Lead Software Engineer in Test (SDET)

Nex is on a mission to help families rediscover the joy of movement. Created by parents for parents, Nex combines technology and play to deliver fun, social, and interactive experiences powered by natural body motion, encouraging kids and adults to move more, play more, and have fun together. Nex Playground, the company’s award-winning active play system, is purpose-built to get families moving year-round, with safety and privacy as core considerations in its intentional design. It is certified kidSAFE+ COPPA compliant and built to support healthy, active play for all ages and abilities.

Nex Playground features a growing library of 50+ experiences, including motion and dance games, fitness and educational experiences, and Nex Originals. Content includes collaborations with partners like Hasbro, Sesame Workshop, and NBCUniversal. Nex has been recognized by Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, TIME’s Best Inventions, and Parents’ Best Entertainment System for Families, and has earned Red Dot, IDEA, and Core77 international design awards. We encourage you to explore Have Fun  and Is Motion Gaming Back?, as they offer a deeper look into our culture, values, and explain how our approach to motion gaming differs from previous generations.

Nex employees may be expected to collaborate with colleagues across different time zones. Depending on the role and location, occasional travel may also be required for company events, external meetings, and other business-related activities.

Important Notice:   To protect yourself from recruitment scams, please note that Nex communicates through official company emails ending in @nex.inc. If you receive a suspicious email or message, please do not respond and report it immediately to us.

Location: Hong Kong

The Role

As a Lead Software Engineer in Test (SDET) at Nex, you will build the test engineering capability within Platform Software Engineering that helps us ship reliable Nex Playground experiences.

You will define and implement an automated test strategy spanning device software, cloud services, and hardware-integrated systems. From functional and regression testing to sustained device stress and cloud-scale load, you will design and build the tools, practices, and feedback loops that help engineers find problems early and release with confidence. You will lead through technical judgment, hands-on execution, and collaboration, and drive practical AI adoption in your work.

Success Looks Like

• Teams can rely on fast, maintainable automated tests to detect meaningful regressions throughout development and release.
• Device software, hardware-integrated systems, and cloud services are tested under realistic conditions, including sustained stress and load at scale.
• Engineers can see test coverage, reliability trends, and release risks clearly, and use that information to improve products and test effectiveness.
• Test tools and methods continuously improve, and platform engineers can design and build more testable systems.

What You'll Do

Test strategy and technical leadership

• Own and evolve the automated test strategy for Platform Software Engineering. Prioritize coverage based on product risk and drive a high level of meaningful automated test coverage.
• Define test approaches, quality criteria, and release feedback with platform engineers working on device software and cloud services.
• Review and improve vendors’ test strategies and coverage, identify gaps, and work with vendors to address them.
• Research, evaluate, and develop new testing techniques and tools that improve coverage, speed, and confidence.
• Drive responsible, practical AI adoption in test design, automation, analysis, and engineering workflows, while maintaining human judgment and verification.

Automation and test infrastructure

• Develop and operationalize functional, stress, and regression testing for software and hardware products, using both software-based and hardware-integrated techniques.
• Develop and operationalize cloud service load testing using synthetic workloads and data at scale; identify bottlenecks, failure modes, and regressions.
• Design, build, and evolve reusable test frameworks, harnesses, fixtures, and infrastructure that support reliable, repeatable testing across system boundaries.
• Keep automated testing integral to CI/CD, with actionable feedback that engineers can use throughout development and release.
• Improve product testability through better instrumentation, API design, separation of concerns, and effective use of mock objects and test data.
• Define and track metrics, reports, and dashboards that show test coverage, effectiveness, reliability, and trends over time.

Engineering collaboration

• Partner with platform engineers to embed quality and testability into design and delivery rather than treating testing as a final gate.
• Work with platform engineers to investigate failures, identify root causes, and turn findings into product and test improvements.
• Raise the engineering bar through design reviews, technical guidance, mentoring, and sharing test practices, tools, and findings with platform engineers.

Must Have

• Experience setting technical direction for test engineering across teams and independently delivering work from strategy through implementation and iteration.
• Strong hands-on software engineering skills, with experience designing, building, and maintaining automated test frameworks and infrastructure used by engineering teams.
• Experience defining and delivering test strategies for complex software systems, including functional, regression, and stress or reliability testing.
• Experience testing cloud services under load, including generating representative workloads and data and investigating performance or scalability bottlenecks.
• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD and improving the reliability, speed, and usefulness of test feedback.
• Strong understanding of software design for testability, including instrumentation, APIs, isolation, mocks, and test data.
• Experience applying AI tools to engineering and testing workflows, with a thoughtful approach to validation and data security.

Nice to Have

• Experience testing connected consumer devices or systems that combine device software, firmware, hardware, and cloud services.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing, automated test fixtures, or validation of cameras, sensors, or other hardware modules.
• Familiarity with Android/AOSP, embedded systems, or device-level debugging.
• Experience with soak, endurance, fault-injection, or other reliability testing techniques.
• Experience building products for children and families.

We Offer

• Competitive compensation package.
• Flexible working hours and vacation policy.
• Product-driven culture that treasures talents and individual growth.
• Front-row seat and hands-on experience with cutting edge technologies in the evolving gaming field

Nex is located in San Jose, California, USA  and Hong Kong. Learn more about us at https://www.nexplayground.com/about. 

We encourage applications even if you don’t meet more than 50% of the requirements - we believe that experience comes in many forms!

Nex is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. This policy applies to all individuals at every stage of the employment relationship, including all current and prospective employees, and covers all employment decisions including recruitment, hiring, job assignment, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, discipline and termination.

We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment and to fostering an inclusive environment for all employees.