Software Developer in Test (Talent Pool) - Percona

Talent Pooling Opportunity

We are currently building a talent pool for this role and welcoming applications from candidates who may be interested in joining us in early Q4. Please note that this is a forward-planning recruitment process, so there may be a delay in responding to applications. We appreciate your patience and will be in touch with suitable candidates as the process progresses.

---

If you want to work in a highly innovative, fully remote environment using the latest technologies, including AI, alongside experts in the open-source database field, we have the perfect opportunity for you!

We are looking for a skilled Software Developer in Test (SDET) to take ownership of the testing infrastructure behind Percona's Kubernetes Operators for PostgreSQL, MySQL (PS & PXC), and MongoDB (PSMDB). These operators run mission-critical open-source databases on Kubernetes for users around the world, and they are validated by one of the largest end-to-end test suites we operate, built up over years across Jenkins, kubectl-kuttl, pytests, and our own Bash-based test framework.

That scale is also our biggest bottleneck: a full e2e run currently takes over four hours per operator to return results on a pull request. As our teams adopt AI and ship faster, that feedback loop has become the primary constraint on how quickly we can grow. Your core mission is to change that by modernizing, automating, and accelerating our test infrastructure, and to make AI a first-class part of how we generate, run, triage, and maintain tests.

What You Will Do

• Make AI a core part of our testing workflow: Research, prototype, and productionize AI-assisted test generation, flaky-test detection, failure triage, and log analysis, and roll them out as everyday tooling for engineers and QA.
• Attack the e2e bottleneck head-on: Profile and re-architect our test pipelines to dramatically cut PR feedback time through parallelization, smart test selection and sharding, better resource utilization, and reduced flakiness.
• Develop and maintain automation frameworks: Evolve frameworks and Jenkins pipelines across our operators, modernizing them where appropriate.
• Own and improve CI/CD for testing: Build reliable, observable, and fast continuous-integration pipelines that give a clear signal on every pull request.
• Define and iterate on test strategy: Evolve test strategies as products grow and enforce appropriate quality gates at required stages of the development lifecycle.
• Partner with and multiply the QA team: Build automation, tooling, and self-service infrastructure so QA can adopt, improve, and scale processes without manual bottlenecks.
• Research and recommend new tools: Propose strategies and processes to improve testing, delivery speed, and overall quality.
• Active role in development lifecycle: Work closely with engineering on testability, reliability, and release quality.

Your Experience

• Familiarity with Kubernetes and experience testing applications within containerized environments.
• Familiarity with database systems, architecture, and performance in cloud or Kubernetes contexts.
• Experience designing and implementing automated tests, preferably for databases like Postgres, MySQL, or MongoDB.
• Capability to build and maintain CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins or similar).
• Proficiency in scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash) and familiarity with test automation programming languages.
• Experience and proficiency in Linux.
• Experience with version control systems like Git.
• Experience working in Agile environments, utilizing test-management and defect-tracking tools.
• Experience applying AI/LLM tooling to real engineering problems.

What Will Make You Stand Out

• Hands-on experience integrating AI/LLMs into developer or QA workflows (test generation, triage, agents, etc.).
• Hands-on experience with the Golang programming language and YAML configuration.
• Interest and contributions to the open-source community.
• Passion for the evolving landscape of database technologies.
• Track record of bringing innovative ideas to testing strategies and automation processes.
• Demonstrated commitment to ongoing learning in quality engineering, AI, open source, and databases.

Why Percona?

Percona is a remote-only and globally dispersed workforce with colleagues in more than 50 countries. We offer a collaborative, highly-engaged culture, flexible work hours, paid time off programs, remote office equipment, career development funds, ongoing connectivity allowances, and an equity incentive plan. Enjoy work/life balance initiatives like Work-from-Anywhere, FlowDays, and FryDays.