Product Manager, Rakuten PointClub - Incentive Platform Department (INPD)

Business Overview 
The Technology Platforms Division (TPD) drives the growth of Rakuten's ecosystem by delivering innovative, high-quality technology platforms characterized by integrated control and strategic partnerships.   
Within TPD, the Cloud Platform Supervisory Department (CPSD) develops and manages Rakuten's state-of-the-art cloud platform, empowering global scalability and accelerating innovation across its diverse business units. 

Department Overview

Incentive Platform Department (INPD) is responsible for developing and operating the Rakuten Point and Rakuten Coupon. We develop and manage Rakuten PointClub and other point related web products, which are among the most popular sites in Rakuten. We will drive the improvement to maximize Rakuten Point value and contribute to the Rakuten Ecosystem. By the time you finish reading this, hundreds of thousands of points transactions have been processed and many users visit our web/app service. We want to work with a person who has a great passion for our services and products.

Position:

Why We Hire

As a Product Manager, you will have the responsibility to implement the strategy for Rakuten Point Web and other Front products. You will define business and system requirements with business clients, and develop a product roadmap to communicate the plan with stakeholders. You will join daily huddle and work closely with engineers to solve issues, support and handle development tasks and questions from clients in order to drive the delivery.

Position Details

- Define and own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap, aligning with business goals and customer needs.

- Act as the primary liaison between business stakeholders and technical teams, ensuring clear communication and alignment.

- Manage the product backlog, prioritize features, write user stories with clear acceptance criteria, and define functional & non-functional requirements.

- Conduct market research, gather requirements, and analyze customer feedback to drive product improvements.

- Collaborate with engineering, UI/UX, project management teams and QA teams to ensure timely and high-quality feature delivery.

- Define and track KPIs to measure product success and make data-driven decisions.

- Balance scope, time, and resources to deliver valuable solutions while addressing technical feasibility.

- Ensure alignment between business goals and technical implementation.

- Proactively communicate during troubleshooting (on-call).

- Be the domain expert in eco-system loyalty programs and be able to recommend improvement solutions.

- Be both quantitative and qualitative, and able to quickly understand and assess complex issues in order to take the right decision.

- Be a role model to the team members when it comes to ownership, proactivity and taking responsibility.

Mandatory Qualifications:

- Bachelor’s Degree (BS) in Engineering, Economics, Business, or a related field.

- 5+ years experience in web system development.

- Familiarity with Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and Agile methodologies (e.g., Scrum, Kanban).

- Experience in KPI-driven service development.

- Experience writing requirement specifications & acceptance criteria.

- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

- Understanding of the technical stacks, system architecture, and API to define feasible product requirements.

- Use storytelling to convey the value of technical features to non-technical audiences.

- Mediate conflicts between stakeholders with differing priorities and find balanced solutions.

- Motivate and inspire cross-functional teams to achieve common goals without direct authority.

Desired Qualifications:

- Advanced Degree (MS or PHD)

- Experience working with clients and business stakeholders to define project scope.

- Programing Experience.

- Project management experience.

- Experience in release management.

- Experience working on multiple products/projects in parallel.

- Experience in working with cross-cultural global teams in different locations.

- Experience in B2C product development and management.

- Knowledge of Loyalty Services.

- Japanese skills: Basic reading and writing.