SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) Manager

It's a new day with a new opportunity at 8am!

About the role:

8am is hiring an SDET Manager to lead our Software Development Engineers in Test. Our SDETs are software engineers first, and their product is the automation that validates our products: the framework, the test suites, and the CI/CD quality gates that decide what ships. You'll run the team the way a strong engineering manager runs any product development team, with a backlog, a technical roadmap, code review, design standards, and a solid deployment practice.

You'll report to the Director of Quality Engineering (USA) and work directly with our US-based and Czechia-based QE Managers as peers, settling QE and SDET priorities between you. Their Quality Engineers own test strategy, test case design, and customer advocacy in their teams. You'll also partner with our SDET Architect , who reports to the Director of Quality Engineering, on automation approach. Your team includes full-time Core and embedded SDETs across Czechia and the US, plus contract SDETs as the work requires, covering our payments and practice management products.

Automation is software and carries the full cost of software, so you'll aim the team's time at the customer flows Product ranks most critical and where defects escape to customers most often.

This role is hired through an Employer of Record (EOR) partner in the Czech Republic.

About us:

8am builds software that helps professionals run stronger businesses. Our platform powers payments, client experience, and operational workflows for legal, accounting, and other service-based businesses. U.S. based professionals count on our purpose-built solutions to simplify operations, ensure compliance, and fuel profitable growth, so they can focus on their clients and do more of the work that matters.

More than 250,000 professionals across the U.S. rely on our products every day. As we continue to grow, we’re investing in the next generation of our platform and are looking for experienced engineers who want to help shape its future.

What you'll do:

• Lead and grow full-time Core and embedded SDETs: hiring, 1:1s, performance management, technical mentorship, and career development.

• Manage contract SDETs as the work requires, directing their work and holding their code to the same standards as the full-time team.

• Own automation strategy and engineering standards across Quality Engineering, including automation QEs write when they script the framework.

• Partner with our SDET Architect on the design and implementation of both traditional algorithmic automation and AI-based automation.

• Own the CI/CD quality gate roadmap. Your Core and embedded SDETs implement and maintain the pipeline gates that keep quality in step as engineering speeds up delivery with AI, extending them to every product.

• Lead the migration of tests from Metis, our legacy Ruby on Rails runner, into Themis.

• Partner with the Engineering Managers whose squads host your embedded SDETs: align on priorities and expectations, gather feedback on how your SDETs and automation serve their teams, and turn it into concrete improvements.

• Run the SDET backlog: take in automation requests, prioritize them by risk and value, and decide with the QE Managers which squads get an embedded SDET.

• Stay hands-on. Contribute to framework design and code, review pull requests, and set the bar for test code, test data management, and ephemeral test environments.

• Decide with the QE Managers where each test and suite runs in the pipeline: check-in, nightly, full regression, or post‑deployment.

• Keep the quality gates fast and trustworthy: flaky-test tracking and quarantine, and root cause analysis that separates product defects from automation failures.

• Partner with our nonfunctional QE specialists in Security, Data, and Performance to strengthen both nonfunctional and functional automated regression coverage.

• Curate AI-generated automation. Our agentic tooling writes and runs throwaway tests against tickets, and your team promotes the ones worth keeping into gated regression suites.

• Feed automation results into our quality KPIs , including Defect Leakage Rate, and demo new capabilities.

• Help maintain 8am's QE Practice Hub, our internal home for Quality Engineering standards and guides, keeping SDET standards and framework guides current.

• Work with Engineering and DevOps to make every product deployable and testable by automation.

About you:

• 8+ years in software engineering or test automation , with a BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent experience.

• 3+ years leading developers or SDETs in an Agile environment, running the team as a development team: backlog, code review, coding standards, and a technical roadmap.

• Strong Python 3. You'll complete a coding exercise during the interview process.

• Framework design and ownership , preferably PyTest, plus UI automation in Playwright and automation of back-end APIs across monolithic and microservice architectures in the cloud.

• CI/CD and Git experience, building automated suites into GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Jenkins, or similar pipelines as quality gates.

• Sound judgment on test types and on which tests make good automation candidates.

• SQL against complex schemas, including building the test data automated tests need, and experience with Kafka, RabbitMQ , or similar messaging systems.

• Qase, TestRail, or similar test management tools, and their APIs for reporting results.

• Familiarity with eval testing: building evaluation sets and scoring AI output against them.

• Interest and experience in AI-assisted development, with the judgment to review AI output.

• Clear written English for working across a 7 to 8 hour offset with US teams.

Additional Information

The monthly gross salary range for this position is CZK 150,000 to CZK 220,000. 8am is committed to fair, objective, and non-discriminatory compensation, and actual pay may vary based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and education.

Why join our new 8am Czech Republic hub?

• Founding Team Impact: Be a founding engineer of our new Czech Republic R&D hub. After a brief 1-6 month integration with U.S. based teams, you will help form fully autonomous, locally-led squads with clear paths to Staff and leadership roles with the exciting opportunity to collaborate face-to-face with your team in our upcoming Brno office.

• Drive our "AI-First" Transformation: We are building a secure, massive-scale "Unified AI Platform". Depending on your squad, you will either help architect this core infrastructure (LLM routing, RAG, agent orchestration) or build directly on top of it.

• Build the Next Generation of Our Platform: Help shape the systems powering products used by more than 250,000 professionals. You’ll work on complex platform capabilities across payments, workflow automation, and AI-powered features as we expand into new professional service markets.

Benefits and Perks

We offer a competitive, locally relevant benefits package designed to support your life in the Czech Republic while giving you access to global opportunities:

• Performance bonus opportunities and employee referral rewards

• Flexible Time Off (FTO) and 13 paid public holidays aligned with the Czech calendar

• Paid sick leave with additional support through the Czech social security system

• Maternity, paternity, and parental leave in line with Czech regulations, plus additional paid paternity leave from 8am

• Full statutory benefits , including public health insurance, social security, pension, and work accident coverage

Grow Your Career

• Access to Coursera (including Gen AI Academy) and ongoing professional development

• Clear growth paths, regular feedback, and opportunities for advancement

What Makes 8am Different:

• International company environment with collaboration across Europe and the U.S.

• Opportunities to travel for company events (including potential U.S. visits)

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