QA Automation Engineer

Job Description: Rakuten International is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc., a Japanese global technology leader in services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California with more than 4,000 employees worldwide, the Rakuten International business portfolio includes market leaders in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, communications and entertainment. We create products and services that provide exceptional value by aligning members and the businesses that want to engage them in a shared community. Rakuten is the most rewarding way to shop, giving millions of members Cash Back when they buy from their favorite brands. As a leading shopping platform, Rakuten partners with thousands of top brands across apparel, beauty and wellness, grocery, travel, on-demand services, subscriptions, and dining, helping members save on everyday purchases. Since 1999, Rakuten members have earned more than $4.6 billion in Cash Back, making it the largest Cash Back platform of its kind. Learn more at Rakuten.com. Job Summary: We are seeking a proactive Quality Engineer to join our dynamic team in San Mateo. In this role, you will be instrumental in ensuring the quality of our web applications, mobile apps, and backend services. You will move beyond traditional testing to adopt AI-first workflows, translating requirements into actionable test strategies and autonomous automation coverage. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who thrives in fast-evolving environments, excels in containerized infrastructure, and wants to leverage AI Agents to contribute significantly to software excellence. Key Responsibilities: AI-First Quality Ownership: Own end-to-end quality for assigned features by defining test strategy, leveraging AI to generate test coverage, and ensuring continuous validation across the development lifecycle. Partner with cross-functional teams to align on product goals and release readiness. Intelligent Risk Detection: Use AI-assisted analysis to evaluate requirements, system behavior, and production signals to identify edge cases, gaps in coverage, missing telemetry, flaky automation, and environment drift early. AI-Driven Automation: Build, maintain, and optimize UI, API, and end-to-end automated tests using Python, Java, or JavaScript/TypeScript. Actively leverage AI coding assistants and autonomous test agents to improve efficiency, scalability, and coverage. Infrastructure & CI/CD: Deploy and validate services in containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes). Integrate AI-driven testing into CI/CD pipelines to enable continuous, automated quality signals on every change. Agent-Based Execution & Validation: Utilize AI agents to execute user flows, perform exploratory testing, and validate UI and system behavior across environments. Apply AI-driven visual validation against Figma designs to ensure design-to-implementation fidelity. Backend & Performance Testing: Validate complex backend behavior, including event-driven workflows, message queues, async pipelines, and data integrity. Use AI-assisted techniques to detect anomalies, validate data integrity (SQL), and surface system-level issues. Quality Signals, Triage & Advocacy: Leverage AI to triage defects, cluster failures, and identify root causes. Communicate insights clearly to stakeholders and advocate for AI-first quality practices across the SDLC Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Programming & AI-First Automation: Proficiency in Python, Java, or JavaScript/TypeScript, with the ability to use LLMs to generate and maintain test automation. Experience testing OpenAPI/REST APIs (GraphQL a plus) and validating data using SQL. AI Proficiency: Proven experience integrating LLMs and AI agents into QA workflows to drive automation and efficiency, including AI-assisted test generation, failure analysis, and defect triage. AI-Native Visual & UI Testing: Experience leveraging Figma as a source of truth and applying AI agents (e.g., Claude) with platforms like BrowserStack to automate UI validation. Ability to generate tests from design, perform agent-driven exploratory testing, and use AI for semantic visual validation and intelligent defect triage across devices and browsers. Infrastructure Skills: Working knowledge of CI/CD systems (e.g., GitHub Actions) and containerized environments (Docker and Kubernetes), with the ability to troubleshoot common test environment failures. Collaboration & Strategy: Ability to develop practical, feature-level test strategies, clearly communicate coverage and risks, and demonstrate an eagerness to adopt emerging AI-driven engineering practices . Minimum Requirements: 3 to 5 years of experience in Quality Assurance. 2+ years of experience in Test Automation (Web/Mobile/API). 1+ years of experience with Docker/Kubernetes. Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience) Required. Five Principles for Success Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success. Always improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen Passionately Professional - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best Hypothesize - Practice - Validate – Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory Maximize Customer Satisfaction - The greatest satisfaction for our teams is seeing their customers smile Speed!! Speed!! Speed!! - Always be conscious of time - take charge, set clear goals, and engage your team Rakuten provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type. Rakuten considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, provincial or local laws. At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the base compensation for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for discretionary bonus, health, vision, dental insurance, 401k matching, PTO, Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements. USD $96,442.50 - $163,680.00 annually