Senior Director, Software Development, Test Automation
Senior director who architects and leads LILA Sciences' test automation platform and quality engineering practice for its AI-powered lab automation products — building a small team, owning CI/CD test infrastructure, LLM-driven test tooling and evals, and a lab QC framework. Core stack: Python/TypeScript, GitHub Actions, Nx/Bazel monorepos, LLM evals.
Compensation
$300K–$390K / yr
Location
San Francisco, CA USA
Work setup
Not specified
Seniority
Senior
Employment
Contract
Experience
3+ years
Category
Qa
Posted
Skills
ai
automation
bazel
ci-cd
data-pipelines
event-driven-architecture
github
github-actions
lims
llm
mcp
microservices
observability
python
saas
sdlc
sre
test-automation
typescript
Must have
10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years leading test automation, quality engineering, or platform/SRE-adjacent functions
3+ years managing engineers, including building or scaling a team
Deep CI/CD expertise: GitHub Actions or equivalent at scale, monorepo build/test orchestration (Nx, Turborepo, or Bazel), parallelization, caching, hermetic environments, ephemeral preview envs, flake
Demonstrated build-vs-buy judgment on test infra, eval platforms, browser/device clouds, and observability, with TCO and signal trade-off reasoning
Hands-on AI-driven test automation experience: using LLMs to generate, maintain, or triage tests in production with rigorous eval validation; fluency with eval frameworks
Track record of standing up a test automation platform that engineering teams adopted
Working knowledge of Google's SRE practices and a point of view on applying them to pre-production quality
Metrics-driven leader who drives outcomes through platform leverage and influence, not gatekeeping
Customer- and UX-first instincts treating test automation as a vehicle for user experience
Nice to have
Experience in GxP-regulated environments or scientific data integrity programs
Experience with lab automation, LIMS, or other instrument-driven systems
Multi-tenant SaaS quality at scale
Exposure to event-driven systems, agent orchestration frameworks, or MCP
Performance/load testing or chaos engineering background
Full description
Your Impact at LILAThe Role
We're hiring a Senior Director, Software Development, Test Automation Systems to architect and build Lila's test automation platform and quality engineering practice for our AI-powered scientific and lab automation products. Reporting to the VP of Engineering, you'll own the test automation system, CI/CD test infrastructure, AI-driven test tooling, and the eval discipline that hold the bar across our SDLC.
This is a builder-leader role. You will drive the quality vision, write requirements, make sharp build-vs-buy calls, drive execution, and build and lead a small (3–5 person) team that delivers leverage. The operating model is federated: you own the platform, standards, and metrics; engineering teams own test execution. You scale through tooling and influence.
As you scale into this role, you'll also stand up the QC framework for our lab automation system — the validation patterns, harnesses, and contracts that science operations teams will operate day-to-day. Data integrity and ALCOA+ compliance are foundational to everything you build.
What You'll Be BuildingWhat You'll DoArchitect and ship the test automation platform
Design and build the test automation platform — frameworks, fixtures, golden datasets, test orchestration, and reporting — that the engineering org adopts by default
Set standards across unit, integration, contract, end-to-end, regression, performance, and chaos testing for backend services, the frontend monorepo, and data pipelines
Treat platform adoption, flake rate, and time-to-signal as first-class engineering metrics
Make build-vs-buy decisions with conviction
Own the buy/build/borrow strategy across test infrastructure, eval platforms, browser/device clouds, observability, and lab QC tooling
Justify every choice with TCO, signal quality, integration cost, and time-to-leverage — and revisit decisions as the org and tech landscape evolve
Bias toward leverage: buy commodity capabilities, build the differentiators (Lila-specific AI evals, lab QC, scientific data integrity)
Modernize CI/CD for fast, reliable signal
Own the test execution layer of CI/CD: parallelization, caching, hermetic environments, ephemeral preview envs, and affected-only test selection across our Nx monorepo/microservices.
