Backend QA Engineer

Our Mission: Driving technology always feels old. Not by a little bit. We believe vehicles can be a thousand times smarter, safer, and more connected to the world around us, and our mission is to see it happen. In 2019, we joined forces with Honda as their first startup acquisition, and now we’re expanding our vision into building the future of electric vehicles (BEV) for millions of people around the world.

Why Drivemode: Join Drivemode for an exciting startup environment and a vibrant culture that combines impactful work, competitive compensation, and excellent benefits. By becoming a part of our team, you'll contribute to a crucial mission that revolutionizes the way people engage with vehicles, addressing both business needs and the world's environmental challenges. This presents an exceptional opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and drive Honda's success in the EV market.

About the Role: We're looking for a hands-on QA Engineer with a strong foundation in API and backend testing[Both Functional and Performance] to help ensure the reliability, performance, and security of our platform services. You'll work closely with developers, product managers, and fellow QA engineers to validate how our systems behave under real-world conditions. From validating REST APIs to designing robust automation workflows, you’ll play a critical role in keeping our connected ecosystem smart, scalable, and stable. If you enjoy breaking things to make them better, are curious about how systems talk to each other, and get excited by clean logs and meaningful test coverage, you’ll feel right at home here

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Designing, writing, and maintaining comprehensive test cases for REST and gRPC APIs.
• Performing functional validation of APIs across various environments.
• Developing automated API tests using tools like Postman, RestAssured, or similar.
• Executing performance and load testing on APIs using tools like JMeter, k6, or Gatling.
• Collaborating with developers to understand API specifications and business logic.
• Debugging issues, analyzing logs, and reporting bugs with clear documentation.
• Working with CI/CD pipelines to integrate API tests and ensure seamless deployments.
• Providing feedback on API design for better testability and performance.

What We’re Looking For:

• 5+ years of professional experience in API/backend testing.
• Strong understanding of REST & gRPC, HTTP methods, status codes, headers, and JSON payloads.
• Hands-on experience with tools like Postman, Insomnia, or similar for manual API testing.
• Exposure to API test automation using tools like Postman (scripts), RestAssured, SuperTest, or any other framework.
• Ability to write clear and reusable test cases, test plans, and maintain test data.
• Familiarity with API authentication mechanisms (e.g., OAuth, API keys, tokens)
• Basic knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and how to integrate automated API tests.
• Understanding of microservices architecture and how backend systems interact.
• Experience in  performance testing for backend APIs using Gatling, Jmeter.
• Experience in Performance bottleneck identification and debugging.
• Have thorough knowledge on CPU, Memory monitoring and Heap dump and Thread dump analysis.
• A collaborative mindset, with experience working in agile environments.

Nice to Have:

• Experience writing and validating SQL queries to verify API responses against the database.
• Familiarity with working on large datasets and performing BigQuery analysis or similar data validation.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and container technologies (Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus.
• Exposure to chaos engineering or resilience testing.
• Ability to mock services and dependencies using tools like WireMock, MockServer, or custom stubs.
• ISTQB or similar QA certifications (optional but appreciated)
• Proficiency in Japanese Language.
• Motorbike driving license in Japan.

EEOC Statement:

Drivemode is proud of a very diverse team with employees coming from 5 continents/11 countries as of today. Diversity in our workplace has played an important part in our success; we recognize each employee’s unique background, knowledge, experiences, ideas, and viewpoints which are all critical in developing a product that has the greatest impacts on drivers all over the world.

Drivemode provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity,  disability, or any other characteristics that make you unique.