About the role

As the first engineer dedicated to quality, you will establish the foundation for how we validate AI driven systems. Quality is already integrated across engineering, and this role advances it by introducing new methodologies and defining the long term quality roadmap. While overall product quality is a shared responsibility, you will elevate the entire engineering organization so that strong quality practices scale with the product. This role provides the opportunity to work on cutting-edge software solutions while driving quality improvements

What you'll do

• Quality Engineering Strategy: Designing and maintaining testing systems for deterministic logic and AI influenced, non deterministic behavior, integrating these validations directly into CI, release pipelines, and review workflows
• Collaboration and Shift Left: Engaging early with engineering to surface risks before implementation, strengthening team wide quality skills, and promoting testability as a core design requirement
• Test Methodology Expansion: Broadening our verification approach beyond unit tests into integration, system, stress, and full workflow testing across the entire stack
• Environment Readiness: Maintaining dependable test environments with strong instrumentation for rapid diagnosis, enhancing observability and logging to shorten the path from failure to root cause
• Data and Tooling: Building tools, fixtures, and supporting libraries that generate stable and repeatable test conditions, enabling reliable validation of complex scenarios without ad hoc data creation

Requirements

• 5+ years experience in software quality engineering, test engineering, or a closely related discipline
• Strong investigative instincts and a deep interest in understanding failures, identifying root causes, and preventing recurrence
• Skill in isolating external dependencies during integration tests by mocking third party services using custom code or established tools
• Hands on experience evaluating systems powered by LLMs, AI processing pipelines, or other probabilistic technologies
• Proficiency with Python and modern test frameworks within container based environments
• Demonstrated success designing automated test suites across multiple layers of a contemporary application stack
• Experience working within fully containerized development and execution workflows
• Being data-driven is part of your DNA
• Early-stage startup mindset. You thrive on ambiguity and move with lightspeed execution

Preferred

• Experience with cloud based monitoring and metrics platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, or CloudWatch
• Background with container orchestration and deployment systems including Kubernetes, GitLab pipelines, or ArgoCD
• Familiarity with modern frontend technologies, particularly React and TypeScript
• Interest or experience in security focused testing and broader cybersecurity practices
• Ability to thrive in a rapidly evolving startup environment
• Comfort using AI assisted coding and development tools

Work Environment/Travel

We are a 100% remote company where you will work from your home with company-provided equipment to set you up for success. Semi-frequent travel to professional office settings and other events locally and nationally; some overnight travel expected.

Compensation

In the spirit of pay transparency, we are excited to share the base salary range below, exclusive of fringe benefits or potential bonuses. If you are hired at Dropzone your final base salary compensation will be determined based on factors such as geographic location, skills, education, and/or experience. In addition, all compensation packages include significant above market new hire equity grants because we believe in rewarding long term value creation. If you are hired at Dropzone your final base salary compensation will be determined based on factors such as geographic location, skills, education, and/or experience. In addition to those factors, we believe in the importance of pay equity and consider internal equity of our current team members as a part of any final offer. Please keep in mind that hiring at the maximum of the range would not be typical to allow for future and continued salary growth. We also offer a generous benefits package, including company paid health insurance, 401K Plan with employer match, Self-Managed PTO, parental leave, and more.

The pay range for this role is:

$150,000-$165,000 USD