Technical QA Engineer (Blockchain)

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  OVERVIEW

  This is a great opportunity to work as a Technical QA Engineer on a modern, cloud, blockchain-based platform delivering solutions for a global leader in internet services with more than 1.2 billion members around the world. 

  The Rakuten Blockchain Lab team in Belfast builds secure, high availability enterprise platforms that allow the many Rakuten Business/Developers to create solutions that take advantage of the benefits of distributed ledger or blockchain technologies without having to be concerned about the complexities of implementation.  Our platforms follow a microservice architecture where services are developed in Node.js and deployed as docker containers into a cloud-based Kubernetes environment.  There are integrations with relational databases, 3^rd party APIs as well as specialised cryptographic services, and of course blockchain networks.
  
  The overall test approach requires a balanced strategy of unit, integration, and end-to-end tests in addition to the non-functional testing such as performance, failure/failover, and security that you would expect for this type of platform.  The team is currently working on a number of very exciting Rakuten HQ projects to be delivered in 2021/2022 and is urgently looking for a Technical QA Engineer to work side by side with the platform engineers to design and execute an effective test strategy.
  
  If you are an Engineer with a passion for QA and would like to be work on the delivery of these complex solutions, then we would love to talk to you.
  
  If you want to read about some of the exciting blockchain-related Rakuten initiatives, check out these articles

  https://www.coindesk.com/e-commerce-giant-rakuten-launching-cryptocurrency

  https://retailtechinnovationhub.com/home/2021/4/15/rakuten-europe-and-chiliz-launch-fan-token-partnership

  https://syncni.com/view/5181/rakuten-building-trust-with-blockchain-and-io-t-in-a-post-covid-19-world

  ABOUT THE TEAM & ROLE

  This position is located at the Rakuten Blockchain Lab in Belfast city centre. We currently have an engineering team of 20 who are working on a number of very exciting Rakuten HQ projects to be delivered in 2021/2022.  The existing team collectively has many years of experience in building secure, high availability enterprise platforms for financial services, health, and consumer electronics sectors.  As a result of the increased demand for blockchain-based solutions from Rakuten companies, we need to expand our QA function.  We are looking for a Technical QA Engineer to work side by side with the platform engineers to execute our test strategy.  The successful candidate will work as an integral part of our multi-disciplinary team focused on delivering high-quality enterprise-class blockchain-based solutions and platforms.

  This is an exciting opportunity for a QA Engineer and has strong technical skills, who is looking for a challenging role with a broader remit and greater responsibilities.  You will get a chance to work on the emerging blockchain frameworks and learn from the experienced blockchain engineers in the team.

  TECHNICAL STACK

  We take ownership of the full end-to-end solution from inception through to production and beyond. We follow a micro-services architecture and our services are built with Node.js and Typescript. We use various relational databases and our test framework uses a combination of Mocha and Chai.  We work with multiple public and private blockchain protocols & frameworks depending on the requirements. We package our services with Docker and use Google Kubernetes for automating deployment, scaling, and management of these containers in both public and private cloud environments. We value short feedback loops and have implemented a CI/CD pipeline as well as an automated suite of unit, integration, and acceptance tests.

  ABOUT YOU

  We need a Technical QA Engineer who has can design and execute functional and non-functional test plans.  You should be able to automate where it makes sense, but understand that manual and exploratory testing are equally as important.  You need to be able to work in a collaborative manner with colleagues across multiple office locations in different time zones.  Your key responsibilities include but are not limited to:

  • Work with the team to locate, identify and reproduce bugs.
  • Work with the rest of the team to promote high-quality software releases.
  • Develop and execute automated and exploratory testing of our applications.
  • Maintain and build test suites, test scenarios, and metrics.
  • Perform service, contract, regression, and exploratory testing.
  • Work collaboratively with engineers to plan and execute appropriate performance and throughput testing.
  • Incorporate test automation mechanisms into continuous-integration pipelines

  EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR THE ROLE

  Essential

  • Must be eligible to work in the UK (Visa sponsorship is not available)
  • 2+ years working as a Technical QA Engineer or Engineer
  • Experience with testing APIs (RESTful)
  • Experience in test automation using a variety of tools. (Node/Mocha)
  • Experience in one or more scripting languages
  • Experience with CI/CD processes and servers (e.g. Jenkins)
  • Knowledge of bug tracking & collaboration tools
  • Hands-on experience in managing multiple test environments

  Preferred

  • Experience with performance and load testing.
  • Experience with Operation Acceptance Testing / Chaos Engineering.
  • Working knowledge of version control systems (e.g. Git)
  • Prior experience of working with high availability services.
  • You don’t need to have direct experience of working with blockchains, but you will need to be able to demonstrate an interest in new and emerging technologies and be eager to take on new challenges.