Sr. SDET (Selenium/Automation)

Description Position at loanDepot Position Summary: The Senior Software Development Engineer in Test is responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining automated testing solutions that improve software quality, reduce production risk, and strengthen release confidence across enterprise applications. This is a hands-on technical role focused on test automation, framework development, API and integration validation, data validation, CI/CD quality controls, and production-readiness testing. The successful candidate will work closely with Engineering, QA, DevOps, Product, and business stakeholders to ensure applications are testable, reliable, scalable, and aligned with business requirements. The Sr. SDET requires strong ownership, technical depth, and a quality-first mindset. The Senior SDET is expected to proactively identify quality risks, improve automation coverage, troubleshoot complex failures, and help raise engineering quality standards across the team. Responsibilities: Test Automation & Framework Development Design, develop, and maintain automated test frameworks for web, mobile, API, service-level, integration, and end-to-end testing. Build reliable, reusable, scalable, and maintainable automated tests using modern engineering practices. Develop automation strategies that improve test coverage, reduce manual testing dependency, and increase release confidence. Create and maintain automated regression, smoke, functional, integration, and workflow validation suites. Analyze automation failures, identify root causes, reduce test flakiness, and improve automation reliability. Evaluate and recommend commercial and open-source testing tools, frameworks, and libraries based on project needs. Use AI-assisted engineering tools where appropriate to accelerate test creation, framework development, defect analysis, and productivity. API, Integration & Data Validation Design and implement automated tests for APIs, services, databases, third-party integrations, and complex business workflows. Validate application behavior beyond the user interface, including service responses, data transformations, event flows, and downstream system impacts. Use SQL and other validation techniques to confirm data accuracy, consistency, and integrity across systems. Create test data strategies to support automation, regression testing, integration testing, and production-like validation. Partner with Engineering and Architecture teams to identify quality risks in system design, data flows, and integration patterns. CI/CD & Release Quality Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and ensure test results provide meaningful feedback for build, deployment, and release decisions. Collaborate with DevOps and Engineering teams to define quality gates, pipeline validation, and environment promotion criteria. Support release-level validation by ensuring automated tests reflect actual release scope, dependencies, integrations, and business workflows. Participate in release readiness activities by providing clear test results, risk indicators, defect analysis, and quality recommendations. Support planned production releases and critical off-hours deployments as needed, in alignment with team release schedules. Troubleshooting & Production Validation Investigate complex application, automation, data, integration, and environment issues. Use logs, metrics, traces, monitoring tools, and application telemetry to troubleshoot failures and improve test coverage. Partner with Engineering, DevOps, QA, and business teams to diagnose defects and validate fixes. Contribute to root cause analysis and identify opportunities to prevent similar issues in future releases. Validate application behavior under realistic conditions, including dependency failures, latency, service degradation, and recovery scenarios. Collaboration, Coaching & Quality Ownership Work with business and technical stakeholders to understand requirements and ensure functional and technical validation is built into the delivery process. Review requirements, designs, user stories, acceptance criteria, and technical changes to identify testing needs and quality risks. Coach and mentor QA engineers, SDETs, and development teams on test automation, testability, framework usage, and quality engineering practices. Promote engineering practices that make applications more testable, observable, reliable, and maintainable. Proactively identify automation gaps, process improvements, quality risks, and opportunities to improve delivery outcomes. Maintain strong responsiveness and dependability when supporting team needs, stakeholder questions, release validation, and urgent quality issues. Requirements: Minimum seven (7)+ years of experience in software testing, test automation, software development, or quality engineering. Strong hands-on experience designing and developing automated tests and test frameworks. Strong programming or scripting experience in one or more languages such as C#, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, or similar. Experience with modern automation tools and frameworks such as Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, Appium, NUnit, xUnit, JUnit, TestNG, SpecFlow, Cucumber, Postman/Newman, REST Assured, or similar. Strong experience with API testing, service-level validation, integration testing, and end-to-end workflow validation. Strong SQL and data validation experience. Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines using tools such as Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, TeamCity, or similar. Experience analyzing test failures, troubleshooting complex defects, and improving automation reliability. Experience with test management, defect tracking, and collaboration tools such as JIRA, Azure DevOps, Confluence, or similar. Strong understanding of software development lifecycle practices, agile delivery, release validation, and quality engineering principles. Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders. Strong sense of ownership, accountability, and commitment to delivering a reliable user experience. Preferred Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Information Systems, or a related field preferred. Experience in Mortgage, Financial Services, Lending, or another highly regulated industry preferred. Experience with performance, resiliency, security, accessibility, or contract testing preferred. Experience using observability tools, logs, metrics, traces, or production telemetry to troubleshoot issues and improve test coverage preferred. Experience leveraging AI-assisted tools to improve test automation, test design, framework development, or defect analysis preferred. Experience working with distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architectures, or complex enterprise integrations preferred. Why work for #teamloanDepot: Competitive compensation package based on experience, skillset and overall fit for #TeamloanDepot. Inclusive, diverse, and collaborative culture where people from all backgrounds can thrive Work with other passionate, purposeful, and customer-centric people Extensive internal growth and professional development opportunities including tuition reimbursement Comprehensive benefits package including Medical/Dental/Vision Wellness program to support both mental and physical health Generous paid time off for both exempt and non-exempt positions About loanDepot: loanDepot (NYSE: LDI) is a digital commerce company committed to serving its customers throughout the home ownership journey. Since its launch in 2010, loanDepot has revolutionized the mortgage industry with a digital-first approach that makes it easier, faster, and less stressful to purchase or refinance a home. Today, as the nation's second largest non-bank retail mortgage lender, loanDepot enables customers to achieve the American dream of homeownership through a broad suite of lending and real estate services that simplify one of life's most complex transactions. With headquarters in Southern California and offices nationwide, loanDepot is committed to serving the communities in which its team lives and works through a variety of local, regional, and national philanthropic efforts. Base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay for this roles is between $112,000 and $154,000. Your base pay will depend on multiple individualized factors, including your job-related knowledge/skills, qualifications, experience, and market location. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity in our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. loanDepot