Senior QA Engineer (hands-on), Digital Bank, Tokyo

Location requirement
You must already be living in Japan with valid work authorization. We are not sponsoring relocation or visa transfers from overseas for this role. Applications from outside Japan will not be considered.

Context
Our client is building a new digital bank in Tokyo. Several Scrum teams deliver in parallel on Java and Kotlin microservices with a React front end. The QA team sets the strategy; a separate team builds the automation framework. There is no fixed start date: the team takes on great hands-on profiles when they come.

The role: a QA engineer who does the work
The team wants hands-on engineers, not managers. You follow the QA strategy set by the QA leads and drive the technical work yourself, every day.

• Review PO requirements and acceptance criteria before development, and challenge what is unclear.
• Design tests with real techniques: boundary values, equivalence partitioning, decision tables, state transitions, risk-based prioritization.
• Read, write and debug code: review pull requests and the developers' tests, find what is wrong and explain why. The language matters less than the ability to debug.
• Build and fix things in the test environment, write and maintain test code (Playwright, Selenium or similar), and test APIs and UI.
• Work closely with developers and POs, in English, with precise and direct communication.

What we're looking for

• Currently based in Japan with valid work authorization (no relocation or visa sponsorship from overseas for this role).
• 5+ years in QA with recent, personal hands-on contribution: tell us what you designed, reviewed or coded yourself last month.
• Solid command of ISTQB / JSTQB test design concepts. Certification is a plus.
• You can read, write and debug code. Java, Kotlin or TypeScript is a plus; debugging matters more than the language.
• You speak and read both English and Japanese: English with the team, Japanese with business owners and in the specs. JLPT N2 or higher is required; both languages are checked orally.
• Strong plus: you use AI tools every day and have built or used AI agents. Fintech, banking or payment experience is also a plus.

How we work
Two days a week on site in Tokyo. Contractor through Abbeal, or a permanent contract with Abbeal if you prefer.

Process
A first technical talk with us, with a short debugging exercise and a test design question, partly in English and partly in Japanese. Then two interviews on the client side, the second partly in Japanese.