Development Director (Frontend development direction) - Platform Strategy Supervisory Department (PFSD)

Job Description:

Job Posting Title

Development Director (Frontend development direction) - Platform Strategy Supervisory Department (PFSD)

Job Description:

Business Overview

Rakuten Group is headquartered in Japan and serves approximately 100 million domestic customers and 2 billion customers across 30 countries worldwide. We provide more than 70 services across various fields including e-commerce, payment services, financial services, telecommunications, media, and sports.

Department Overview

"Rakuten has expanded its business scale with core businesses such as the online shopping mall service Rakuten Ichiba and the credit card business Rakuten Card, achieving consolidated revenue of 2.2 trillion yen and domestic gross transaction value of 6.0 trillion yen.

Looking ahead, Rakuten aims to create a new business model that establishes a stronger Rakuten Ecosystem, including offline aspects of daily life, by fully leveraging assets cultivated primarily through online services, such as Rakuten membership, Rakuten Points, brand strength, and member data.

This position is part of the Platform Strategy Supervisory Department, which belongs to a corporate organization directly under the COO and Vice President. Rather than operating a specific service, this department is responsible for driving ecosystem growth strategies and initiatives centered on cross-group marketing across the Rakuten Group.

As the only division within Rakuten Group that executes initiatives based on company-wide strategy, it offers a unique opportunity to build a broad perspective while being involved in both strategic planning and execution.

The work of the Platform Strategy Supervisory Department is broad and diverse, ranging from proposals to top management on company-wide strategies, to planning concrete initiatives based on those strategies, creating innovative and attractive programs and products, and designing operations that enable customers to use our services with confidence."

Position:

Why We Hire

"We are looking for a Development Director to join our product development team, primarily working on Rakuten PointClub and Rakuten’s coupon-related products.

This role will lead development direction with a strong focus on frontend implementation, while maintaining a broader view of the entire implementation landscape, including backend systems. The key responsibility is to connect business and product requirements with engineering and ensure that all necessary components are brought together to deliver a successful implementation.

As the boundaries between frontend and backend development continue to become less distinct, we are not simply looking for someone who manages frontend schedules and tasks.

We are looking for someone who starts from a strong understanding of frontend development, but is also capable of understanding the broader technical architecture, system dependencies, APIs, and engineering constraints. This person should work closely with engineers and take ownership of connecting all the pieces without gaps throughout the implementation process.

Our development teams communicate primarily in English. Therefore, the ability to accurately understand complex technical discussions and communicate them clearly to relevant stakeholders is essential.

However, this is not an interpreter role. We expect the Development Director to understand the technology behind the discussion, evaluate possible solutions, negotiate and discuss options directly with engineers, propose alternatives, and ultimately direct the team toward the most appropriate solution. For this reason, professional-level communication skills in both Japanese and English, including the ability to participate in technical discussions on equal footing, are required.

Rakuten provides a wide range of technologies, platforms, and internal solutions. Our teams actively integrate APIs provided by other organizations and continuously explore new technologies to improve our products.

Introducing new technologies and integrating different systems often involves technical constraints and unexpected challenges. We are looking for someone who can work persistently with engineers and related teams to identify the best solution and drive implementation through to a safe, reliable, and successful release.

Our development organization also works very closely with product planning and marketing teams. It is therefore important to understand not only what needs to be implemented, but also why—the business objectives and intentions behind each requirement.

Rather than approaching projects as “Business vs. Development,” we expect this person to work as one member of the same business and product organization, collaborating toward shared goals.

There are also many opportunities to collaborate with product planners and UX directors from the early stages of product development. Candidates who are interested in UX and can consider both the technical implementation and the overall user experience will have opportunities to contribute across an even broader range of areas.

We are looking for a director who understands technology and can connect product planning, UX, frontend, and backend development—turning complex requirements into reliable, real-world implementations.

If this is the kind of role you would like to take on, we would be excited to hear from you."

"<Business & Organizational Opportunities>

・Starting from a frontend perspective, you will have opportunities to work across a broad range of areas, including backend technologies, product planning, and UX.

・You will work closely with central Rakuten products such as Rakuten PointClub and Rakuten’s coupon services, which connect with a wide range of services across the Rakuten ecosystem. This gives you the opportunity to see the impact of your work across a large-scale user base.

・Rather than simply maintaining existing systems, you will have opportunities to continuously evolve our products by integrating various APIs, technologies, and solutions available across Rakuten Group.

<Role & Ownership>

・As a Development Director leading implementation, you will be involved throughout the entire development lifecycle—from requirement definition and technical discussions to implementation, testing, and release—and take ownership of delivering products to users.

・This is not simply a project coordination role. You will understand technical backgrounds and constraints, discuss solutions directly with engineers, propose alternatives, and help guide the team toward the most appropriate implementation.

・You will act as a key bridge between engineering and product planning, marketing, and UX teams, giving you the opportunity to influence products from both business and technology perspectives.

