environment failures and automation defects.
• Analyse logs, test results and application behaviour to support root‑cause analysis and defect resolution.
• Work closely with developers to improve application testability, identify defects earlier in the SDLC and strengthen engineering quality.
• Manage test data, test environments and device configurations required for automated and exploratory testing.
• Support exploratory and manual testing for new, complex or high‑risk mobile functionality.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies and collaborate with cross‑functional teams to embed quality throughout the development lifecycle.

Required Technical Experience

• Strong SDET or test automation engineering experience, including the design and development of reusable automation frameworks.
• Hands‑on mobile application testing experience across iOS and Android.
• Hands‑on mobile test automation experience, with the ability to develop, maintain and troubleshoot automated test suites.
• API testing and automation experience, including REST APIs and JSON.
• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines.
• Git or equivalent source‑control experience.
• Automated regression, functional, integration and end‑to‑end testing experience.
• Experience testing on physical devices, emulators and simulators.
• Mobile debugging, log analysis and technical investigation of test failures.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum software delivery environments.
• Android and iOS platform differences, OS‑version compatibility and device fragmentation.
• Application installation, upgrade and uninstall scenarios, foreground/background behaviour and lifecycle events.
• Push notifications, deep links, biometric authentication, camera and location access, device permissions, gestures and touch interactions.
• Offline functionality, network interruption and recovery, and testing under different network conditions.
• Screen orientation, device‑specific behaviour and cross‑device compatibility.
• Mobile performance and reliability considerations, including responsiveness, memory usage and battery impact.

Advantageous Experience

Experience in any of the following areas will be advantageous:

• Mobile automation frameworks: Appium, Espresso, XCUITest, Maestro, WebdriverIO or Detox.
• Broader test automation frameworks: Playwright, Selenium or TestCafe.
• Mobile application technologies and tooling: React Native, Xcode or Android Studio.
• API tooling: Postman, Swagger or REST Assured.
• CI/CD tooling: Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins or GitLab CI.
• Docker and containerised test environments.
• BDD/Cucumber.
• Visual regression, performance, accessibility or security testing of mobile applications.
• Mobile application build, distribution and release processes.

SDET / Engineering Capability

• Designing automation architecture and applying software development principles to test automation.
• Creating reusable automation components and maintaining high coding standards.
• Troubleshooting complex failures across the application, automation framework and test environment.
• Working directly with developers and application code to improve testability.
• Improving automation coverage, execution speed, reliability and pipeline integration.
• Contributing to test strategy, continuous quality improvement and release confidence.

Candidate Profile

The successful candidate will combine strong software engineering capability with hands‑on mobile quality engineering experience. They will be comfortable building and improving automation frameworks rather than only executing existing scripts, and will be able to work effectively with developers and other engineering teams.

They will understand the practical challenges associated with mobile automation, including device fragmentation, asynchronous behaviour, application lifecycle management, flaky tests, test data, mobile environments and CI/CD execution. Strong problem‑solving, collaboration and technical communication skills are essential.