NEWSLETTER

KOMOJU

Tokyo

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Engineering Manager

Tokyo
Remote OK - Anywhere in Japan
Full-time
October 13, 2023

About KOMOJU

KOMOJU (by Degica) is the leading cross-border payment gateway for Japan. We power payments for companies like the video game distribution platform Steam and the popular mobile app TikTok. Today we help thousands of merchants by providing them with the payment infrastructure they need through developer-friendly APIs to integrations on popular platforms like Shopify and Wix; we help our merchants grow in all markets they are expanding.

What to expect

We are product-focused, meaning you will work on our payment gateway and any other pilot projects toward building the future of KOMOJU. You will work with other engineers in a flat and inclusive culture where engineers have a say in both key product and technology decisions. The culture is largely self-organizing, which means engineers have both a stake and ownership in what they work on. Engineers play to their strengths, but are also able to invest in areas where they want to grow within the team. At KOMOJU, you are the main driver behind your growth and position in the company.

International at our core

Our founder is Canadian, and about 50% of our employees are non-Japanese. In the engineering team, we use English as our common language, and throughout the company, many people are bilingual.

Being an international company, we know the importance of bilingualism. We offer all employees a choice between English and Japanese lessons.

We hire international software developers not yet based in Japan. You’ll have the option to work from your own country, or if you’d like to relocate here, we will help you get set up in Japan, including arranging temporary accommodation for you, and helping you to secure a permanent residence.

Passionate about technology

Developers at KOMOJU are passionate about their craft. To foster innovation, we have a monthly open hack day, where you can work on whatever you want. It could be something like trying a new programming language or tool, but sometimes developers create totally new tools, which become adopted by the company.

An example of this is Kaiser, a Docker Compose like tool that’s specifically focused on Ruby on Rails applications. When you’re using Docker Compose for running Rails applications, particularly those using microservices, it can get quite complicated, and require you to write a ton on YAML. But Kaiser makes it super simple to run such Rails applications.

We also sponsor developer conferences like RubyKaigi and EuRoKo, and provide time and resources for any developers that wish to submit a talk.

A generous holiday policy

In addition to your regular holidays (10 days of annual leave), you’ll get an extra paid holiday on your birthday, an additional week of vacation in the summer, and one week during the New Year.

Our hiring process

We’ve designed our hiring process to allow you to highlight what you can bring to our team.

It starts with you submitting your resume to us, after which it will be reviewed by our team. If we believe you have the skills and experience to be a great addition, we will invite you for an initial screening call.

Assuming you pass the initial screening, we’ll invite you for an initial interview with our other EMs. In this interview, we will discuss your previous experiences, opinions, and ideas. If you pass this round, you will meet with senior developers and Product Manager to discuss how you can help to empower our teams.

And if you pass that interview, we will invite you back for a third and final interview, either with the Vice President of Engineering or the CTO, and with our COO or CPO.

About this position

As an engineering manager, your mission is to maximize the output of engineering. You will utilize your communication and organizational skills to allow individuals and teams to work together to achieve common goals.

At Degica, engineering managers play a crucial role in supporting the company vision and ensuring the stability and health of both the engineering teams and the system. They work closely with product and engineering to refine the “what” and “how” of features being built. They play a major role in scaling engineering through identifying and improving processes, and ensure everyone is working towards a clear and consistent goal. They work closely with the engineers to support their long-term career goals and job satisfaction.

Responsibilities

Ensure engineering teams are efficiently achieving their goals
Provide mentorship and guidance through 1-on-1’s and performance reviews
Set expectations with engineers and hold them accountable for project deliverables
Participate and improve processes around engineering onboarding, training, and hiring
Define processes to increase productivity and ensure adoption across engineering

Requirements

Previous Engineering Management experience (Team Lead is also acceptable)
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Ability to work with the product owners to provide context to inform projects and timelines
Ability to collect and provide meaningful context to help inform the developers' technical solutions
Ability to provide thoughtful feedback to help developers improve their skills
Ability to work across teams and departments to unblock developers and improve productivity

Nice to haves

Experience building and working on large-scale software products
Solid understanding of software development best practices
Understanding of concepts like technical debt and continuous integration
Knowledge of the Ruby programming language
Able to speak Japanese

Benefits

At Degica, we embrace remote work while also offering office space for those who prefer in-person collaboration
10 days regular vacation, an additional 5 days summer, and 5 days winter vacation
Paid birthday holiday
Budget for self-learning allowance to ensure our employees’ skills remain current
Language training for Japanese

Salary

10,000,000 - 14,000,000 yen / year

Includes (rough estimate of) bonus.

