SDET / Test Engineer

• Job Type Full Time , Hybrid
• Qualification BA/BSc/HND
• Experience
• Location Nairobi
• Job Field ICT / Computer
• We are looking for a highly skilled SDET / Test Engineer to be the quality backbone for our software solutions. Someone who doesn't just find bugs, but architects the automation frameworks and CI/CD gates that make "quality first" a reality across our client engagements.
• This isn't a role where you write test cases and wait for a build. You will own test architecture end-to-end, write production-grade automation code alongside our engineers, and use AI tools to move faster from requirement to reliable, automated coverage. If you thrive at the intersection of deep technical testing skill, engineering rigor, and a relentless focus on system reliability, this role is for you.
• Test Architecture & Ownership: Design, build, and maintain scalable automation frameworks across UI, API, and integration layers, ensuring reliable, parallel, and fast-running test suites.
• Shift-Left Quality: Embed quality early in the SDLC; partnering with engineers during design and development, not just at the end of a sprint, to catch issues before they become expensive.
• CI/CD Integration: Build and maintain automated test pipelines (unit, integration, E2E, regression) that gate deployments and give the team confidence to ship continuously.
• Production-Level Contribution: Contribute real application code where needed, not just test code, understanding the system well enough to test it like an engineer who built it.
• Performance & Resilience Testing: Identify and test for bottlenecks under load, race conditions, and failure modes, especially for systems with strict uptime or regulatory requirements.
• AI-Accelerated Testing: Use AI tools to generate test scaffolding, analyse failures, identify coverage gaps, and speed up test maintenance while knowing where human judgment on risk and edge cases still has to lead.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with engineering, product, and advisory teams to translate acceptance criteria into automated coverage, and to communicate risk and quality status clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
• Automation Mastery: Strong hands-on experience with modern test automation tools (Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, or similar) and frameworks (TestNG, JUnit, Cucumber).
• Programming Proficiency: Solid coding ability in Java, TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, or similar and comfortable writing production-quality code, not just scripts.
• API & Data Testing: Proven experience validating REST APIs, JSON payloads, and structured data across complex, multi-system workflows.
• CI/CD & DevOps Fluency: Practical experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or similar) and working with version control (Git).
• Systems Thinking: Ability to reason about concurrency, state management, and data integrity in complex backend systems, not just click-through UI testing.
• Engineering & Communication Skills
• Engineering Mindset: You approach testing as an engineering discipline; designing for maintainability, scalability, and speed, not just coverage for its own sake.
• Ownership & Autonomy: High autonomy and grit; you identify quality risks proactively rather than waiting to be told what to test.
• Communication: Able to clearly explain technical risk and quality trade-offs to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience in high-reliability, high-stakes domains; e-commerce, financial services, etc.
• Cloud platform experience (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and containerisation (Docker) for test environment management.
• Experience with performance/load testing tools (JMeter, k6, or similar) together with observability tooling.
• Exposure to AI-assisted test generation or self-healing test frameworks.
• Background contributing production code, not just test automation but also full-stack or backend development experience.
• First 90 Days: Understand our stack and client delivery model deeply; land your first meaningful automation framework improvement or CI/CD gate.
• 6 Months: Become the trusted quality authority across your project team, with automation coverage that catches real issues before they reach production.
• 1 Year: Drive measurable improvements in deployment confidence and speed through reusable frameworks, AI-accelerated test workflows across more than one client engagement.