Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Simple Machines is a leading independent boutique technology firm with a global presence, including teams in London, Sydney, San Francisco, and New Zealand. We specialise in creating technology solutions at the intersection of data, AI, machine learning, data engineering, and software engineering. Our mission is to help enterprises, technology companies, and governments better connect with and understand their organisations, their people, their customers, and citizens. We are a team of creative engineers and technologists dedicated to unleashing the potential of data in new and impactful ways. We design and build bespoke data platforms and unique software products, create and deploy intelligent systems, and bring engineering expertise to life by transforming data into actionable insights and tangible outcomes.

We engineer data to life™. 

The Role: 

The purpose of the Senior Software Engineer in Test (SDET) role at Simple Machines is to ensure the quality of our software and applications. This involves writing and maintaining automation test code, reducing and managing issues in production, and collaborating with various teams (technical and non-technical) to solve challenging complex business problems. The role aims to empower the product owners and the engineers to deliver faster, and more consistently.

Requirements

What we need from you:

We're looking for someone who can get in to weeds of a complex business domain, thrives in the code — writing, maintaining, and running automated tests daily. You’ll be hands-on with test frameworks, actively debugging failures, collaborating with engineering teams during stand-ups, and pushing quality gates within our CI/CD pipelines.

• Work closely with engineers in sprint planning and code reviews to identify potential quality gaps early in the SDLC
• Perform hands-on exploratory and manual testing when automation isn’t feasible or when validating edge cases and new features
• Design and implement automated test scripts for functional, regression, and integration testing across web, API, and backend systems

Technical skills

• Proficiency in at least one programming language (e.g., Java, Kotlin, Python, or JavaScript)
• Strong understanding of software testing methodologies, tools, and processes
• Hands-on experience with test automation frameworks (e.g., Cucumber, Selenium, Cypress, Playwright)
• Experience testing APIs using tools like Postman, REST-assured, or similar
• CI/CD tools experience (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps)
• Knowledge of unit testing, integration testing, and performance testing
• Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git)
• Exposure to containerisation tools (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus