Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Company Intro: TurbineOne is a fast-moving and high-performance startup with a mission to strengthen situational awareness for all Americans serving at our nation’s frontlines - and we are backed by the best DefenseTech venture capitalists. Our Frontline Perception System is an edge-first software platform that allows anyone, even with no technical knowledge, to build and use machine learning models within a comms-contested tactical environment.

Our rapidly growing startup seeks a talented and mission-driven Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) to join our dynamic team. In this role, you will own the quality, reliability, and performance of our platform across on-premise, air-gapped, and multi-platform deployments. You will design and implement automated test frameworks, validate complex system integrations, and ensure FPS performs seamlessly across diverse hardware, operating systems, and constrained network environments. As a critical partner to engineering and deployment teams, you will help deliver resilient software into high-stakes national security environments. If you thrive in fast-paced environments, care deeply about quality, and enjoy breaking complex systems to make them stronger, we want to hear from you.

Job Title: Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

• Reporting to: Engineering Operations Manager
• Location: (Fully Remote) Geographically flexible for home-office with occasional travel required

Primary Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks for FPS across on-prem and cloud environments.
•  Develop end-to-end, integration, regression, and performance test suites for multi-platform deployments (Linux, Windows, edge devices, containerized systems). 
• Own validation and verification processes for on-prem, air-gapped, and customer-specific deployments.
• Build CI/CD testing pipelines to support rapid iteration while maintaining system reliability.
• Create deployment validation scripts and health checks for infrastructure and application layers.
• Simulate comms-contested and resource-constrained environments to test system resilience.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, DevOps, and field integration teams to identify edge cases and prevent production defects.
• Troubleshoot complex system-level issues spanning application, networking, containerization, and hardware interfaces.
• Develop reproducible test environments using virtualization and container orchestration tools.
• Document test strategies, deployment validation procedures, and release readiness criteria.
• Continuously improve testing methodologies to support rapid scaling and evolving customer requirements.

On a Typical Day You Would:

• Write automated integration tests to validate FPS workflows.
• Build and maintain CI pipelines that test containerized deployments before release.
• Spin up a simulated air-gapped environment to reproduce and debug a customer-reported issue.
• Validate FPS across multiple operating systems and hardware configurations.
• Design a stress test to evaluate system performance under limited bandwidth conditions.
• Collaborate with engineers to identify root causes of deployment failures.
• Create scripts to automatically verify installation, configuration, and system health checks.
• Participate in release reviews to ensure readiness for field deployment.
• Improve test coverage across APIs, UI components, ML pipelines, and system integrations.

Desired Experience and Attributes:

• High standard of ethics, grit, integrity, and moral character.
  5+ years of experience in software testing, quality engineering, or SDET roles.
• Strong programming skills (Python preferred) and experience building automated test frameworks.
• Experience testing on-premise, air-gapped, or enterprise deployments.
• Strong understanding of Linux systems, networking fundamentals (LAN vs WAN, ssh, IP, DHCP), and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience validating software across multiple operating systems and hardware environments.
• Familiarity with CI/CD systems and infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Experience performance testing distributed systems or ML-driven applications.
• Excellent debugging and root-cause analysis skills across full-stack systems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• A college degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field is preferred.

Startup Culture Expectations:

• We’re a small, fully remote team, and everything is our responsibility.
• Our team thrives on autonomy, trust, and solid communication.
• Everyone on the Team needs to be very comfortable with constant change, moving fast, sharing failures, embracing grit, and building things themselves.

Compensation: 

• Salary range: $170,000-$210,000, depending on experience, skills, and location

Eligibility:

• Must be eligible to obtain a clearance with the U.S. government.