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강홍재/ James
About

Fourteen years finding defects.
Now I build the product too.

I've spent 14+ years as a QA engineer. The seat I held most often was the pre-release meeting where someone asks, “is this safe to ship?” What I saw from that seat wasn't a list of defects - it was a map of everything that could go wrong wherever the product meets a user.

QA is often framed as the last gate. The real value I saw was somewhere else: which user scenario hurts most when it breaks, which deferred decision quietly accrues cost, where to place information so the decision-maker actually sees it. That sense isn't about finding defects - it's about how to build the product.

What got me building in the first place was QA itself. Developing with the team's own tech stack showed me, far more concretely, where things break and what actually needs QA and testing, and speaking the same stack made working with the developers much smoother. So I built directly, carrying that lens.

Open to QA Lead/Engineer roles and the people and teams I can build alongside.
Treating risk as feature design and validation as a loop that narrows the hypothesis is how I work. The more code AI ships, the more the “is this safe to ship?” release call matters, and the harder it is to automate.

I try not to overclaim. If something hasn't been measured, I label it “not yet measured.” If something failed, I call it “a stopped decision.” The best inheritance from QA, I think, is honest record-keeping.

LinkedIn: @babblingjames

Working principles

How I work.

  1. 01

    Risk is a feature.

    Treat the worst-case scenario a user could meet as an input to feature design. A post-launch incident is a question that didn't get asked before launch.

  2. 02

    Decisions leave a trace.

    GO/HOLD, priorities, scope - every decision should be answerable six months later when someone asks "why did we do that?" Scores need to live alongside the conversation behind them.

  3. 03

    Validation is a loop, not a ritual.

    Testing isn't a one-time event before launch - it's a tool at every step that narrows a hypothesis. The reproducible-experiment instinct from QA carries into product discovery.

  4. 04

    Tools belong inside the workflow.

    Introducing a good tool matters less than connecting the workflow end to end first. The value of automation isn't in the tool - it's in a workflow that looks like there's no tool at all.

Trajectory

The path so far.

  • 2010s - QA Engineer

    Managing release risk across mobile, web, and embedded. Up close with where defects leak, who can stop them, and which decisions cause incidents.

  • 2020s - QA Engineer → QA Lead

    From QA engineer to QA lead. Led quality strategy and release calls across domains and companies, and extended the QA perspective to the wider community through QA Learning 101 and James Company.

  • 2026 - QA in the AI era

    The last few months were about testing "what is QA in the age of AI?" by hand, not in theory. I wired LLMs and embeddings directly into QA - catching duplicate issues, scoring release decisions (ReleaseGate) - and the conclusion was clear: the more code AI ships, the harder to automate, and the more important, the "is this safe to ship?" release call becomes. Setting risk and the release call as an organization's standard is exactly why I'm heading back to QA Lead/Engineer work. Adding the accounting and financial context in an Executive MBA (2026.02-2028.02, expected), and open to the people and teams I can build alongside.

    Related essay (Korean): AI가 코드를 쓰는 시대에, QA는 →

Career

Where I've worked.

14+ years across 9 companies as a QA engineer. Domain and what I worked on, in reverse chronological order. Current build and experiment work is covered separately in the Trajectory and Work sections above.

  1. Day1Company

    QA Engineer

    Live class platform, education content

    2025.11 - 2026.04
    6 months
    • ·Built the QA strategy 0→1 - deciding test scope, where to invest automation, and the release-blocking conditions from requirements risk - and standardized ticket handling, test flow, and release gates so product, design, and dev worked to the same bar.
    • ·0→1 QA team building - defined the role, the collaboration process, and accountability for quality.
    • ·Standardized ticket and issue handling, test flow, and the release-gate design.
    • ·Designed and built an E2E test-automation framework along core user journeys, and operated it as a steady daily regression pipeline.
    • ·Quality coverage across mobile, web, and backend to keep releases stable.

  2. Openedges Sqaure

    Web QA Engineer

    Web-based Canvas2D service

    2024.07 - 2025.10
    1 year 3 months
    • ·As the sole QA owner, designed the end-to-end quality strategy from requirements to release - deciding how far to automate regression, performance, and issue flow, and running each in a daily pipeline.
    • ·Reached 93% E2E coverage - re-architected the automation framework from Selenium to Playwright.
    • ·Duplicate issues down 11.81% - redesigned OpenProject bug types and workflows.
    • ·Owned the project end to end as a solo - OpenProject on-premise for security plus a custom workflow.
    • ·Locust traffic load testing; Lighthouse auto-collected Web Vitals (TTFB · FCP · LCP · CLS).
    • ·Daily automated regression via Allure Dashboard.
    • ·Built a Python + OpenAI Embedding API tool that flags near-duplicate Jira issues.

  3. Asleep에이슬립

    Sleep data, digital therapeutics (DTx)

    2022.06 - 2024.02
    1 year 9 months

    Head of QA

    • ·B2C (app), B2B (hospitals), and B2H (digital therapeutics) carry different risk, so I set a distinct QA strategy per product - test management and monitoring for the general lines, plus ISO 13485 regulatory criteria for the medical-device line.
    • ·Built the QA team and ran quality-education sessions across the company and per team.
    • ·Moved test cases from spreadsheets onto a Qase-based test management system.
    • ·Designed, built, and operated a test-automation framework through the Sleep Routine app's Hybrid→Native migration - automating regression across mobile (Appium, Detox, Espresso, XCUITest) and web (Playwright, Cypress, for B2B Survey).
    • ·Owned QA across B2C Sleep Routine (Hybrid → Native migration), B2B Survey (hospitals), and B2H SomMind (DTx).
    • ·Auto-created Jira issues from GitHub state; set up issue monitoring on Sentry · Datadog · GA.
    • ·Ran the Sleep Routine booth at CES 2023 and handled global partner conversations (Laneige).