・You will work in a bilingual Japanese-English environment and gain hands-on experience collaborating and discussing technical solutions with global engineering teams.

<Skills & Career Development>

・You will develop practical skills in frontend-focused implementation direction, API and backend understanding, technical negotiation, problem solving, and development leadership in a bilingual environment.

・By participating across the entire product development lifecycle—from upstream product planning and UX through technical design, implementation, QA, and release—you can develop into a well-rounded Development Director with expertise beyond a single technical domain.

・Through hands-on experience with Rakuten’s diverse technology platforms, APIs, and emerging solutions, you will build a broad technical perspective that extends beyond frontend development alone.

・Over time, you can expand your responsibilities toward leading larger-scale products and multiple development initiatives as a Development Director or product development leader.

Position Details

"・Lead UX direction for products and services related to the Rakuten Ecosystem

・Plan experience design and initiatives based on business and service strategy

・Organize user issues and business requirements and translate them into product requirements, leading the requirements definition process

・Define specifications, including screen design, information architecture, transition design, and interaction design, and create related documentation

・Lead development direction and project management in close collaboration with engineers

・Support decision-making and prioritization within sprint and development processes

・Drive projects as a hub across design, engineering, and business teams

・Review implementations and ensure quality from both UX and specification perspectives

・Lead end-to-end execution and issue resolution toward product release

・Identify issues and plan and execute improvement initiatives based on user research and data analysis

Work Environment

"・Expected Assignment: Platform Strategy Supervisory Department - Customer Strategy Department - Experience Section

・Platform Strategy Supervisory Department has approximately 60 members, balanced gender ratio, average age in the mid-30s

・Many members joined mid-career, and the division welcomes diverse backgrounds such as consulting, IT, platform companies, venture companies, telecommunications, and content operations

・The Experience Section consists of approximately 15 members (Web Directors, UX Designers, UI Designers, Front-end Engineers), with similar demographics

"

"Examples of mid-career employees and their backgrounds can be found here:

https://customer-strategy.blog.rakuten.careers/"

Mandatory Qualifications:

<Ideal Candidate Profile>

・Someone who understands the realities and technologies of frontend implementation and can lead development while discussing technical matters with engineers on equal footing.

・Someone with strong communication skills who can accurately understand and structure complex technical issues and constraints, and clearly communicate them to both business and engineering stakeholders.

・Someone who can work across multiple areas and teams—including product planning, UX, marketing, frontend, and backend—and drive projects while maintaining overall alignment.

・Someone who can persistently work through challenges with engineers and stakeholders, pursue the best possible solution, and drive implementation through to a safe and reliable release.

・Someone who goes beyond simply passing requirements to the development team—understanding both business objectives and technical constraints, and proactively proposing and negotiating solutions.

・Someone with strong bilingual communication skills who can actively participate in both business and technical discussions in Japanese and English.

<Required Skills / Experience>

・3+ years of professional experience in implementation direction or frontend development direction for web services or applications.

・Experience leading the end-to-end development process in collaboration with engineers, from requirements definition and specification through implementation, QA, and release.

・Strong understanding of, or hands-on experience with, frontend technologies including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

・Ability to understand system architecture and technical dependencies related to frontend implementation, including API and backend integration, and discuss specifications and implementation approaches directly with engineers.

・Business-level or higher communication skills in both Japanese and English.

・Experience driving projects involving multiple stakeholders across areas such as product planning, UX, marketing, and engineering.

・Hands-on experience in requirements definition, specification development, issue management, scheduling, and overall development coordination.

Experience working in an environment where English is used on a daily basis, particularly in collaboration with global engineering teams, is highly preferred.

Desired Qualifications:

"・Basic knowledge and understanding of backend technologies, including API design and system architecture.

・Hands-on experience with Scrum or Agile development, working closely and continuously with engineers throughout the development process.

・Experience working in an English-speaking development environment or collaborating with global engineering teams.

・Knowledge or experience in product management, or experience working closely with Product Managers (PdMs) to drive product development.

・Experience using data, such as web/app analytics and A/B testing, to improve user experience and product performance.

・Experience participating in projects involving API integrations with other teams or external systems, as well as the introduction of new technologies or platforms.

・Experience collaborating with product planning, UX, and marketing teams from the early stages of product development, including upstream requirements and concept development.

・Experience launching new services or products, or participating in large-scale product renewal projects.

・Experience designing or developing products, features, or new user experiences by leveraging emerging technologies such as generative AI.

Other Information:

Additional information on Location

"Rakuten Crimson House

1-14-1 Tamagawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo"

Additional information on Secondment

Additional information on Transfer

Additional information on English Qualification

If you do not have a score or certification, you will be invited to take the TOEIC IP test hosted by Rakuten during the selection process.

Related Pages

- Employee Benefits: https://global.rakuten.com/corp/careers/benefit/

- Employee Conditions: https://global.rakuten.com/corp/careers/information/

- Culture: https://global.rakuten.com/corp/careers/culture/"

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#producer #productmanager

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