Principal SDET Automation Engineer (Cloud Management Platform)

Full-time - Senior

Santa Clara, CA

About the position

Our Cloud Management Platform group is in search of passionate Automation Engineers responsible to develop and design our scalable microservices used to activate all Palo Alto Networks cloud products. We are seeking experienced Principal Software Engineers to develop and deliver next-generation technologies within our Shared Services team. We want passionate engineers who love to code, build great products and bring new ideas in all facets of software development. Collaboration and teamwork are at the foundation of our culture and we need engineers who can communicate and work well with others towards achieving a common goal.

Responsibilities

• Design comprehensive, well-structured software test plans and lead the implementation of a test automation strategy, covering the entire testing pyramid (unit, service, integration, and end-to-end testing) to verify feature functionality for customer use cases.
• Architect, build, and maintain scalable and maintainable automated test frameworks using industry-standard tools.
• Collaborate with DevOps to integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines using tools like GitLab CI, ensuring thorough test coverage at every stage of development and enabling swift delivery of features.
• Develop and execute automated tests for microservices (API and service layer testing), ensuring data validation and reliability across services.
• Design and execute end-to-end automation scripts using frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright, ensuring user flows work seamlessly across platforms.
• Demonstrate excellent troubleshooting abilities, isolate issues, and verify bug fixes.
• Build tools and infrastructure to support efficient, high-quality testing.
• Act as a gatekeeper for quality, ensuring all code passes necessary tests before merging and deployment.
• Mentor junior engineers on test design, automation techniques, and best practices.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product management, development, SRE and SDET teams, in a fast-paced environment with short release cycles.

Requirements

• Strong knowledge of test automation methodologies, tools, and frameworks.
• Experience developing test automation for REST APIs using Python/Pytest.
• Proficiency in at least one programming language (e.g., Python, Java, JavaScript) and strong scripting skills.
• Experience with cloud technologies (AWS, GCP) and containerized applications (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, Jenkins) and version control systems (Git).
• Hands-on experience with UI automation frameworks (Selenium, Cypress) and API testing tools (Postman, REST Assured).
• Familiarity with contract testing (e.g., Pact) and tools like TestContainers for simulating environments and verifying interactions.
• Experience with performance testing tools (e.g., JMeter, Gatling).
• BS or MS in Computer Engineering or a related technical field or equivalent military experience.
• Minimum of 8 years’ experience in software development or software testing.

Benefits

• FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees.
• Mental and financial health resources.
• Personalized learning opportunities.