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강홍재/ James
About

Once I found defects.
Now I'm moving to build.

I 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.

So I'm carrying that lens into building. ReleaseGate brings release decisions back to data; Frameboard preserves the conversation behind prioritization. The one I'm focused on most right now is DocuStory - an analysis engine that catalogs risk in Korean real-estate documents through rules, not LLMs. Open to the people and teams I can build alongside, while working on what to build, why, and how to validate it.

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 - Builder

    Through QA Learning 101, James Company, and a range of side projects, moved into the seat that decides "what to build."

  • 2026 - Product Builder, looking for the people to build with

    Building ReleaseGate (release-decision SaaS) and Frameboard (open-source prioritization). Open to teams and people I can build alongside.

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. Day1 Company

    QA Engineer

    2025.11 - 2026.04
    6 months

    Live class platform, education content

    • ·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 E2E automation along core user journeys, plus a steady regression-test cadence.
    • ·Quality coverage across mobile, web, and backend to keep releases stable.

  2. Openedges Sqaure

    Web QA Engineer

    2024.07 - 2025.10
    1 year 3 months

    Web-based Canvas2D service

    • ·Owned the project end to end as a solo - OpenProject on-premise for security plus a custom workflow.
    • ·Migrated Selenium to Playwright; E2E automation reached 93% coverage.
    • ·Locust traffic load testing; Lighthouse auto-collected Web Vitals (TTFB · FCP · LCP · CLS).
    • ·Daily automated regression via Allure Dashboard.
    • ·Redesigned OpenProject bug types and workflows - duplicate issues down 11.81%, team efficiency up 30%.
    • ·Built a Python + OpenAI Embedding API tool that flags near-duplicate Jira issues.

  3. Asleep에이슬립

    Head of QA · Quality Management Representative (QMR)

    2022.06 - 2024.02
    1 year 9 months

    Sleep data, digital therapeutics (DTx)

    • ·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.
    • ·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.
    • ·As QMR - ISO 13485:2016 quality system design plus MFDS certification and innovative-medical-device designation.
    • ·Ran the Sleep Routine booth at CES 2023 and handled global partner conversations (Laneige).

  4. Riiid뤼이드

    Senior QA Engineer → Head of QA

    2021.02 - 2022.05
    1 year 4 months

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

    • ·0→1 build of the US-based QA team - hiring loop on Lever / HackerRank, multiple US QA hires.
    • ·Localized the Korean QA practice so it could run jointly with the US R&D org.
    • ·Web/Mobile automation framework on Appium · Cypress · Selenium (TypeScript).
    • ·BrowserStack cross-browser plus CI-stage automation triggers in GitHub Actions for a Fail-safe flow.
    • ·Unified OpsGenie · Sentry · Datadog · Grafana and designed the on-call process.
    • ·After the QA system landed, issue lead time dropped 20% and QA satisfaction stayed above 4.7.
    • ·QA lead during the KRW 200B SoftBank funding round.

  5. Virtusize Korea버츄사이즈

    Technical Sales Engineer

    2019.08 - 2021.01
    1 year 6 months

    B2B SaaS for apparel size recommendation

    • ·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

    2017.07 - 2019.07
    2 years 1 month

    Smart pens and educational devices (firmware included)

    • ·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

    2014.11 - 2017.06
    2 years 8 months

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

    • ·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

    2014.02 - 2014.10
    9 months

    SQA on LG smartphones, domestic and overseas

    • ·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)

    2011.11 - 2012.05
    7 months

    Mobile office (ThinkFree)

    • ·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.

Publications

Published and presented.

Two books published, one talk at QA Korea Conference, plus several lightning talks elsewhere. The ebook is no longer for sale; the print edition remains available.

  • 반드시 알아야 할 품질과 코딩(Korean)

    Book

  • 아직 잘 알려지지 않은 SQA 엔지니어의 세계(Korean)

    Book

  • QA Korea Conference 1st - Speaker

    QA Korea Conference

    Talk
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