Engineering Manager - Point Card System Department, Rakuten Payment, Inc.

Job Description:

Business Overview

We leverage the extensive market presence of "Rakuten Point" which has surpassed a cumulative issuance amount of 3 trillion yen. By integrating services with various Rakuten Group companies and rapidly expanding cashless payment services in offline stores, we are building the "Rakuten Ecosystem".

Our payment services are available at approximately 5 million online and offline locations, including supermarkets, convenience stores, and shopping malls nationwide. Additionally, they can be used at around 1 million transportation-related electronic money locations, with the number of available locations continuously expanding.

Our mission is to create cashless payment solutions that realize a lively, connected society where customers and retailers empower each other.

For Consumers: Under the slogan of friendly, convenient, and secure transactions, and through services focused on ease of use, we aim to create a better everyday life for our customers.

For Retailers: We provide retailers with numerous transaction services tailored for various businesses. Retailers also benefit from marketing programs aligned with Rakuten membership.

We provide various payment-related services such as Rakuten Pay (QR payments), Edy (e-money), Rakuten Cash (online e-money), Rakuten Check (check-in service), and Rakuten Point Card (loyalty program).

Department Overview

In the Payment Systems Department, we handle everything from planning system services related to payment services, designing and implementing UI/UX, to basic and detailed system design, coding, testing, and operations. You will gain experience in planning, building, and operating large-scale systems as our services expand.

Moreover, by directly listening to customer feedback, we continuously improve our services. We aim to provide payment services to physical stores, end-users fostering a vibrant society where customers, partners, communities, and society empower each other through innovation and active communication.

Point Card System Department is responsible for all services related to Rakuten Check and Rakuten Point Card. Point Card Backend Development Group is responsible for building backend services of Rakuten Point Card service.

Position:

Why We Hire

With the rise of cashless transactions in Japan, we are expanding our organization and seeking a strong leader to manage our service and team.

Position Details

As an engineering manager for this group, you'll lead the core backend platforms. You will be responsible for the overall service, covering team member management, strategy, operations, and stakeholder management. Reporting to the Senior Manager and often to General Manager, you will be responsible for the day-to-day operations and project deliveries are on track. As expected of an exceptional leader, you will also be responsible for the development and growth of your team, helping them to reach the next stages of their career, and raising the overall standards within the organization.

You will also:

- Partner with stakeholders across the company such as business, Mobile App team, infrastructure team to support to define platform strategy and lead the team in its implementation, creating meaningful services for our clients and users (including external).

- Manage the assigned platform to ensure stability and quality, whilst setting product strategy and delivering on new features and enhancements.

- Support to define the platform strategy, roadmap, and operating plans, influencing stakeholders- especially major clients- to work with us toward shared goals.

- Lead a team in line management of diverse organizations with members across different roles from a variety of backgrounds: you will be responsible for their career development and growth, with extra focus on the coaching of the next generation of leaders.

- Build an organizational culture that leads to ongoing excellence and effective growth of our teams and services.

- Manage budget to fulfil our fiscal responsibility and ensure that the proper investments are being made.

Work Environment

Regular Employee: 20 Partner Staff / Subcontractor: 20

More than half of the regular employees are foreigners with various bacgrounds. Others are mostly Japanese.Most members joined as mid-career.

Programming Language

- Java 17/21

Frameworks

- Spring Boot 3.x

Build Tools

- Maven

Databases

- MySQL

- MariaDB

APIs

- RESTful API (using Spring MVC)

Messaging

- RabbitMQ

Testing

- JUnit 5

- Mockito

- Spring Test

Documentation

- Confluence

- JIRA

- Swagger

Containerization

- Docker

- Kubernetes

CI/CD

- GitLab

Monitoring and Logging

- ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)

- Grafana

AI Assistance

- GitHub Copilot

- RakutenAI: GPT-4o

Mandatory Qualifications:

- People management experience: leadership of multicultural teams with 10+ members (4 years +)

- Experience in building and operating high-traffic, critical platforms

- Strong sense of ownership and accountability particularly during production issue management

- Experience in communicating across wide levels of the organization

- Good understanding of both business and technology to make proper decisions and have meaningful conversations with stakeholders

- Fluency in both Japanese and English

Desired Qualifications:

- Web development using web application frameworks such as SpringBoot
- Application development with Java 17 or later
- Build tools such as Maven and CI/CD tools to improve development process
- Basic understanding of Linux and networking to be able to refer to software references and solve problems
- RDB development such as MySQL, including data modeling
- Source code management using Git, etc
- Quality Assurance
- Docker or Kubernetes

Others Information:

Additional information on Location

NBF Shinagawa office at Tokyo

Additional information on Secondment

Secondment to Rakuten Payment, Inc. from Rakuten Group, Inc.

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