Senior Quality Software Engineer

SENIOR QUALITY SOFTWARE ENGINEER – NODA AI Location: Austin, TX (On-site, with less than 10% travel) Clearance Requirement: U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain a security clearance About NODA NODA is a veteran-owned, venture-backed technology company transforming how unmanned systems collaborate in complex, mission-critical environments. Our distributed orchestration platform enables autonomous coordination of heterogeneous unmanned systems across air, sea, land, and space, with vital applications in the defense, intelligence, and commercial sectors. Quality engineering at NODA is an engineering discipline built into the development process, not a gate at the end of it. This is a foundational hire. You will build QE for Core Engineering from zero, own the metrics and dashboards that drive release decisions, and engage with program and mission stakeholders on quality outcomes. The Role We are seeking a Senior Quality Software Engineer to own the quality function for Core Engineering. You will build the test automation infrastructure, set the coverage standard, make quality measurable and visible, and issue go/no-go recommendations that leadership can act on. You will embed security and compliance validation into the Core Engineering quality function as first-class citizens alongside functional quality, ensuring every release upholds NODA’s five-phase Security & Compliance Maturity Roadmap. This is a build-and-own role with a clear path to leading QE across Core Engineering as the team grows. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES - Own the test automation framework across Rust and Python, covering unit, integration, regression, and scenario-level testing. - Integrate test suites into CI/CD with enforced gates at every stage, including security checks (SAST, dependency scanning, vulnerability). - Enforce NODA's compliance boundary so CUI and export-controlled data never reach clean-zone or vendor-accessible test paths. - Drive build quality metrics: coverage, flake rate, false positive rate, and mean time to detect and triage. - Maintain a component-level quality dashboard feeding into the program-level go/no-go view for engineering and program leadership. - Own go/no-go checklists and issue release recommendations backed by functional, security, and compliance evidence. - Triage failures before routing, giving engineers a diagnosis rather than a symptom. - Keep the test suite healthy: review cadence, deprecation of stale tests, and coverage gap identification. - Translate quality state into language that drives release decisions at leadership level. - Grow the QE function under Core Engineering as headcount scales. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - 7+ years in software QE, with a track record of building test infrastructure, not inheriting it. - Engineering fundamentals to match: test code is production quality, test harnesses are maintained like products. - Python required; Rust or a clear plan to get there. - Hands-on CI/CD integration: you've built the gates, debugged the flakes, and enforced the blocks. - Owned quality dashboards and metrics that drive go/no-go decisions. - Fluent in distributed and concurrent systems and how they fail. - Integrated security testing into CI/CD (SAST, dependency scanning, compliance validation aligned to NIST 800-171 or equivalent). - Designed test infrastructure that respects security boundaries and vendor guardrails while supporting restricted core components. - Background in defence, robotics, aerospace, or autonomous systems. - US Citizenship with ability to obtain a security clearance. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) or software-in-the-loop (SIL) testing experience. - Simulation-based test pipelines. - Edge or resource-constrained testing experience. - Active security clearance. SKILLS & ATTRIBUTES Builds with rigor: Test infrastructure is a product you design and maintain — not accumulate. Makes quality visible: Dashboards and metrics that let engineering and leadership see exactly whe