Data Scientist

This is a full time position for a Data Scientist to further strengthen the business development aiming to revolutionize the market for used electronic devices. The scientist has a passion for startups and is also able to take part of the materials on our Company page (https://belong.co.jp/). We employ a remote/offline hybrid work style enabling more flexibility, thus requiring candidates to be located in the Metropolitan Tokyo Area.

 

About Belong

Belong is building an ecosystem for used mobile devices based on the mission of "delivering the next level of value that our loved ones can be proud of." with an international mindset and successfully employing cutting edge software development skills with a keen eye for quality in an otherwise cost-intensive competitive industry.

 

Being different is our strength

Founded as a result of an internal effort at Itochu, we're not your typical startup. Our team members come from diverse backgrounds such as Japan, USA, Bangladesh, Sweden and Germany, and as we grow it, diversity is something we strive to increase, as having a wide variety of perspectives makes us stronger. Many of our members have an international background from all over the world, but we keep our business language to Japanese.

This variety in perspectives is what enabled us to see the possible solutions to the process optimization issues we’re currently employing to the refurbished used electronics industry, and our backgrounds helped us approach the issues with a wider range of not only tools but also a wider range of options of how to solve the issues.

We're a stable startup, which fights with quality and process in mind, always aiming for creating a more efficient, qualitative product for which we’re already receiving high praises domestically and internationally.

This we've been doing successfully for five years and have just established ourselves in New York, USA - creating the need for an even more international and challenge driven team.

On top of that we’re also pushing the boundaries of our business by incorporating more and more AI trendy concepts such as LLM and Agents. We like to stay busy learning and adapting.

 

We got a factory

Unlike many other startups, we’ve got a factory that is the heart of our business model. There we receive electronics that are to be refurbished and released back onto the market. Optimizing the process for grading the devices, refurbishing, re-selling - all aspects improve our cost performance ratio enabling us to polish the units even more thus improving the quality of the end product. This is how we fight, in a market normally considered a red ocean and focused on driving prices down.

Our business is unique, and our approach to technology strengthens our case. Our CTO, Fukui Tatsuya, also says that it's important for us to share our know-how with the rest of Japan who are trying to make something truly unique, providing concrete sustainable value to their end-users. For this effort, he’s been a present part of the startup and AI scene in Japan, always striving for others to achieve more by contributing his rare perspective.

In our Factory-centric approach, we've been working with several different products in various stages since the start, doing everything from smartphone app development, E-commerce to IoT. From 2023 we're also incorporating areas such as AI & Machine Learning.

This we execute by having several dedicated agile teams which are working closely together with our operation and business teams with the aim of not only creating product value but also enabling our company to incorporate a firm engineering perspective to our business model.

 

About the position

As a Data Scientist, you'll work with closely with our Data Engineers and stakeholders in helping us make informed decisions in all aspects of our business with the help of our data data. We believe that you’re keen to state a hypothesis, and eager to prove its’ validity with thorough analysis of a qualitative and quantitive data set. Utilizing statistical methods and data science approaches, always putting emphasis on error margins is something that comes natural to you. Take charge of contributing the results of data analytics to our data-driven strategic planning.

You’ll be working with data relating to sales, operational, product (pricing included) and platform related log data - there’s so much more that we aren’t even aware of that we hope that you will help us with.

We believe that you enjoy delving into the intricacies of data warehousing, knowing more about what kind of approaches there are and what kind of possibilities the latest tool trends provide. Hopefully utilizing BigQuery and dbt as ELT framework comes as something natural to you, along with writing data analytical algorithms in Python with Pandas.

Combining data from a multitude of data sources and transforming it into one elegant queryable data warehouse is something that you enjoy and would like to do?

 

Your position will entail tasks such as

• Gather requirements for data analytical practises within the company together with team, formulate strategies to gather it and create necessary technological solutions to deliver the result to the needing parties
• Establish hypothesis based on hearing with internal stake holders, suggest plausible heuristics for approximation with understanding what available data we have & what else we might need and spearhead implementation & evaluation
  • Forecasting of pricing will be expected to be a major domain
• Planning and implementing testing strategies for evaluation of proposed data pipelines
• Helping out with recruiting, onboarding and training new members
• Pushing the team to achieve even more by forming, evaluating and implementing new processes, policies and tools
• Building dashboards utilizing BI tools such as Looker and Looker Studio

 

As this position will be for an experienced member of our team, we ask that you fulfill the following requirements:

• Native proficiency in Japanese, or at least JLPT N1
  • Do note that the less proficient you are in Japanese we will require you to compensate with higher technical capabilities.
• At least 2 years of experience relevant to the position, or at least 5 years for senior position
• At least completed Bachelor degree in Computer Science, Data Science or equivalent
• Experience with Python, R or Scala or similar
• Experience with applying statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, hypothesis testing, correlation, regression, etc.) to data analytics
• Experience with data modeling utilizing database technologies such as MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, etc.
• Experience creating models utilizing machine learning related libraries such as scikit-learn, TensorFlow or PyTorch
• Experience with Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services.
• Experience with utilising modern ETL tools such as Looker/Looker Studio, Tableau etc
• Strong understanding of Data Warehousing solutions
• Experience with working in a fully digital environment(chat communication, online task boards etc)
• Strong presentation skills to clearly and concisely explain analytical findings to non-technical audiences.
• Experience with utilizing technologies such as ChatGPT, Gemini or similar for information gathering and work optimization (creating documentation etc) and Coding Agents for coding support
• Able to commute to the office and work on-site.

 

We would also like to see experience with any of the following:

• Development methodologies such as TDD, SOLID or SCRUM
• Experience with building and maintaining Data Warehousing solutions
• Experience with BigQuery, CloudSQL, Dataflow, Cloud Run or similar tools
• Experience with ETL/ELT tools such as dbt or Dataform
• Specialized knowledge in natural language processing, image recognition, reinforcement learning, time series forecasting, causal inference, etc.
• Experience in incorporating machine learning models into products and services
• Experience with working as a part of a larger development team
• Experience with Warehouse Management Systems
• Experience with leading, or assisting in leading, a team effort
• Experience with version control such as Git
• Experience with working tightly with end-user and mapping complex data structures
• Experience with modeling & maintaining non-trivial data models
• Business level proficiency in English (TOEIC 800, CAE C+ or similar)

 

What we can offer

• Flexibility: A hybrid work style, enabling remote and offline work, and flexible work hours, with core time between 10:00-15:00, with the principle of "Frihet under ansvar" (Freedom with responsibility). For more senior Engineers, we ask them to come to the office at least 1-2 times per week for team building and synchronization purposes.
• Ample of understanding for young parents: Many of us have children, and want to passionately pursue a fulfilling career - our workplace makes it easy to take care of sick children at home or manage topics at school or kindergarten
• Impact: The opportunity to make a positive impact on society by contributing to meaningful work that benefits people.
• Compensation: Market-level salaries with a performance-based bonus system.
• Stability: As a subsidiary of Itochu, with stable revenue points since founding, we’re stable to the extent where we haven’t had to compromise with bonus payments up to this point

We believe in a Swedish saying - "Frihet under ansvar" which roughly translates to "Freedom comes with responsibility". Take ownership of your responsibilities and what you build, then you can adjust your work hours flexibly and also choose where to spend them - like working while traveling.

The work we do has the chance to make a positive impact on society, something that will actually matter to people - and we believe that this is something that is important for you just as much as it is for us.

We offer market level salaries complemented with a performance based bonus system, accompanied with the ability to leave a footprint on society making tomorrow into something better than what we have today.