Perhaps it's only common within silicon valley circles, that being said, the fact that the author didn't define the acronym didn't help either.
Edit: It's probably been around longer that SDET!
That the title wouldn’t be well known in Europe, or fully known in the US isn’t surprising to me. I’d probably expect someone who works in the start up world to know it, and would expect anyone working at the FANG compensation level to know it, but I don’t think it’s super common among the vast middle of companies.
(And for reference, I had know idea what SDET meant until I looked it up right now, although I certainly have worked with Software Development Engineers in Test. Probably an even more obscure term?)
I guess that's fair.
> (And for reference, I had know idea what SDET meant until I looked it up right now, although I certainly have worked with Software Development Engineers in Test. Probably an even more obscure term?)
I'm not sure - I work as an SDET and have found work as an SDET in Oxford and London England, remote in other European countries, and am now interviewing for several companies in the Bay Area. It seems pretty universal to me! But again, maybe that's just down to the bubble one is in. FWIW, it just means a software developer who focuses on testing as opposed to frontend or backend, so managing test infrastructure, reporting, writing frameworks for devs to use for testing, etc etc...
I'm surprised you've never come across the term SRE/Production Engineer before (Assuming you meant to say "have only __just__ heard about what an SRE is"). I live in New Zealand and I'm pretty sure I knew what an SRE was before I even joined a big tech company (Not a SV one btw).