Engineering Manager (Data Platform - Money Forward X, Tokyo)

Overview

We are looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our Data Platform team, responsible for building and operating scalable, reliable, and cost-efficient data infrastructure. This role combines technical leadership, people management, and platform strategy to enable data-driven products and analytics at scale.

You will lead a team of engineers building high-volume data pipelines, real-time streaming systems, and data warehouse solutions, while partnering closely with product, analytics, and infrastructure teams.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Manage and lead a team of 4–8 engineers, providing guidance, mentorship, and support to foster professional growth.
• Develop and maintain a high-performing and motivated engineering team.
• Establish and communicate clear team goals, expectations, and deliverables.
• Maintain a ratio of 7:3 between team and technical management, ensuring a balance between leadership and hands-on technical contributions.
• Drive design and implementation of robust data pipelines, ingestion frameworks, and transformation systems.
• Define and enforce best practices for data modeling, data quality, schema management, and performance optimization.
• Ensure high availability, scalability, and reliability of data systems handling large-scale workloads.
• Define and manage SLAs/SLOs for data pipelines (freshness, latency, accuracy).
• Translate business requirements into scalable and maintainable data platform designs.
• Drive cloud infrastructure strategy for data platform (cost optimization, scalability, performance).
• Evaluate and adopt new tools and technologies aligned with platform strategy.
• Ensure data governance, security, and compliance requirements are met.
• Manage project timelines, priorities, and resource allocation to ensure timely delivery.

Required Skills and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• At least 3+ years of engineering management experience.
• At least 5+ years of hands-on experience building and operating high-volume data platforms.
• Prior experience in a high-scale SaaS or data-intensive product company.
• Strong programming background (e.g., Python, Java, Scala, or Go).
• Strong hands-on experience with:
  • Data pipelines (batch and streaming)
  • ETL/ELT frameworks
  • Data warehouses and OLAP systems
  • Real-time streaming (Kafka Streams, Flink, Spark Streaming or similar)
• Experience with tools such as:
  • Apache NiFi, Kafka, RabbitMQ
  • ClickHouse, Snowflake (or similar)
• Experience working with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, etc.).
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and data architecture patterns.
• Experience in designing scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-throughput systems.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience with:
  • Data lake/lakehouse architectures (e.g., Delta Lake, Iceberg)
  • Workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster, Argo)
• Knowledge of data security and compliance (GDPR, SOC2, etc.).
• Experience supporting ML/AI data pipelines and feature engineering workflows.
• Experience implementing data quality, lineage, and governance frameworks.
• Experience building internal data platforms as a product (self-serve data platforms).
• Experience in AI development and/or experience in using AI tools to improve development processes.
  • Money Forward recently announced our AI Strategy roadmap which focuses on improving AI-driven operational efficiencies, as well as integrating AI agents into our products to deliver better value to our users. (More information here)

Language Requirements

• English: Business level (TOEIC 700 or above, or equivalent English communication proficiency)
• Japanese: Conversational and above preferred

*Note: Please consult with us if you have certifications or experience other than TOEIC that demonstrate your English proficiency.
Examples: Eiken Grade Pre-1, Eiken Grade 2 (Eiken CSE score 1950 or above), TOEFL iBT 60 or above, IELTS 5.0 or above, Cambridge English Qualifications B2 First (FCE), etc.

Technology Stack

Core Technology Stack

• Languages: Kotlin, Java (Strong experience required)
• Cloud Platform: AWS
• Orchestration & Containers: Kubernetes, Docker (Containerization)
• API / Communication: REST, gRPC, API Gateways (Rate limiting, Auth)
• Messaging & Streaming: Kafka, RabbitMQ
• Architecture: Microservices, Event-driven Architecture, Distributed Systems

DevOps & Infrastructure

• CI/CD: CI/CD Pipelines (Best practices in testing and deployment)
• Observability (Good to Have): Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry (Monitoring, Logging, Tracing)
• Service Mesh (Good to Have): Istio, Linkerd
• Security: Authentication, Authorization, Secrets Management

Work Environment

At Money Forward, we provide an environment where we can create world-class services together, and we are looking forward to welcoming you.

• Provided PC Specs: We provide PCs equipped with the latest CPUs (MacOS or Windows). Custom-made PCs tailored to business requirements and replacements with the latest OS are also possible.
• Systems to Enhance the Development Environment: Peripheral devices necessary for work (such as displays, mice, keyboards) can be purchased as office supplies. Generally, you can choose from standard products (catalog), and if conditions are met, you can apply for non-standard products as well. (*Excluding certain group companies)
• Money Forward Library: We have a library system where you can freely borrow books, ranging from technical books to management books. Desired books can be purchased at the company's expense.
• Referral Driven: We cover the cost of recruitment meals. There is a referral reward system.
• Conference Participation Support: The company partially covers participation in domestic and international conferences, such as RubyKaigi and Google I/O.