Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (Application Pod)
About Parspec
Founded in 2021, Parspec is revolutionizing material procurement for the $13 trillion USD construction industry by digitizing and organizing the industry's product data. Our proprietary AI technology maintains a current and comprehensive catalogue of millions of products, enabling our customers to identify products that best meet their needs - instantly. Trusted by top designers, builders, distributors and sales agents and backed by leading venture investors, Parspec is paving the way for a more innovative, connected, and sustainable future in construction.
Join us in building transformative technology that reshapes one of the world’s oldest and largest industries.
The Opportunity
We are seeking a skilled SDET to join Parspec's high-performance engineering team and strengthen quality engineering across our Crawler Pipeline, Platform, and Search systems. In this role, you will design automated test frameworks, validate complex distributed systems, and ensure reliability in AI-driven, data-intensive workflows, microservices, and event-driven architectures.
You will collaborate with Platform, Search, and product engineers to build robust testing strategies that enable faster, more reliable releases while maintaining system correctness at scale.
What You Will Achieve and Key Responsibilities
Test Strategy & Automation: Own test strategy, automation, and reliability validation for Crawler, Platform, and Search services using Python, TypeScript, and AWS tools. Lead automation test strategy planning, prioritization, and roadmap execution across squads.
UI & Browser Automation: Design and maintain robust UI automation frameworks using Playwright with TypeScript and Python. Leverage AI-assisted browser automation (Claude, Cursor) for intelligent test generation, smart locator discovery, self-healing locators, and reducing maintenance overhead on dynamic UIs.
API Automation: Build a unified API automation layer using Playwright alongside AI tools (Claude) within the same framework as UI tests — enabling seamless test data sharing, context reuse, and end-to-end coverage across UI and API layers in a single cohesive suite.
AI-Powered End-to-End Automation: Drive next-generation automation using MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers — including Jira MCP, Git MCP, and Playwright MCP — for intelligent code generation, accurate locator synthesis, browser action automation, test data generation, failure diagnosis, and self-healing test suites.
AI Tooling Development: Build internal AI-powered QA tools and utilities that improve test reliability, accelerate test authoring, and surface quality signals faster across teams.
Framework Development & Optimization: Architect and continuously improve end-to-end testing frameworks for microservices, async pipelines, integration, regression, and performance testing — with AI integration baked into the framework structure and an optimized, maintainable architecture for both UI and API test layers.
CI/CD & Reporting Integration: Own the integration of the full automation suite into CI/CD pipelines on AWS using GitHub Actions — including test execution orchestration, environment management, and automated reporting dashboards that give teams instant visibility into quality health.
Performance & Chaos Testing: Build synthetic and chaos testing frameworks to identify edge cases, performance bottlenecks, and data workflow issues in large-scale crawling systems.
Observability Integration: Collaborate with Platform engineers to instrument observability, alerting, and monitoring (AWS OpenSearch, Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch).
Search Quality Assurance: Partner with Search engineers to validate query relevance, accuracy, latency, and performance SLAs.
Shift-Left Practices: Introduce static analysis, CI/CD gate validation, and reproducible test environments to catch issues early in the development lifecycle.
Benchmarking Tools: Create automated performance benchmarking tools to measure throughput, latency, and cost economics across distributed components.
Quality Ownership: Drive continuous improvement and quality ownership across mission-critical systems powering construction data intelligence.
Why This Matters
World-class automation and quality engineering directly enables Parspec to ship faster with confidence. Your test frameworks will validate massive data pipelines processing construction intelligence every minute, preventing quality gaps from rippling across the platform. By raising the quality bar — and embedding AI into the very fabric of our testing practice — you'll empower every engineering team to innovate rapidly while maintaining reliability at scale.
Who You Are
You are a quality-focused engineer with 7+ years of experience who thrives in fast-paced, data-heavy environments. You enjoy breaking complex systems, building intelligent test automation, and collaborating across teams to deliver reliable software. You're energized by the AI era of testing — not just using AI tools, but building with them to transform how quality engineering works.
Minimum Qualifications
7+ years of experience as an SDET and/or QA Automation Engineer
Strong coding skills in Python and/or TypeScript with experience building and maintaining automation frameworks
Hands-on experience with Playwright for both UI and API automation, including unified framework design with shared test data strategies across layers
Experience with AI-assisted testing tools — including browser automation via Claude or Cursor, AI-driven test generation, smart locator finders, and self-healing test mechanisms
Experience building or working with MCP server integrations (e.g., Jira MCP, Git MCP, Playwright MCP) for automated code generation, locator synthesis, and intelligent browser automation
Experience testing distributed microservices, async data pipelines, and message queues (AWS Lambda, SQS, Kafka)
Hands-on AWS experience (EC2, ECS, CloudWatch, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3) with proven CI/CD pipeline integration using GitHub Actions
Familiarity with AWS OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, API testing patterns, and automated test reporting
Experience with performance testing (JMeter, k6, or similar) or chaos engineering
Strong understanding of logging, metrics, and monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus)
Excellent debugging skills with a "break it to make it better" mindset
Preferred Qualifications
Experience developing internal AI-powered QA tooling — test data generators, failure debuggers, or healing utilities
Demonstrated ability to define and execute automation test strategies and planning across multiple teams or product areas
Experience implementing design patterns and establishing code quality standards within test frameworks
Knowledge of web servers and distributed system architectures at scale
Experience coordinating frontend–backend–AI workflows during feature development
Familiarity with advanced observability tools and production debugging techniques
Experience with agile methodologies and sprint-based delivery models
What We Offer
Competitive salary and benefits, including family insurance coverage, free health teleconsultations, and learning/upskilling budgets
Equity in the company
Flexible hours and a hybrid work setup
Unlimited PTO
Opportunity to grow with a fast-scaling company transforming a large market
Preferred Location: San Mateo, with regular in-office presence
Join Us – Lead the Transformation!
At Parspec, we recognize that traditional job descriptions don’t always capture the full range of your unique abilities—and that’s perfectly okay. You may not meet every requirement, but if you bring a mix of experiences, fresh perspectives, and a passion that aligns with our mission, we want to hear from you!
The Parspec team believes that varied backgrounds drive better outcomes and fuel innovation. We are a team of self-starters that lead from every seat. We think big, set a standard of excellence and are committed to diversity and a discrimination-free workplace. We welcome applicants from all walks of life to join us and help shape the future at Parspec.
How to Apply
Submit your application and resume highlighting your achievements. Apply now and help drive transformative change in one of the world’s oldest and largest industries!