Who We Are 

Moon Creative Lab is a human-centered venture studio that powers the creation of new businesses. Moon’s mission is to help Mitsui & Co, one of Japan’s largest organizations, in its pursuit to become a more future-forward, entrepreneurial company. We work to unlock the creativity of Mitsui’s 45,000 strong global workforce to build innovative businesses that will have an exponential impact on the world. We do this by bringing together the best talent in design, engineering, product and more to create bold new ventures from zero to launch. 

Moon transforms ideas into bold new ventures and provides the resources and expertise to light the way to a more creative future.  We are human-centered in our approach and hands-on in our delivery. Our team of talented designers, engineers, product leaders and marketers help our idea owners connect with real users to create prototypes and MVPs and bring them to market quickly. At Moon, you will:

• Address real human needs that have far-reaching social impact
• Work across disciplines, across industries, and across cultures 
• Start with people and leverage the beauty and messiness of human-centered design

Moon is looking for people who are passionate about unlocking the innate creativity of others while designing impactful businesses. Come join us! 

What You'll Do

• Work collaboratively with other engineering leaders to grow and shape the engineering organization
• Work cross-functionally with product, design, and marketing teams to drive ventures forward
• Manage and provide mentorship to engineering teammates
• Plan strategically, managing resources, objectives, and milestones across multiple ventures
• Lay a foundation for, and continually support an environment of technical excellence
• Write and review code in service of helping engineers grow and getting ventures built
• Use creativity to inspire others and influence our way of working

The Must-Haves

Software

• Experience designing and reviewing complex software systems across backend, frontend, web and mobile
• Deep experience with several technologies at each layer in the stack
• Experience bringing software products from inception to launch

Communication

• Fluency in English 
• Conversational fluency in Japanese (N2 level)
• Exceptional written and verbal skills which demonstrate maturity, judgment, negotiation, analytical, and leadership skills
• Drive acceptance and adoption of technology agendas with empathy and active listening skills

Technical leadership

• Experience leading technical discussions such as technology reviews
• Experience moving from ideation to execution for new projects
• Strong intuition for prioritization: which corners to cut, fires to ignore, features to postpone, and how to sequence work to optimize our limited engineering resources

People leadership

• Have managed a small team of engineers over the full lifecycle of a product
• Experience mentoring and providing growth opportunities for engineers
• Extensive cross-functional work experience
• Desire to be a point person for communications between the Tokyo and Palo Alto studios

The Nice-to-Haves 

• Early stage startup or other entrepreneurial experience
• Authorship of a popular software package or a well-regarded technical publication
• Ability to occasionally travel to Palo Alto or other locations
• Familiarity with some of these specific technologies: React, React Native, Android & iOS development, Node, Firebase, Postgres, GCP, AWS, Docker
• Exposure to design thinking