Software Development Engineer in Test at Plaud (San Francisco, CA)
Plaud· San Francisco, CA·
Role details
Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) · Access To AI Tools · Top-Spec Laptops · High-Performance Workstation Setups · Annual Company Offsites · Team Events
Plaud at a glance
AI note-taking hardware and app that records, transcribes, and summarizes your conversations.
Plaud makes wearable and pocket AI recorders (the Note, Note Pro, NotePin, and NotePin S) paired with an app that transcribes conversations in 100-plus languages, writes summaries and action items, and lets you search across them. It sells the hardware once and charges an ongoing subscription for the AI features.
~$6M (Kickstarter + Carbide Ventures) raised · latest: Bootstrapped; ~$5M from Carbide Ventures (2025) · backed by Carbide Ventures
Summary
The Quality Assurance Engineer will drive cross-functional programs from scoping to launch, managing timelines and dependencies. This role involves translating between engineering and business stakeholders, owning technical roadmaps, and ensuring alignment across engineering, product, and design teams.
Job description
About Plaud Inc.
Plaud is building the real-world AI interface for professionals to amplify intelligence, elevate productivity and performance, loved by over 2,500,000 users worldwide since 2023. With a mission to amplify human intelligence, Plaud captures, structures, and compounds the intelligence generated in conversations — so humans can think better, decide faster, and execute with clarity.
Plaud Inc. is a Delaware-incorporated, San Francisco-based company pushing the boundary of human–AI intelligence through a hardware–software combination. With full ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2, GDPR, EN18031, and HIPAA compliances, Plaud is committed to the highest standards of data security and privacy protection.
To learn more about Plaud, please visit plaud.ai and follow along on Instagram instagram.com/, X twitter.com/PLAUDAI, Facebook facebook.com/plaudai, Linkedin linkedin.com/plaudai and YouTube youtube.com/@PLAUDAI
Why You Should Join Us
Plaud is building the next generation intelligence infrastructure and interfaces to capture, extract, and utilize intelligence from what people say, hear, see, and think.
- Plaud is a bootstrapped, skyrocketing, profitable company with a $300M revenue run rate achieved in just three years.
- Define the next-gen paradigm for human-AI interaction.
- Gain exposure to cutting-edge AI for Pro tools and play a direct role in our global expansion.
- Work with passionate teammates who value innovation, collaboration, and customer success.
- Grow your career in a culture that champions continuous learning and fast career development.
- Market-competitive compensation, global exposure, and a vibrant, creativity-fueled work atmosphere.
About the Role
- We're looking for a Software Engineer in Test (SDET) to build our quality engineering function from the ground up. You'll own test automation across our consumer and enterprise platforms, embed quality into every stage of the development process, and help build a culture where engineers ship with confidence. This is an engineering role first. We expect you to build, not just test.
- Build the Test Automation Platform Build an end-to-end automation framework covering Plaud's D2C consumer platform (plaud.ai plaud.ai, web.plaud.com web.plaud.com) and B2B Teams product. Integrate tests into CI/CD for continuous feedback. You'll also pioneer the use of AI-agentic tools — LLM-driven test generation, agent-based exploratory testing — to scale coverage in ways traditional approaches can't.
- Shift Testing Left Embed into the SDLC from day one — review requirements, define acceptance criteria, and flag testability gaps before code is written. Partner with PMs and engineers so quality is a design input, not an afterthought.
- Evangelize a Quality-First Engineering Culture Be the voice of quality in planning, sprint reviews, and design discussions. Coach engineers on writing testable code and owning quality in their own work. Make quality visible across the team.
- Define and Track Quality Metrics Own key KPIs: test coverage, defect escape rate, regression pass rate. Report quality health to engineering leadership and build dashboards that give the team real-time release readiness visibility.
- Own the Release Quality Bar Be the go/no-go voice on release readiness. Lead release sign-off for major launches across consumer and enterprise products.
- Manual Testing (Short-Term) For the first 3–6 months while the automation framework is being built, cover critical user flows manually and write clear, reproducible bug reports.
Skills, qualifications and experience we look for
Required:
- 6+ yrs in software testing with a strong automation focus
- Proficiency in Playwright for web e2e testing
- test code in Python or Typescript
- API testing experience
- CI/CD integration
- Expeirence working in an agile product/engineering team
- Curiosity about or early experience with AI/LLM tools applied to testing
- Ramps up fast - curious, self-directred, product-obssessed
Preferred:
Subscription billing, D2C platform, or enterprise SaaS experience
What we offer
- Meaningful Ownership An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) that gives a real stake in Plaud’s long-term success.
- High-Impact Environment Work in a fast-moving, product-driven environment where your ideas directly shape the future of AI productivity.
- Cutting-Edge AI Tools for Productivity Access to best-in-class AI tools, including Cursor, GPT models, Gemini, Claude, and other frontier AI systems to maximize engineering and execution efficiency.
- Best-in-Class Equipment Choice of top-spec laptops, high-performance workstation setups, and cutting-edge Plaud devices for all new hires.
- Team & Culture Annual company offsites, team events, and a culture that values craftsmanship, ownership, and velocity.
Why work at Plaud
- Mission-Driven: The company's philosophy ("Amplify Human Intelligence") is central to its culture, and employees are likely working on a product that directly impacts how millions of professionals work.
- Growth Stage: Rapidly scaling from 2M to a target of 50M users, offering significant career growth opportunities.
- Global & Remote-Friendly: Offices in San Francisco, Singapore, Tokyo, Shenzhen, Seattle, and Beijing – suggests a distributed, cross-cultural work environment.
- Cutting-Edge Tech: Working on the frontier of AI (LLMs, speech recognition, hardware-software integration) with a "Pursue SOTA" (State of the Art) value.
- Values-Driven Culture: Listed values include "Human First," "Act from first principles," "Dare to change," "Use AI to its fullest," and "Let others thrive."
- Perks: One-year warranty on hardware, lifetime customer support, and a focus on data security (ISO/SOC/HIPAA compliance) indicates a mature engineering and operations culture.