    Quality Management Representative (QMR)

    • ·Designed and ran the ISO 13485:2016 medical-device quality management system.
    • ·Handled MFDS certification and innovative-medical-device designation.
    • ·Managed regulatory and quality risk for the digital therapeutic (B2H SomMind).

  4. Riiid뤼이드

    AI education (Santa for TOEIC, AI:R MATH, Riiid for Classroom)

    2021.02 - 2022.05
    1 year 4 months

    Head of QA

    • ·Localized the Korean QA practice to run jointly with the US R&D org - a QA strategy that set common automation, monitoring, and on-call standards across both to align the quality culture.
    • ·Issue lead time down 20% - after the full QA system landed.
    • ·0→1 build of the US-based QA team - hiring loop on Lever / HackerRank, multiple US QA hires.
    • ·QA lead during the KRW 200B SoftBank funding round.

    Senior QA Engineer

    • ·Designed and built a Web/Mobile test-automation framework on Appium · Cypress · Selenium (TypeScript).
    • ·Operated it across BrowserStack cross-browser and GitHub Actions CI as a Fail-safe execution pipeline.
    • ·Unified OpsGenie · Sentry · Datadog · Grafana and designed the on-call process.

  5. Virtusize Korea버츄사이즈

    Technical Sales Engineer

    B2B SaaS for apparel size recommendation

    2019.08 - 2021.01
    1 year 6 months
    • ·Live monitoring of the Virtusize feature inside fashion-client storefronts; issue reports written in real time.
    • ·Product crawler / scraper plus SQL-based integrity checks on size match and fit results.
    • ·Weekly / monthly coverage, usage, and purchase-conversion analytics; client meeting reports.
    • ·Worked on API-integration projects and competitor benchmarking in and outside Korea.
    • ·EN → KO translation and QA across the full Virtusize service copy.

  6. NeoLAB Convergence네오랩컨버전스

    SQA Engineer

    Smart pens and educational devices (firmware included)

    2017.07 - 2019.07
    2 years 1 month
    • ·Smart-pen functional QA and stroke-data transmission protocol testing (firmware-level).
    • ·Pen-tip spec reviews plus on-site production quality oversight at the Chinese factory.
    • ·Final pre-shipment QA on the sound pen and the kids' beam projector.
    • ·SQA on the Neo Notes and Moleskine Notes apps (Android · iOS · Windows UWP).
    • ·Defect-rate, swap-rate, and per-part issue analysis from CS/AS data (Python + Excel).

  7. Lionbridge Korea라이언브릿지코리아

    Localization Engineer / Developer

    Multi-language localization (Samsung, LG, Oracle, NHN, and others)

    2014.11 - 2017.06
    2 years 8 months
    • ·Java-based bulk file processing tools; Excel macros for translation management automation.
    • ·Designed and implemented a small translator wired into Azure API plus the internal glossary.
    • ·Led CAT tool intake testing and internal training.
    • ·Multilingual QA on software, mobile apps, user guides, subtitles, and medical documents.
    • ·CLI-based QA automation checkpoints; investigated snapshot-comparison integration tests.

  8. Infiniq인피닉

    QA Engineer

    SQA on LG smartphones, domestic and overseas

    2014.02 - 2014.10
    9 months
    • ·Functional QA on built-in apps - Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, music / video, calls, GPS, DMB, and more.
    • ·Non-functional testing - power draw, sustained-use response, compatibility, and portability.
    • ·First hands-on QA role; started learning structured testing process from scratch.

  9. HANCOM한글과컴퓨터

    QA Engineer (Intern)

    Mobile office (ThinkFree)

    2011.11 - 2012.05
    7 months
    • ·QA on ThinkFree Mobile 5.5/6.0 Write · Calc · Show and Office Write.
    • ·Functional behavior, rendering, and file-compatibility testing on the Android editor / viewer apps.
    • ·Multilingual environment (KO / EN / JP / CN) UI and rendering tests; document-format layout checks.
    • ·Hands-on with Bugzilla bug reporting; first taste of QA process.

Education

Where I studied.

Transferred from industrial engineering into computer engineering for my bachelor's, now adding finance, accounting, and strategy through an Executive MBA.

  1. Sungkyunkwan University Executive MBA (EMBA)

    2026.02 - 2028.02 (expected)

    Finance, accounting, strategy · studying IFRS 17 and international accounting standards · in progress

  2. Seoul National University of Science and TechnologySeoulTech

    2011.03 - 2014.02

    Computer Engineering · transferred in

  3. Korea National University of Transportationformerly Chungju National University

    2007.03 - 2011.02

    Industrial & Management Engineering

Publications

Published and presented.

Two books published, two talks at QA Korea Conference, plus several lightning talks elsewhere.

  • Paperback · eBook반드시 알아야 할 품질과 코딩(Korean)

    Book

  • eBook아직 잘 알려지지 않은 SQA 엔지니어의 세계(Korean)

    Discontinued (trend shift)

    Book

  • QA Korea Conference 4th - Live Q&A Speaker

    QA Korea Conference

    Talk

  • QA Korea OFF-QA - Lightning Talk Speaker

    QA Korea Conference

    Talk

  • QA Korea Conference 1st - Speaker

    QA Korea Conference

    Talk
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