Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) | Headless CMS & Publishing Platforms | Remote #2946 The mission Take complete ownership of a high-scale test automation ecosystem and evolve it into a lean, fast, and highly efficient machine. Embedded directly within the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) for a major digital publishing platform, your mission is to optimize a headless CMS architecture. You will eliminate test-suite bloat, streamline release gates, and ensure that content changes flow seamlessly and reliably from the WordPress backend to diverse frontend consumer applications. The Role This is a highly collaborative, technical role where you will drive the quality strategy and work side-by-side with development teams. Framework Optimization: Take full ownership of the existing Cypress automation framework, trimming inefficiencies and driving the transition toward a more performant model (with potential migration to Playwright). Decoupled Architecture Validation: Validate complex data flows and synchronization patterns between a backend headless WordPress engine and multiple digital frontend consumers (web, mobile, and feeds). API & System Diagnostics: Troubleshoot, isolate, and debug API layers (REST/GraphQL) to determine if failures stem from custom plugin logic, core CMS updates, or network delays. CI/CD & Release Gates: Design, build, and support automated quality gates to ensure code promotions are backed by high-value, data-driven confidence. QA Strategic Partnership: Act as the central point of contact for quality metrics, collaborating with Product Owners and developers to determine bug severity and define non-negotiable, show-stopping release blockers. The \"Must-Haves\" Automation Mastery: Expert-level proficiency writing, maintaining, and scaling automated UI and API tests using Cypress or Playwright. Headless CMS Validation: Extensive experience testing decoupled editorial environments, specifically validating WordPress (or similar CMSs) serving as a headless data provider. API Testing Expertise: Deep hands-on experience validating RESTful and GraphQL APIs, including third-party plugin integrations. Shift-Left Mentorship: A strong history of collaborating with developers to bake testability and test hooks into features before code freeze. Technical Troubleshooting: Outstanding ability to analyze server logs, console outputs, and network payloads to provide developers with precise reproduction steps. AI-Augmented QA: Active experience using GenAI tools to analyze test plans, identify coverage gaps, write edge-case scenarios, and parse complex debugging logs. The \"Bonus\" Skills Migration Strategy: Direct experience planning and executing a framework migration from Cypress to Playwright. Modern Release Engineering: Hands-on experience optimizing test suites inside CI/CD pipelines to achieve faster execution times and parallelization. Performance Testing: Understanding of site reliability, layout shift, and Core Web Vitals from an automation standpoint. Pragmatic Quality Advocate: You prioritize high-value, reliable tests over raw volume, actively fighting against flaky or redundant checks. Systems Thinker: You look beyond isolated tickets to understand how a bug in the CMS core can cascade downstream across multiple consumer apps. Shift-Left Pioneer: You are passionate about preventing defects during the design and requirement phases rather than catching them right before a release. Communicative Peer: You write clear, detailed, and accessible documentation, treating developers as equal partners in the quest for system stability. High-Agency Collaborator: You proactively spot automation bottlenecks or manual processes and engineer solutions to solve them. #J-18808-Ljbffr