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senior sdet / regulated fintech / digital assets

Qasim Mahmood

I help make (and break) things for a living. I test the platforms that hold and move digital assets: TypeScript and Playwright frameworks built from the ground up, coverage below the UI where it counts, plus AI tooling that works within the constraints of a regulated environment.

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now

01 / about

Background

I'm a Senior Software Development Engineer in Test with more than seven years in regulated fintech, currently focused on digital asset custody. Most of my work is on release gates, contract coverage and the compliance-critical test suites a regulated platform depends on.

My specialism is building automation frameworks from nothing: web with Playwright, mobile with Maestro and Appium, load with k6. I drop below the UI wherever that gives better coverage, from simulating biometric payloads over API to validating the compliance flows, such as the Travel Rule, that regulators audit.

I also lead an internal AI advocacy initiative, helping engineers adopt AI tooling without weakening the controls a regulated firm has to maintain.

I came to software from engineering of a different kind: an MEng in Aerospace Materials from Imperial College London, then a graduate year examining superalloys bound for jet engines. Metallurgy and software quality turn out to have the same core question, which is how things fail under stress.

Things I love, not necessarily in order: tech, cats, games, testing, badminton, and my wife.

02 / approach

How I test

01 / below the UI where it counts

UI checks prove the journey works; the risky logic lives in the services underneath. When hardware makes a test flaky, I take the hardware out of the loop, as with simulating biometric payloads over API instead of driving physical devices.

02 / compliance gates as code

Rules that matter to regulators, such as the Travel Rule, become executable checks in the release pipeline rather than lines in a test plan. If a change would breach one, it does not ship.

03 / frameworks are products

I've built automation from zero four times across web, mobile, API and load. A framework earns its keep when other engineers can write, run and trust tests without me in the room.

04 / ai with guardrails

I use AI tooling daily and lead its adoption at work. The point is speed without surrendering the controls a regulated firm depends on; adoption and caution are not opposites.

03 / skills & tools

What I work with

Automation

  • TypeScript & JavaScript
  • Playwright
  • API & contract testing
  • Mobile: Appium, Maestro
  • Load & performance: k6
  • Java, Python, SQL

Cloud

  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud

DevOps

  • GitHub Actions
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes / k3s

Domain

  • Digital asset custody
  • Travel Rule & compliance testing
  • Blockchain protocols: IOTA, EVM
  • Hardware security modules
  • Payments: Apple Pay & Google Pay launches
  • Islamic finance literacy

04 / experience

Where I've worked

Sep 2024 to present

Senior SDET

Zodia Custody, a Standard Chartered subsidiary

  • Built automation frameworks from the ground up in TypeScript with Playwright, decoupling testing from physical devices, plus a k6 framework for load and performance testing.
  • Engineered a headless automation strategy for mobile-to-web handshakes (MFA and QR), simulating biometric payloads via API to achieve 100% CI/CD reliability without hardware dependencies.
  • Built the test harness for the first institutional IOTA Rebased staking implementation in the UK and ADGM, programming failure scenarios such as bonding events and rewards distribution to validate asset safety logic.
  • Built the automated compliance gates for the FATF Travel Rule (Notabene) integration, intercepting and validating VASP-to-VASP data payloads to prevent regulatory breaches in settlement flows.
  • Lead an internal AI advocacy initiative, driving safe adoption of AI tooling across engineering in a regulated environment.
case study / the headless handshake

Custody journeys here hop between mobile and web, with MFA and QR handshakes in the middle. Driving real devices made those flows slow and unreliable in CI, so I built a headless strategy instead: the framework simulates the biometric payloads over API and carries the rest of the journey in the browser. Flows that once depended on physical hardware now run on every pipeline at 100% reliability.

Feb 2024 to Jul 2024

Lead QA / SDET (contract)

Visible

  • Led the QA effort across the company and product, covering manual, exploratory and automated testing.
  • Built a mobile automation framework from the ground up with Maestro, speeding up release times by 1000%.

