This is largely a personal preference, and there are pros and cons to both directory structures.
Hopefully we can get the best of both worlds with the following configuration:
PROJECT_DIR/sideboard/tests will contain utilities to facilitate test creation by both sideboard developers and plugin developers
PROJECT_DIR/tests will contain the actual sideboard unit/functional tests
Since I am going to be working on tests anyway, I figured I may as well do this while I'm at it.