Principal Quality Engineer

About this role

<p>Dealpath is modernizing its approach to software quality. We're moving from a centralized manual QA team to a model where delivery teams own quality end-to-end, supported by embedded Quality Engineers. We need a Principal-level technical leader to drive that transformation as a hands-on individual contributor.</p> <p>This is not a people-management role. It's a high-impact senior IC role where your leverage comes from technical depth, judgment, and influence — building shared tooling, setting the bar, and being the person every QE and engineer goes to with hard quality questions.</p> <p>You will build the frameworks, set the standards, coach the embedded QEs, and own the quality infrastructure for our agentic product direction.</p> <p>We’re hiring a Principal Quality Engineer for a full-time role, with a hybrid schedule that includes three days a week in the office in San Francisco.</p> <p><strong>You’re excited about this opportunity because you’ll:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Set the technical direction for quality across Dealpath’s engineering organization — defining the test pyramid strategy, coverage thresholds, release criteria, and tooling choices that shape how every delivery team ships.</li> <li>Build and own Dealpath’s AI evals practice, creating the infrastructure, metrics, and regression frameworks that ensure our agentic product features meet a rigorous quality bar.</li> <li>Champion AI-forward quality engineering by using AI tools consistently in your own work and coaching the QE community to do the same: writing better test code, reviewing AI-generated output critically, and applying AI to accelerate evaluation workflows.</li> <li>Drive the production-quality feedback loop — owning blameless postmortems, RCA practices, and the org-wide quality scorecard that makes escape rates and systemic issues visible to engineering leadership.</li> <li>Coach and grow embedded Quality Engineers across delivery teams, running the QE community of practice and setting the hiring bar for every QE role.</li> <li>Influence without authority — driving practice adoption across multiple teams through technical credibility, shared tooling, and principled frameworks that become the standard.</li> <li>Collaborate closely with VP Engineering and Engineering Managers to evolve Dealpath’s quality culture, infrastructure, and long-term engineering strategy.</li> </ul> <p><strong>We’re excited that you are:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Bringing deep technical expertise with 7+ years in Quality Engineering or SDET roles, with significant hands-on automation experience in modern SaaS environments.</li> <li>A hands-on coder — you write automation frameworks, build shared libraries, and pair with engineers on test design every day.</li> <li>Experienced in driving quality practice across multiple teams without direct authority, with impact that comes from technical credibility and influence.</li> <li>Skilled in building evals for LLM-based or agentic features, with familiarity in at least one eval framework (LangSmith, Braintrust, DeepEval, or equivalent).</li> <li>Strong in modern automation frameworks (Playwright, Cypress, or similar) and at least one programming language used in modern SaaS engineering (TypeScript, Python, Go).</li> <li>Experienced with blameless postmortems and structured RCA practices (5 Whys, Fishbone, CAPA, or equivalent).</li> <li>Comfortable with observability and product analytics platforms (Sentry, Datadog, Pendo, Amplitude) and using them to drive testing strategy.</li> <li>An excellent communicator, able to work cross-functionally with Engineering, Product, Design, and Customer Success.</li> <li>Excited to work in a fast-paced, growth-stage startup environment where your decisions shape the entire engineering culture.</li> <li>Fluent in AI-assisted development. You use tools like Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or similar regularly in your own work, apply a deliberate review process before relying on AI output, and are ready to help engineers and QEs on your team develop the same habits.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Qualifications:</strong></p> <ul> <li>7+ years in Quality Engineering, SDET, or equivalent software engineering roles with a quality focus.</li> <li>BS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent experience.</li> <li>Proven track record driving quality transformation in a startup or growth-stage SaaS environment.</li> <li>Hands-on experience building evals for LLM-based or agentic features.</li> <li>Deep proficiency in at least one modern automation framework (Playwright, Cypress, or similar).</li> <li>Track record of delivering quality programs for enterprise SaaS products, ideally in B2B, FinTech, or PropTech.</li> <li>Strong organizational skills with the ability to balance technical depth and systemic quality improvement.</li> <li>Consistent, hands-on experience with AI coding tools (Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude, or similar). Uses AI regularly, validates output before shipping, and can coach engineers to build the same disciplined habits.</li> </ul> <p><strong>The Perks & Culture:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Medical, dental, & vision insurance coverage</li> <li>Hybrid 3-days in office policy in San Francisco</li> <li>Flexible Spending Account</li> <li>Paid Parental Leave</li> <li>401(k)</li> <li>Company-sponsored commuter benefits</li> <li>Flexible time off policy</li> <li>Catered lunches…