Build retry, quarantine, and impact-analysis systems so signal stays sharp as the org scales
Drive change-failure rate, MTTR, Test effectiveness, pipeline efficiency, coverage, and PR-to-prod lead time as outcomes
Drive AI-driven test automation
Apply LLMs across the full test lifecycle: test generation from specs and PRs, self-healing UI tests, synthesis, visual regression with vision models, and AI-assisted failure triage
Senior Director, Software Development, Test Automation at LILA Sciences (San Francisco, CA USA) — aijobsearch
Validate every AI-generated test through evals — no LLM-authored test ships without proof it doesn't degrade signal
Establish the eval discipline for Lila's AI/agent stack: golden datasets, rubrics, regression suites, offline + online evaluation pipelines
Define and operate the quality metrics system
Define quality SLOs and adoption metrics by team and service: coverage, escape rate, MTTR, change-failure rate, eval pass rate, lab QC violation rate
Build dashboards that make quality visible from PR to executive review
Apply Google SRE practices to prioritize where investment goes
Mid-long term - Stand up the QC framework for lab automation
Design the validation framework, harnesses, and contracts that lab and Science Ops teams will operate
Embed ALCOA+ principles: data integrity, audit trails, lineage from sample → instrument → output
Partner with Research Ops on pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight validation patterns for autonomous lab execution
Lead and coach across the engineering org
Build a 3–5 person team of test automation engineers focused on platform leverage, not on writing tests for other teams
Coach engineering teams on test design, quality investments, and adoption — make it cheaper to test well than to ship blind
Translate UX and customer issues into testable contracts and platform improvements
First 6–12 Month Outcomes
First 90 days: Establish baselines — flake rate, time-to-signal, change-failure rate, coverage, and current build-vs-buy footprint — and publish a quality scorecard with the first set of SLOs. Hire or onboard the initial 1–2 platform engineers.
By 6 months: Ship v1 of the test automation platform adopted by at least one flagship engineering team by default; land CI/CD test-execution improvements (parallelization, affected-only selection, flake quarantine) with measurable time-to-signal reduction. Stand up the eval discipline (golden datasets, rubrics, regression suites) for the AI/agent stack.
By 12 months: Drive default platform adoption across the engineering org; demonstrate AI-driven test automation in production with eval-gated rollout. Deliver the first operating version of the lab automation QC framework with ALCOA+ audit trails, validated end-to-end with Science Ops. Quality is visible from PR to executive review via live dashboards.
What You'll Need to SucceedRequired Qualifications
10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years leading test automation, quality engineering, or platform/SRE-adjacent functions
3+ years managing engineers, including building or scaling a team
Strong software architect/engineer. You write designs your team wants to read and review. Python and/or Typescript hands on expertise is highly desirable.
Deep CI/CD expertise. GitHub Actions or equivalent at scale, monorepo build/test orchestration (Nx, Turborepo, or Bazel), test parallelization and caching, hermetic environments, ephemeral preview envs, flake quarantine, and test impact analysis
Demonstrated build-vs-buy judgment. You've made and defended decisions on test infra, eval platforms, browser/device clouds, and observability — and can articulate the TCO and signal trade-offs that drove them
Hands-on AI-driven test automation experience. Using LLMs to generate, maintain, or triage tests in production, with rigorous eval validation. Fluency with eval frameworks
Track record of standing up a test automation platform that engineering teams adopted — not one bolted on
Working knowledge of Google's SRE practices and a point of view on when they apply to pre-production quality
Metrics-driven leader who drives outcomes through platform leverage and influence, not gatekeeping
Customer- and UX-first instincts: treats test automation as a vehicle for user experience, not a cost center
Bonus Points ForNice to Have
Experience in GxP-regulated environments or scientific data integrity programs
Experience with lab automation, LIMS, or other instrument-driven systems
Multi-tenant SaaS quality at scale
Exposure to event-driven systems, agent orchestration frameworks, or MCP
Performance/load testing or chaos engineering background
Compensation
We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.
U.S. Benefits. Full-time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.
International Benefits. Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.
Expected Base Salary Range
$260,000—$390,000 USD
About LILA
Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.
LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.
Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.
We’re All In
Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.
Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.
A Note to Agencies
Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.