Japanese App Localization QA Specialist (Contract, 3 months)

🚀 Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot! Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops. As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact. We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce. About the Project We're looking for a Japan-based Japanese localization specialist to help us make the Whatnot app and web experience feel as natural, intuitive, and locally relevant as possible for users in Japan. This is a focused 2-3 month project centered on in-product localization. Rather than reviewing translations in isolation, you'll evaluate the actual user experience across core buyer and seller journeys and help us identify where language, terminology, messaging, or product experiences feel unnatural, unclear, or out of place for Japanese users. Your goal is not simply to ensure translations are accurate. Your goal is to help us create an experience that Japanese buyers and sellers can easily understand, trust, and adopt. You'll become deeply familiar with the Whatnot experience in English and review the Japanese experience in context across the app and web. Where issues can be resolved through translation updates, you'll make improvements directly in our translation management system. Where issues require broader changes to source content, product design, or engineering, you'll document them clearly and provide recommendations to help us improve the overall experience. What You'll Do Build a strong understanding of Whatnot's buyer and seller experience, marketplace terminology, and live shopping ecosystem. Review the Japanese app and web experience across agreed-upon user journeys and product flows. Evaluate whether language feels natural, intuitive, and culturally appropriate for Japanese users. Assess whether key flows are clear, trustworthy, and easy to understand for both buyers and sellers. Identify terminology, messaging, and UX patterns that may create confusion or feel unnatural in a Japanese context. Update translations directly in our translation management system where issues can be resolved at the string level. Document issues that cannot be solved through translation alone, including source copy, UX, design, technical, or product-related concerns. Provide clear recommendations and rationale for proposed improvements. Help improve consistency across Japanese terminology, product language, and user-facing messaging. Share findings and collaborate with the Localization team on prioritization and follow-up actions. Who You Are Native-level Japanese speaker based in Japan. Professionally fluent in English. Experienced in localization QA, linguistic review, product localization, UX writing, content design, or related fields. Able to evaluate language within real product experiences, not just as standalone translations. Comfortable identifying both linguistic issues and broader usability or cultural adaptation opportunities. Familiar with translation management systems such as Smartling or similar platforms. Detail-oriented, analytical, and able to clearly explain recommendations. Experience with ecommerce, marketplaces, live commerce, mobile apps, or consumer products is a plus. 💛 EOE Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.