Senior SDET - Mobile Automation Engineer

About the Role

We're looking for a Senior SDET / Mobile Automation Engineer to own and scale a mobile-first, automation-first regression strategy for a live-service Unity mobile game on iOS and Android — and to set the standard other QA engineers and games build toward. This role is accountable for making regression predominantly automated, reliable, and CI-gated across both mobile platforms, while operating with a high degree of autonomy: you set your own priorities within the quality charter, make architectural and tooling calls independently, and are the escalation point when others hit framework or automation decisions. You think in frameworks and systems, treat mobile automation as an engineering discipline with architecture and standards of its own — device farms, OS fragmentation, build pipelines — and have already built AI deeply into your own workflow. You proactively surface quality gaps before they become production incidents, mentor other automation engineers, and measure your impact in coverage, velocity, and the quality practices other teams adopt from you.

Build & Own the Mobile Automation Framework

• Architect, build, and maintain a scalable mobile automation framework for a Unity-based game shipping on iOS and Android, using Pytest, AltTester, or equivalent tools — and define the architectural standards other QA engineers and games are expected to adopt.
• Own automation across real devices, emulators, and device farms, accounting for OS version fragmentation, platform-specific rendering/performance behavior, and hardware variance between iOS and Android.
• Own the full test pyramid with unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, with a clear strategy for coverage expansion and regression confidence.
• Establish framework standards: modular design, maintainability, low flakiness, and CI/CD integration.
• Audit and reduce the existing manual test suite. Migrate high-value cases to automation and retire low-ROI coverage, converting legacy manual regression into a maintainable automated system within the first year.
• Define regression layers (PR smoke, nightly regression, release validation) with clear scope, runtime targets, and ownership.
• Define and track automation KPIs: coverage rate, flakiness index, regression cycle time, and defect escape rate.
• Define and manage test data and environment strategies to ensure deterministic, repeatable automation runs across CI and local development.
• Set the direction for AI-assisted workflows across the QA org, building repeatable processes other engineers adopt — not just your own.
• Own CI/CD pipeline integration, including build validation, automated regression triggers, and release gate criteria.

Set AI-Native QA Strategy

• Define and evangelize the QA org's AI tooling strategy — evaluating, piloting, and setting standards for AI use across test generation, coverage analysis, and defect triage.
• Build and maintain AI workflows — prompt libraries, automation generation templates, and defect triage assistants — designed for other engineers to adopt.
• Apply AI across the QA lifecycle, including test generation, coverage gap analysis, and root cause hypothesis generation.
• Evaluate and adopt AI tooling with measurable, org-wide impact on speed, coverage, and reliability.

Drive Release Quality & Cross-Team Influence

• Define and execute test strategies aligned to daily, weekly, or monthly release cadences in a live-service environment.
• Coordinate testing across concurrent feature launches and regression cycles.
• Own defect triage, enforce documentation standards, and drive issues to verified resolution.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Production upstream to influence feature design and architecture decisions before they ship.
• Develop deep expertise in the game's systems, architecture, and edge cases, anticipating failure points before release.
• Account for mobile-specific release constraints — App Store and Google Play review timelines, staged rollouts, and OS/device compatibility — when defining test strategy and release gates.
• Act as a go-to advisor on quality strategy for engineering leadership, weighing in on tooling, process, and risk tradeoffs.

Lead & Uplevel the QA Practice

• Mentor other SDETs and QA engineers through code review, framework design feedback, and hands-on coaching.
• Set your own roadmap and priorities within the quality charter, operating with minimal oversight and making independent tradeoff calls on architecture, tooling, and coverage investment.
• Serve as the escalation point for automation framework and AI tooling decisions across the team.
• Represent quality engineering in cross-functional planning, shaping how new features are architected for testability.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years in SDET / QA Automation, with proven ownership of automation strategy, CI-gated regression systems, and experience setting technical direction for other engineers.
• Hands-on experience designing and building automation frameworks for mobile applications, ideally across multiple products or teams.
• Hands-on experience automating on iOS and Android, including device/emulator management, platform-specific debugging, and running tests against real devices or device farms.
• Familiarity with ADB and Xcode command-line tools for device control and log capture during automated runs.
• Experience triggering automated tests against .ipa and .apk builds within a CI pipeline without manual device intervention.
• Proficiency with Pytest, AltTester, or comparable automation tooling.
• Strong programming skills in Python (or similar), with experience building maintainable, production-quality test frameworks using modern design patterns.
• Demonstrated ownership of AI tooling strategy for a QA org — not just individual use of tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot — with the ability to evaluate, pilot, and drive adoption.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GameCI, Unity Cloud Build, or equivalent) and build validation workflows.
• Strong debugging and root cause analysis skills across a mobile stack.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or leading other QA/automation engineers, formally or informally.
• Excellent communication skills, with proven ability to advocate for and influence quality practices at the leadership level.

Nice to Have

• Experience building or evolving AI-augmented QA workflows across multiple teams or products, not just individual tool usage.
• Hands-on experience designing and building automation frameworks for Unity-based apps.
• Familiarity with mobile testing infrastructure, including device farms, emulators, and iOS/Android platform nuances.
• Exposure to LLM APIs and prompt engineering for QA use cases.
• Experience with JIRA, Confluence, and TestRail.
• Background in live-service or frequently updated game environments.
• Experience leading external QA vendors.

Ensure your Fanatics job offer is legitimate and don’t fall victim to fraud.  Fanatics never seeks payment from job applicants. Feel free to ask your recruiter for a phone call or other type of communication for interview, and ensure your communication is coming from a Fanatics email address (including @collectfanatics.com).  For added security, where possible, apply through our company website at www.fanaticsinc.com/careers

NYC Salary Range 155000 - 193750 USD