Sep 2022 to Jan 2024

Lead SDET

Playroll (part of VAT IT Group)

  • First QA hire; established the quality practice across the company and product.
  • Built a web automation framework from scratch in TypeScript with Playwright and wired it into the GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline, speeding up release times by 900%.
  • Ran and triaged nightly Playwright suites, and managed a small team working directly with the CTO and Head of Engineering.
case study / QA from zero

Playroll had no QA function when I joined as its first hire. I built the quality practice and a TypeScript/Playwright framework from scratch, wired it into GitHub Actions so every change ran the suite, and kept nightly runs healthy as the product grew. Releases sped up by 900%, and I went on to manage a small team, working directly with the CTO and Head of Engineering.

May 2022 to Aug 2022

SDET

Crypto.com

  • Planned and led testing and live proving of Apple Pay and Google Pay, released first to the US and then worldwide to over 50 million users.
  • Raised and helped resolve a production-breaking iOS login issue affecting iOS users worldwide.
  • Helped plan shift-left initiatives to improve QA impact across the development lifecycle.

Dec 2018 to Apr 2022

QA Engineer (promoted from Junior QA Engineer)

Moneybox

  • Contributed to the Java/Appium/Cucumber automation suite for over two years: new feature coverage, test maintenance and pull request reviews.
  • Planned and led end-to-end testing and live proving of major features, including six new funds that took customer deposits past £2.4m.
  • Interviewed almost 200 candidates as the QA team grew from one (me) to almost thirty.
  • Tested the iOS and Android apps, backend APIs with Postman and databases with SQL, across more than 50 releases.

Oct 2017 to Nov 2018

Graduate Materials Engineer

Wyman Gordon

  • Microstructural examination of nickel and titanium alloys for aerospace production; technical lead on projects introducing new parts for customers including Rolls-Royce.

What colleagues say

"I worked with Qasim at Playroll and he was a great team member, allowing the company to start developing its test automation strategy and spearheading its development. He is a wonderful guy to work with, and I'd recommend him as an asset to any organisation."
Mario Husha, CTO at Lovey
worked together at Playroll
"Qasim is the best teammate I could ever ask for and a big inspiration for me. We started together as Juniors, and I have always been amazed at how smart and skillful he is. He is constantly learning and improving his skills, and you can tell he enjoys testing and giving it like 1000%. He is great at everything he does, nails e2e testing, live proving, regression testing, and I am amazed by his automation skills. He is very friendly, and always willing to offer his support and help to everyone. I also like his positive attitude. It doesn't feel like he is affected by any stressful situations, I do not know how he does it :D To sum it up, Qasim is just amazing, a pleasure to work with, and a big asset to any team and company <3"
Lucie Kovacsova, SDET at Jamf
worked together at Moneybox
"It was a great pleasure to work with Qasim. His calm and friendly approach in every kind of situation made our development-QA co-operation fluent and efficient. It is not easy to point out someone's mistakes (when working in the QA), and not create underlying emotional tension, but Qasim definitely possesses well-developed soft skills to do that job precisely, and keep good relations within the team."
Rafal Ozog, Senior Mobile Engineer
worked together at Moneybox
"I had the pleasure of working with Qasim and any team would be lucky to have him. Not only is he able to communicate effectively with a wider team, his technical expertise knows no bounds. He is able to slot in to any scenario and hit the ground running. He is always keen to share his knowledge with a team and aid any way he can in solution mapping. Qasim is an asset to any company and will always give his best."
Joshua Brown, Senior Full Stack Software Engineer
worked together at Playroll
"Qasim is a quick learner who improved the team's efficiency and produced high quality work. It was a great experience to work with him as he is highly knowledgeable and always supported everyone in any manner he could. He would be an asset to any team and organisation he works with."
Dev Patel, Business Development Lead
worked together at Crypto.com
"Qasim worked well with the project team and had a heart to learn. He was friendly, positive and was always willing to help. It was my pleasure to work with him."
Angel Chan, Project Manager (PMP)
worked together at Crypto.com
"I worked with Qasim at Crypto.com. He is a responsible person and always produced high quality work. It was a pleasure to work with him."
Rowan Chan, Quality Engineering Lead at Alpha Group
worked together at Crypto.com

05 / certifications

Certifications

06 / contact

Get in touch

Based in London. If you're hiring for quality engineering in fintech or digital assets, or want to talk testing and AI tooling, email is the fastest way to reach me. GitHub and LinkedIn are linked at the top of the page.

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