Senior Software Development Engineer Test (SDET) at Forge Global
San Francisco, CA
$175,000–$205,000from the description
Jul 29, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 29, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior QA/SDET role on Forge's platform and reliability engineering team, focused on building test automation frameworks and strategies for a private-market financial trading platform. The engineer will design and execute testing across UI, API, and infrastructure layers, incorporating AI-assisted testing approaches. The role suits an experienced quality engineer with a fintech or trading background who can work across product, security, and engineering teams.
Senior level · 5+ years · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 440 people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software quality assurance analysts and testers). range 90–670
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $137,591 (middle half $99,460–$171,745). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 29, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The degree requirement states 'Bachelor's degree... or 5 years software engineering experience', making the degree substitutable with experience — treated as no hard degree gate.
The experience range is stated as '5-10 years of software testing experience'; the overall years minimum is set to 5 (the minimum of the range).
Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, and K6 are listed together as examples of existing frameworks the candidate should have experience enhancing. They appear in the required qualifications section, so they are marked as required; however, the 'etc.' phrasing suggests the list is illustrative rather than exhaustive — any comparable framework experience would likely satisfy the requirement.
AI/LLM fluency ('Fluency with AI technologies related to testing and validation') is listed under required qualifications; specific techniques such as agentic automation, MCPs, and RAG appear in the responsibilities section as context for how AI is applied.
Fintech, trading, or financial services industry experience is listed as a required qualification but names no specific technology or tool, so it is not captured as a skill per extraction rules.
E2E automation, contract testing, API automation, load and performance testing, and mentoring experience are listed under 'Desired Qualifications' and are marked as preferred.
The salary range ($175,000–$205,000) is explicitly scoped to San Francisco, CA area residents; final offers may vary by geography and other factors.
The alt SOC (15-1252 Software Developers) is noted because the role involves building test frameworks and tooling from scratch, which overlaps substantially with software development work.
Read the full posting
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