Software Quality Engineering Lead

About UpDoc At UpDoc , we are building the first clinically validated, physician-supervised AI agent that manages chronic diseases. We are an early-stage startup founded by Stanford physicians. We are seeking an experienced Software Quality Engineering Lead to build and lead the software quality engineering function that enables us to deliver safe, reliable, and high-quality healthcare technology. This is a fully remote position. Who You Are You’re an experienced software quality engineering leader who views quality and testing as an engineering discipline, not simply a final step before release. You have worked in regulated medical device, SaMD, or similarly safety-critical software environments and understand how strong engineering practices, risk management, and disciplined software verification fit together. You’re also a hands-on builder. You can establish a quality engineering function from the ground up while continuing to design test strategies, build automation, investigate failures, and support releases. You know how to create practical, scalable approaches to risk-based testing, traceability, defect management, regression testing, and the generation of objective verification evidence. What You'll Do Build and lead UpDoc’s software quality engineering function, including its strategy, standards, infrastructure, tooling, and processes. Own the risk-based test strategy across patient- and provider-facing products, backend services, APIs, integrations, and clinical workflows. Partner with Engineering and Quality/Regulatory to translate design controls, software lifecycle requirements, and risk-management activities into practical verification practices. Establish traceability between software requirements, risks and controls, verification activities, and objective evidence, including test plans, protocols, cases, acceptance criteria, and reports. Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks and suites across the product stack, complemented by appropriate manual and exploratory testing. Work with engineers early in development to improve testability, identify edge cases and failure modes, and define verification methods before defects reach production or formal verification. Investigate complex software failures using code, logs, network requests, databases, and other debugging tools, and turn findings into improved test coverage and preventative measures. Establish standards for defect documentation, investigation, prioritization, resolution, and verification. Define release-readiness criteria and provide evidence-based assessments of verification status, residual issues, and release risk. Integrate automated testing into CI/CD workflows while maintaining the controls and evidence required for regulated software development. Continuously improve test environments, test data, tooling, metrics, and engineering practices as the company grows. Foster a culture in which quality and reliability are shared engineering responsibilities, while helping shape and grow the software quality engineering team. What You'll Need 7+ years of experience in software quality engineering, SDET, test automation, or a similar engineering-focused quality role, including senior or technical leadership experience. Experience establishing, leading, or significantly scaling software quality engineering practices. Experience developing and testing software in a regulated medical device, SaMD, or similarly safety-critical environment. Strong working knowledge of software verification, design controls, risk management, traceability, and objective test evidence. Strong software engineering skills and hands-on experience building automated tests in Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, or another modern programming language. Experience designing and maintaining automated testing frameworks rather than relying primarily on manual testing. Strong experience testing modern web applications, backend services, REST APIs, integrations, and complex end-to-end workflows. Experience with functional, integration, regression, end-to-end, exploratory, and risk-based testing. Experience with browser automation frameworks such as Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, or similar tools. Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines. Ability to read application code and use logs, network requests, databases, and debugging tools to investigate complex failures. Strong judgment around software and product risk, including the ability to distinguish safety- or clinically significant issues from lower-impact defects. Ability to establish practical processes in a fast-moving environment while maintaining appropriate rigor and independence in software verification. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly communicate technical issues, verification status, product risk, and release readiness across Engineering, Product, Clinical, and Quality/Regulatory teams. Comfort operating independently, taking ownership, and remaining hands-on in an early-stage startup. Highly Desired Experience building a software quality engineering or test function from the ground up. Experience with FDA-regulated medical device software or SaMD, including supporting regulatory submissions, audits, or inspections. Familiarity with medical device software lifecycle and risk-management standards such as IEC 62304 and ISO 14971. Experience testing software that supports clinical decision-making, medication management, or other safety-critical clinical workflows. Experience testing AI/LLM-enabled products, including evaluation, regression testing, edge-case analysis, and failure analysis for systems with both deterministic and non-deterministic components. Experience testing mobile applications or progressive web applications. Familiarity with healthcare integrations, EHR systems, or interoperability standards such as FHIR. Experience with performance, reliability, security, or load testing. Experience with modern cloud architectures and highly automated CI/CD environments. Experience mentoring quality engineers or helping build and scale a software quality engineering team.