Compensation will be based on experience and skill level.

APPLY NOW ➜

About KOMOJU

KOMOJU (by Degica) is the leading cross-border payment gateway for Japan.

We power payments for companies like video game distribution platform Steam and the popular mobile app TikTok.

Today we help thousands of merchants by providing them with the payment infrastructure they need, through developer-friendly API’s to integrations on popular platforms like Shopify and Wix; we help our merchants grow in all markets they are expanding.

When it comes to engineering, we believe in having a flat, inclusive culture and constantly improving by continuing to evaluate ourselves. We also prize individuality and believe that each member brings their own unique value to the team.

Our development processes are always updating as the company grows, and we have an engineering culture that largely organizes itself and each engineer has a lot of ownership in their own projects. This culture allows engineers to showcase their strengths while continuing to grow.

KOMOJU's policies during COVID-19 are as follows:

During COVID-19 all of their members are working from home 100% of the time (previously they allowed up to one day a week).
Their current plan is to continue their full remote policy even after COVID-19 is no longer a concern.
They’re able to accept applications from overseas, but you may need to work abroad until it’s possible to move to Japan.

Japanese Language Policy
With around half of their total members (and around 75% of engineers) coming from outside Japan, KOMOJU generally uses English for written communication (e.g. Slack, Github). Verbal communication is also primarily in English.

However, quite a few people working there can speak both English and Japanese fluently so Japanese may be spoken at times during meetings, especially when they involve teams other than engineering.

Overall, the language spoken depends on the team. The dev team uses mostly English, but their HR team (for example) speaks primarily Japanese.
Visa Sponsorship
KOMOJU sponsors visas for candidates living outside of Japan. They’re still hiring from abroad, but due to travel restrictions related to COVID-19 new employees from abroad may need to start working on a contract basis. KOMOJU will switch you over to a full-time employee contract and sponsor your visa once it’s safe to come to Japan again.

KOMOJU also helps out with relocation (searching for apartments etc.) but they don’t have a formal policy for this. The support offered depends on each individual case. They do always pay for flight tickets to Japan in the case that someone moves from abroad however.
Paid Leave
KOMOJU has a very generous vacation policy.

Like most companies in Japan, their basic PTO package starts with 10 days of normal paid time off during an employee’s first year, followed by increases in subsequent years in accordance with Japanese labor law.

KOMOJU also offers 5 extra vacation days that can be used during the summer months, and another 5 days of year-end holidays.

They also have birthday leave, which means members can get an extra day off each year on their birthday. So that’s a total of 21 vacation days per year in addition to Japanese public holidays. They also offer maternity and paternity leave.
Benefits
💻 New tech gear

👩‍🎓 Skill development support

💛 Support for attending conferences

🧡 Seminar participation support

📕 Book purchases

👶 Parental Leave

👩‍🏫 Language Learning Support

💜 Social security / insurance benefits included

🏥 Healthcare insurance

💚 Pension insurance

🚃 Commuter allowance

👍 Motorized sitting / standing desks when working from our office
Engineer Interview Process
Engineering Jobs

KOMOJU’s interview process skips the high-pressure whiteboard interviews in favor of a coding challenge that’s closer to what engineers would actually work on day-to-day.

Here’s the basic interview flow:
- First interview: Meeting with two KOMOJU engineers to discuss about something you’ve built and see if you’re a good cultural fit
- Second interview: Technical challenge to test your real-world development skills
- Third interview: Meeting with a senior leader in the company
Remote Work
KOMOJU allows full remote work from anywhere in the world! The only stipulation is that your work hours must have some overlap with the JST time zone.

Even once COVID-19 is no longer a concern, KOMOJU intends to continue their full remote policy.

And if you do relocate to Japan, there's no need to live near their Tokyo office — you can work from anywhere in Japan.
Work style
KOMOJU has an office in the Kichijoji area of Tokyo, but they’ve switched to working fully remotely due to COVID-19. A typical work day at KOMOJU begins at around 10:00AM for most people. Some teams begin with a stand-up meeting where they quickly share their tasks for the day before focusing on work for the rest of the day.

One unique aspect of KOMOJU’s work style is their code review process. Since they have a flat hierarchy and a relatively small team, they have a system where reviewers are selected randomly. Their engineers also take care of operations and handle errors or technical customer queries as a team via Slack.

A typical stopping time for engineers at KOMOJU is at around 7:00PM, and they have very little overtime so engineers normally won’t be online past this time. They also make it a point to avoid unnecessary meetings and prefer to have ad-hoc discussions with relevant members only.
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