Staff Software Engineer in Test

Staff Software Engineer, Quality and Test Automation

Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)

Avy’s mission is to empower humans to work more efficiently and effectively with each other and with technology in knowledge work positions. We believe that software that acts as your companion, looking out for your best interests and helping you level up at work in a trusted, secure way, will not only make the world more productive, but will improve quality of life for everyone it touches.

Avy was founded by a serial founder and former leader in the AI/ML group at Apple, has team members with multiple exits (including an IPO), and is backed by $10M in pre-seed and seed funding to ensure we can execute at the highest level.

The Opportunity:

This role requires a self-starter that seeks high impact and high ownership while balancing hard technical problems with strategic thinking about how we ship our product.

As the founding member of the formal Quality Engineering team, you'll have the freedom to improve or reinvent processes and techniques to help us ensure we ship a trusted product, building on existing work in test automation and quality assurance as appropriate. As we grow, you will have substantial latitude to shape how it operates and steer how it grows.

Our product is ambitious: it combines components across desktop, mobile, and cloud computers. Correctness, speed, and reliability are critical to user trust and our deep use of machine learning and AI in every facet of the product requires novel, unconventional approaches to ensuring quality. This is a hard problem and you’ll have ample opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact.

What you’ll do:

• Define and own our testing and quality measurement and assurance strategy across platforms

• Build our test automation infrastructure to support reliable deployment across multiple platforms and operating systems, at scale

• Establish processes that balance fast iteration and product evolution with high confidence in releases, evolving from today’s needs to what will be required at scale

• Be deeply hands-on, understanding product requirements, writing test cases, and manually testing as needed until you automate testing of new requirements

• Design for AI-driven variability, developing approaches to evaluate nondeterministic outputs and ensuring product behavior remains trustworthy and user-aligned

• Ensure performance and resource discipline, especially around on-device AI models that demand careful management of CPU, memory, and responsiveness

• Get creative with test data, including using AI to generate high-quality synthetic inputs for stress, scale, edge-case testing, and other business uses

• Lay the foundation for a team, with the opportunity to hire and mentor QA and test automation engineers as we grow

• Communicate and collaborate closely with internal colleagues and external users and partners. This is not a customer support role, but we all jump in to learn from customers, address their needs, and make their experience with Avy successful.

Avy is for you if:

• You lift others up while maintaining exceptionally high standards, balancing confidence with humility.

• You're compassionate with people while being rigorous with ideas

• You think big, embrace bold ideas, and ask “what would it take?” instead of defaulting to “why not.”

• You thrive in uncertainty and fast-changing environments, seeing ambiguity as an opportunity to solve hard problems and push boundaries.

• You are experienced and bring perspective, but know that the world is rapidly changing and that to succeed we must all do things we've never done before

• You naturally ask 'can we get 80% of the value with 20% of the effort?' but know when to invest heavily for strategic advantage

• You don’t just meet expectations, you consistently raise the bar, inspiring those around you to do the same

• You balance craftsman pride with the wisdom to ship fast and iterate

• You see failures not as setbacks, but as learning opportunities that accelerate progress

You won’t be happy at Avy if:

• You're not looking to join a team competing in a highly competitive market. We aspire to be sustainably productive and are intentional in rest and relaxation, but the pace is intense.

• You let your exceptional talent bring you exceptional ego. We’re all smart and talented, and we don’t like jerks.

What we’re looking for:

• Proven experience in software engineering and in testing (7+ years), both for native applications (desktop and/or mobile) and server components

• Prior experience at a startup or small, high-velocity team—ideally where you helped launch a complex product

• Comfort working in complex systems in which requirements and goals might be ill-defined or change rapidly as the company learns

• Multi language proficiency at least one statically typed language

• Experience with machine learning and AI models, either on device or in the cloud, is desired but not required.

We Offer:

• Competitive salary ($156,000-$208,000) with meaningful equity and substantial upside potential

• Competitive benefits (health, vision, dental, 401K, etc) and paid parental leave

Logistics:

• We cannot sponsor visas at this time

• This is a hybrid role in San Francisco (3+ days/week in office). You will be collaborating with others in the office and distributed across the U.S.

• Relocation assistance may be available for the right candidate

• Periodic travel for team meetings and retreats is required

• Developer-worthy equipment and tools are provided to ensure you have all you need to excel.

• Nearly endless opportunities for growth and advancement as the company succeeds and meets its objectives.

To Apply:

Please submit a résumé, links, or anything else that helps us understand your background. We care more about aptitude and results than buzzwords.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply.