Senior SDET at Calm - QA Leadership & Mobile Testing in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Compensation & Market Positioning: The $111,400–$181,500 base range is competitive for a senior SDET in the US market. Industry benchmarks for SDETs with 3–7 years of experience typically fall between $120K–$160K at mid-size tech companies; Calm's upper range signals this role can stretch to senior-level. The addition of equity and a comprehensive benefits package adds meaningful total compensation beyond base salary.
Skills You'll Build: This role offers exposure to a highly marketable skillset:
- Mobile test automation (iOS + Android) — increasingly in demand as mobile-first products dominate
- CI/CD pipeline integration — a transferable DevOps-adjacent skill
- AI-assisted testing tooling — a cutting-edge, fast-growing area that will differentiate your resume
- Offshore team management and QA leadership — pathways to engineering management
Culture & Growth Stage Signals: Calm operates as a scaling consumer tech company (~180M downloads, $3,500+ enterprise clients). The small pod structure suggests you'll have real ownership and visibility. The explicit mention of AI tooling and a path to feature development signals an evolving role with upward mobility into full-stack or engineering leadership.
Green Flags: Mission-driven product, clear quality metrics ownership, cross-functional collaboration with product/design, and a path to code contribution. Watch for: Offshore team coordination can add complexity and irregular hours. The geographic pay model means your salary is capped by where you live in the US — something to negotiate carefully at offer stage.
Headquarters: Remote, United States
About Calm
Calm is the leading mental health brand on a mission to make the world happier and healthier. Known for its flagship consumer app—ranked #1 in its category with over 180 million downloads and availability in ten languages across 190 countries—Calm helps people sleep better, stress less, and live more mindfully through content and tools from experts and beloved celebrity voices.
Building on this foundation, Calm has created a broader portfolio including evidence-based solutions like Calm Health, offered through employers, health plans and providers, designed to expand access to mental health and sleep support, boost benefits engagement, and drive positive health outcomes. Today, Calm supports more than 3,500 organizations and reaches over 42 million covered lives through Calm Health. Calm has been recognized as a TIME100 Most Influential Company and one of Fast Company's Brands That Matter. Learn more at calm.com.
What We Do
We build Calm's product, guide Calm's analysis, secure Calm's data, and operate the platforms that underpin it all. We're product-minded, team-oriented, and grounded in the mission of meeting everyone where they're at on their mental health journey. We work in fast-moving, small pods, and as an SDET you'll make sure what we ship is reliable, well-tested, and ready for the millions of people who rely on Calm.
What You'll Do
Millions of people rely on Calm every day, and you'll help make sure every release earns their trust. As an SDET, you'll build the automation and pipeline checks that catch issues early, lead our QA efforts, and partner with engineering, product, and design to ship the Calm app and our internal tools with confidence.
Specifically, you will:
- Set the testing strategy and quality bar for the Calm app and our internal content and admin tools
- Architect and build automated test frameworks and suites (UI, API, mobile, and integration) that run reliably in our CI/CD pipelines
- Review requirements, specs, and pull requests early so issues are caught in-sprint rather than at the end
- Work with all of our consumer product teams on release planning and certification, and monitor release health after launch
- Partner with product and design (roughly 30% of your time) to define acceptance criteria and keep release timelines on track
- Manage and direct our offshore QA team, shifting their work toward automation and higher-value testing over time
- Triage and document defects with clear, actionable detail, and drive them to resolution
- Track and report on quality metrics such as coverage, flakiness, escaped defects, and release stability
- Use AI-assisted tooling to speed up test creation, maintenance, and analysis
- Contribute to feature development in Android, iOS, backend, or web as the role grows
Who You Are
- 3+ years of experience as a software engineer, SDET, or QA automation engineer
- Strong programming skills in Java and JavaScript/TypeScript
- Hands-on experience building test automation frameworks and integrating them into CI/CD pipelines
- Experience testing mobile apps (iOS and/or Android)
- Experience leading QA efforts and owning release readiness, ideally with distributed or offshore teams
- Comfortable using AI-assisted tools in your testing and development workflow
Nice to Haves
- Experience with a consumer subscription or mobile app at scale
- Hands-on development experience in a mobile, backend, or web codebase
Minimum Requirements
- 3+ years of related experience
Calm uses a geographic pay model that determines salaries based on the location where an employee lives. For this position, the base pay ranges across Calm's pay tiers is as follows: $111,400 – $181,500. The base pay range represents the low and high end of Calm's salary range for this position. Not all candidates will be eligible for the upper end of the salary range. Exact salary will ultimately depend on multiple factors, which include the successful candidate's geographic location, skills, experience and other qualifications. Calm uses employee zip code to determine which pay range applies. This role is also eligible for equity + comprehensive benefits + 401k + flexible time off.
Calm may incorporate artificial intelligence technology to support the application review process, but rest assured that human reviewers are involved in all stages of the hiring process.
Calm is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities, including disabled veterans. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application or interview process, please contact Calm's Recruiting team at [email protected]. All accommodation requests will be handled confidentially and assessed on a case-by-case basis.
We believe that mental health is health, and every person should be considered in the discussion. That's why we're proud to be an equal opportunity workplace, committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law.
Calm is deeply committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. We strive to create a mindful and respectful environment where everyone can bring their authentic self to work, and experience a culture that is free of harassment, racism, and discrimination.
Employment offers are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. Roles which require access to certain types of information may also require the successful completion of a drug screening.
FOR US BASED POSITIONS: Calm participates in e-verify. E-verify provides the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.
To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/calm-com-software-development-engineer-in-test
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this SDET role truly remote, and can I work from outside the United States?
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Is there a path to broader engineering contributions beyond testing?
