Sr. SDET Role at Tala - AI Tools & Fintech Scale in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Career Signals: Senior SDET at a High-Impact Fintech
Tala is a well-funded, mission-driven fintech ($500M+ raised, Forbes Fintech 50 for 9 consecutive years) operating at a meaningful scale — 13M+ customers across emerging markets. This signals a growth-stage company with proven product-market fit, not an early-stage experiment. For an SDET, that means working on real-world, high-stakes systems rather than greenfield toys.
Skills You'll Develop:
- AI-augmented development workflows (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, autonomous agents) — one of the hottest skill sets in 2024–2025
- Microservices test architecture at scale across multiple markets and languages
- BDD frameworks (Spock, Cucumber, JBehave) increasingly demanded in enterprise and fintech
- Cross-functional collaboration across Product, Credit, and Data teams — broadens your scope beyond pure QA
Compensation Note: No salary range is disclosed, which is a mild yellow flag. Senior SDET roles in fintech typically range $100K–$145K USD in the US market; adjust expectations if hired on a regional pay scale.
Green Flags: Remote-first culture, global market exposure, AI-forward tooling requirements, and a clear mission. Watch for: lack of transparent compensation and the absence of explicit PTO/benefits details — ask about these directly. Overall, this is a strong profile-builder for engineers wanting to move toward quality engineering leadership.
About Tala
Tala is AI-native credit infrastructure for the global majority, combining proprietary risk intelligence with an expanding network of capital and distribution partners to power credit access at scale. Backed by more than $500 million in funding, Tala has distributed more than $7 billion in capital to more than 13 million customers across Africa, Latin America, and Asia—building one of the most robust datasets on thin-file borrowers anywhere in the world. Our mission is simple yet bold: to unleash the economic power of the global majority. We are looking for daring, data-driven leaders passionate about building the trust and credit infrastructure for the global majority.
Our pioneering work and proven impact have earned us consistent recognition, including being named to:
- CNBC's Disruptor 50 for five years
- CNBC's World's Top Fintech Companies for two consecutive years
- Forbes' Fintech 50 list for nine consecutive years
Visionary investors, persuaded by the economic power of the global majority, have committed half a billion dollars in equity and debt to Tala's success.
Given the global nature of our team, we operate on a remote-first approach with office hubs in Santa Monica, CA (HQ); Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangalore, India.
Most Talazens join us because they connect with our mission. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Tala, we'd love to hear from you!
The Role
We are looking for a Software Development Engineer in Test (Sr. SDET) who is passionate about using cutting-edge test automation tools and technologies to create robust test frameworks and test suites in order to speed up the product delivery process without compromising quality and performance. This hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves role will ensure quality control across Tala's backend services and mobile applications in multiple markets.
What You'll Do
- Develop test automation suites to expand test coverage to all microservices and integrate them into regression and release processes
- Support the team for all releases and communicate issues to product in a timely manner
- Deliver tools to help test integration with third-party services (Payment Rails, SMS/Email, KYC, Analytics, etc.)
- Integrate automated test execution into the software development process
- Collaborate with Squad Lead and other key stakeholders to strategize rollout
- Support and collaborate with cross-functional teams (Product, Data, Credit, and Business Development) in identifying automation areas to further increase product quality
- Maintain, review, propose, and implement improvements to existing frameworks, tools, and processes
- Continuously learn new tools and help the team optimize the test framework
What You'll Need
- Minimum 4+ years of experience building test tools and frameworks using Groovy, Kotlin, Java, or Scala; Jenkins or similar CI/CD tools; Linux/Mac OSX — for either backend or frontend services
- Hands-on experience developing with AI coding assistants and agents (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI Codex)
- Proven track record of designing, building, and refining custom AI skills, workflows, and autonomous agents
- Experience with BDD testing paradigm and one of the Behavior Driven Testing frameworks such as Spock, JBehave, or Cucumber
- Knowledge of microservices and automation
- Experience working in an Agile development process (Scrum/Kanban)
- Experience with one or more version control systems such as GitHub or GitLab
Additional Information
Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we're proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this SDET role truly remote or does it require working from a specific office?
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