- Work Type: Full-time Independent Contract, 40 hours per week; exclusive to our client
- Salary Range: Php 145,000 - Php 175,000 net per month (take-home pay)
- Fully Remote (Philippines)
- Aligned with U.S. Eastern Time working hours (Fixed night shift)
About Us
Halo Recruiting is a white-glove recruiting firm helping U.S. companies access elite global talent for 80% less than domestic equivalents. We recruit, screen, and rigorously vet top-tier remote workers based in the Philippines to work as full-time embedded team members within your business. Our candidates are 100% English-fluent, university-educated, and have years of corporate experience from top-tier brands like Google, KPMG, PwC, Canva, Mercedes-Benz, Exxon, Amazon and Deloitte, to name a few.
Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
Remote | Philippines | Full-Time Independent Contractor
Build quality into the product - not just test it.
We're partnering with a growing U.S.-based SaaS company looking for an experienced Software
Development Engineer in Test (SDET) to help scale and strengthen its engineering organization.
This is not a traditional QA Automation role. We're looking for someone who enjoys reading
production code, solving complex technical problems, improving automated testing, and partnering closely with software engineers to build reliable, high-quality applications.
If you're the type of engineer who naturally investigates the root cause of issues, enjoys improving developer workflows, and believes quality starts with engineering, we'd love to hear from you.
What You'll Do
Own and Expand the Automation Framework (80–90%)
- Build upon an existing end-to-end automation framework written using Pest within a Laravel ecosystem.
- Increase automation coverage across new features and regression scenarios.
- Improve test reliability, maintainability, and overall release confidence.
- Design thoughtful automated tests rather than simply scripting repetitive scenarios.
- Help shape testing standards and automation best practices across the engineering team.
Lead Technical Bug Investigation (10–20%)
- Participate in technical bug triage and investigate production issues.
- Review application logs, traces, session replays, and observability data to determine root causes.
- Differentiate between application defects, feature requests, and environmental issues.
- Collaborate with software engineers to prioritize and resolve bugs efficiently.
Support Internal Teams
- Assist internal users with platform-related technical questions.
- Troubleshoot high-priority issues affecting internal operations.
- Contribute small feature improvements and bug fixes when appropriate.
- Serve as a technical bridge between support and engineering.What We're Looking For
We're looking for someone who thinks like a software engineer first and a QA professional second.
You should be comfortable:
- Reading and navigating large production codebases
- Understanding application architecture and data flow
- Writing maintainable automated tests
- Investigating production issues using logs and debugging tools
- Working closely with developers throughout the software development lifecycle
- Making thoughtful decisions about what should—and shouldn't—be automated
Technical Environment
You'll work with a modern engineering stack that includes:
- Laravel / PHP
- Pest testing framework
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Git & GitHub
- GitHub Actions (CI/CD)
- Docker-based local development
- Modern JavaScript frontend applications
- Browser automation and API testing
Experience with every technology isn't required - we're looking for strong engineers who can quickly learn unfamiliar tools.
We're Excited to Meet Someone Who Has
- 5+ years of experience as an SDET, Software Engineer, or QA Automation Engineer with strong programming skills
- Experience building or significantly enhancing automation frameworks
- Strong understanding of software architecture and modern development practices
- Experience debugging production applications
- Experience working with Git and collaborative development workflows
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines
- Excellent written and spoken English communication skills
- The ability to work independently while collaborating with a distributed engineering team
Bonus Points
- Experience with Laravel or PHP
- Experience using Pest, PHPUnit, Playwright, Cypress, or similar automation frameworks
- Experience working within SaaS or web application environments Experience reviewing traces, application logs, browser developer tools, or observabilityplatforms
- Passion for software craftsmanship, automation, and continuous improvement
What Success Looks Like
In this role, you'll help engineering teams ship with greater confidence by:
- Expanding automated test coverage
- Improving release quality
- Identifying issues before they reach production
- Leading technical bug investigations
- Raising the overall quality standards across the engineering organization
Who You'll Thrive Here
You'll likely enjoy this role if you:
- Naturally dig deeper instead of accepting the first answer
- Enjoy understanding how complex systems work
- Ask why before jumping to a solution
- Take ownership from problem identification through resolution
- Communicate technical concepts clearly with both technical and non-technical teammates
- Are genuinely curious about software engineering and continuously improving your craft
Work Arrangement
- Work Type: Full-time Independent Contract, 40 hours per week; exclusive to our client
- Salary Range: Php 145,000 - Php 175,000 net per month (take-home pay)
- Fully Remote (Philippines)
- Aligned with U.S. Eastern Time working hours (Fixed night shift)
- Company-provided equipment or approved secure work setup
- Collaborative engineering culture with regular stand-ups, demos, and Git-based workflows
If you're looking for a role where you'll contribute beyond writing test scripts - and instead help shape product quality alongside experienced engineers - we'd love to hear from you.
