Lead UX Designer

Tokyo
Remote OK - Anywhere in Japan
Full-time
April 2, 2024

KOMOJU by Degica is aiming to become a leader in payment gateways. Our mission is to make global commerce simple by helping merchants accept payments from customers worldwide. Many companies, from small merchants up to global corporate giants, expect KOMOJU to work reliably, quickly, safely and without effort on a large scale.

To achieve this goal, we recognize the importance of having a strong sense of brand and an excellent user experience in order to successfully distinguish KOMOJU from other payment gateways. The experience of our product will be what establishes us as a first-class solution to our merchant’s needs. That experience cannot be produced ad hoc. It requires attention and consistency throughout the entire KOMOJU product which is why we are now hiring a Product Design Architect / Lead UX Designer to steer our team to success.

What to expect

We are product focused, meaning you will work on our payment gateway and any other pilot projects towards 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.

Responsibilities

Lead the UX design process including user research, usability testing, wireframing and prototyping stages.
Collaborate closely with Engineering and Product teams to ensure the design meets the needs and expectation of users.
Defining and building our design system to deliver an intuitive, user-friendly and consistent user experience to our users.
Validate designs and what we develop and look for areas of improvement in our web and mobile experiences.
Work with Product Managers to identify top priorities and coordinate with engineering teams in the planning and execution of monthly development cycles.
Help build out design standards, processes, tools.
Ability to build up and train others to support a growing UX/design team.

Requirements

You may be a fit if:

You always put the user / customer first and you are able to quickly understand how users interact, use and work with our platform.
You have experience with e-Commerce, online payments or fintech products and know how to deliver a great user experience that shows trust and reliability to the users.
You have a strong portfolio of past work and are able to talk passionately about your achievements.
You thrive in a fast-paced environment and can adapt quickly dynamic needs.

Skills needed

Problem-solving and analytical skills
An understanding of design patterns
Extensive working knowledge of Figma
Excellent attention to detail
Knowledge of responsive design
Experience designing for accessibility
Strong communication skills for a remote-first environment
Ability to thrive in a multicultural and diverse workplace

Benefits

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

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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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