Technical Director - Customer Strategy Department, Platform Strategy Supervisory Department

Job Description:

Department Overview

Rakuten Group is headquartered in Japan and serves approximately 100 million customers domestically, while operating in 30 countries and regions globally. The company offers more than 70 services across e-commerce, payments, fintech, telecommunications, media, sports, and more.

For this role, we are hiring a Technical Director in the Platform Strategy Supervisory Department (PFSD), a corporate organization reporting directly to the COO/Vice Chairman. PFSD is not responsible for operating a specific service; instead, it drives group-wide customer strategy and ecosystem growth initiatives, primarily through marketing-led planning and execution across Rakuten Group.

As a Technical Director, you will lead both implementation/development execution and cross-functional problem solving to deliver measurable business outcomes, for products tied to Rakuten’s asset strategy-especially Points and Coupons-from new initiatives through continuous improvement.

*Corporate Organization: a cross-functional organization that includes Corporate Planning, CEO Office, HR, General Affairs, Accounting/Finance, Legal, and other corporate functions.

Platform Strategy Supervisory Department Characteristics
1. Discipline as a Professional Team “5C”
- Challenge to innovate
- Customer oriented
- Concept driven
- Cross-functional
- Commitment to result

2. Contribution Mindset
We value creating results through contribution to society, customers, colleagues, and stakeholders, and we foster a culture that supports each other’s growth and challenges.

Department hiring site (job details, member interviews, etc.)
https://corp.rakuten.co.jp/careers/division/customer_strategy/(opens in new window)

Position:

Why We Hire

To take products related to Points and Coupons-key growth levers of the Rakuten ecosystem-to the next stage, we are expanding our team and hiring additional members for development planning and execution.

Appeal
- Lead overall optimization rather than local optimization, driving both short-term wins and mid-to-long-term growth
- Drive projects across multiple services/products, close to the core of the ecosystem-results scale significantly
- Work as one team with engineering, with strong proximity to implementation
- High feasibility: decisions translate into execution due to the closeness to design and development
- Strong career differentiation and rarity
- Unique accumulation of experience and outcomes at the intersection of business understanding × cross-functional development PM/PMO × growth delivery

Position Details

Scope/Responsibilities
*The scope below applies, but focus areas may vary depending on experience and strengths.

- Create and manage development roadmaps for each product (in collaboration with PLs/PdMs)
- Lead cross-team problem solving across Biz-Tech organizations; support team/operating model design; drive development direction discussions for overall optimization
- Serve as PM/PjM for cross-functional development initiatives such as system modernization and shared platforms (e.g., Point/Coupon platforms, company-wide marketing tools)
- Lead product work from planning to requirements definition, design, and implementation direction (across frontend/backend)
- Manage delivery progress: task breakdown, prioritization, and stakeholder alignment
- Support Web Directors technically; collaborate on architecture and API design; drive technology selection and development environment improvements
- Build and improve development processes (from initiative intake → requirements definition → development tracking → release management)
- Lead continuous improvement of development QCD (Quality/Cost/Delivery): QA/test scope management, automation, release operations (CI/CD, Git operations, quality evidence/traceability, incident prevention)

How Success Is Measured (what gets evaluated)
- Improvements in customer experience directly impact metrics such as CVR, usage rate, retention rate, and OI lift
- Maximizing outcomes as a service/product development organization through both short-term delivery and mid-to-long-term problem solving
- Improved development productivity and quality (defects, rework, lead time) through high-quality specifications and accurate release operations
- Recognition as a driver of cross-functional execution by owning implementation-side decisions and moving teams forward

Work Environment

Platform Strategy Supervisory Department has approximately 70 members, with a roughly equal gender balance and an average age in the early 30s. More than half of the team has joined mid-career, with diverse backgrounds including strategy consulting, IT, platform businesses, startups, telecom, and content operations.
*Flex-time system available (core hours apply).

Mandatory Qualifications:

Web production/development direction or development PJM/PMO (5+ years)
- Led and managed an end-to-end lifecycle: demand definition → requirements definition → design → QA → release
- Strong project management involving multiple stakeholders; capable of schedule control, quality assurance, and task prioritization

User-side requirements definition plus business/customer understanding (internet services)
- Experience consolidating requirements/specifications close to business functions, either within business teams or business-adjacent development teams
- Experience collaborating with business/service planners, marketers, and UI/UX designers; able to translate business needs and user experience into concrete development requirements/specifications

Understanding of product/system development and web system architecture
- Understand development processes (waterfall and/or agile) and able to lead process design, establishment, and improvement
- Hands-on implementation experience is not required, but you must be able to speak with engineers on equal footing across backend and frontend, and discuss technology choices, design direction, and scope

Cross-functional delivery leadership (alignment × PM)
- Experience driving initiatives from planning through execution while managing dependencies and risks across diverse stakeholders (business, development, operations, security, etc.)
- Experience collaborating with global teams, including offshore development and multinational members

Business outcome mindset (delivery that drives growth)
- Strong desire to work close to strategy/marketing, track outcomes from releases, and run continuous improvements
- Ownership mindset: not “build and finish,” but accountable for performance metrics

Desired Qualifications:

- Deeper technical understanding across backend and frontend enabling deeper discussions on design and development direction
*Mobile apps (Android/iOS), Web backend (PHP/Java), Web frontend (HTML/CSS/JS/React/Next.js), and other areas (rendering approaches, BFF design, etc.)
- Architecture and API specification design: able to lead collaboration with engineers from a design perspective
- Experience with large-scale web/apps and new feature development (high traffic, complex requirements, continuous improvement)
- Experience with member-only/login-required websites (auth, authorization, personal data handling)
- Proven results in agile/lean delivery with rapid hypothesis testing and KPI improvement
- Leadership/team management experience for leading directors and cross-functional teams
- Development environment improvement and technology selection experience to improve speed and quality

Other Information:

Additional information on Location

Rakuten Crimson House: Futako-Tamagawa

Related Pages
- Employee Benefits: https://global.rakuten.com/corp/careers/benefit/(opens in new window)

- Employee Conditions: https://global.rakuten.com/corp/careers/information/(opens in new window)

- Culture: https://global.rakuten.com/corp/careers/culture/(opens in new window)

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