Release Manager

Tokyo
Partial Remote
Full-time
December 18, 2024

SmartNews is a global leader in redefining information and news discovery, committed to providing users with accurate, timely information and supporting quality journalism. We combine the power of our unique machine-learning technology with the expertise of our first-rate editorial team to bring news that matters to millions of users from our over 3,000 global publishing partners.

Founded in 2012 in Tokyo, Japan, SmartNews has offices in Tokyo, San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York, and Singapore.

The Team

The Product Frontend group is dedicated to creating and delivering the core app experience for our JP and US products. Our mission is to build scalable systems and innovative features that drive new user experiences and habits. We focus on enhancing the app’s impact by continuously increasing the frequency and quality of positive changes for our users.

The Mission

You will collaborate closely with product managers and engineers from different regions to ensure a timely, efficient and high-quality delivery of product updates across all regions. Your role consists in running the release process, managing timelines and mitigating risks.

In this role, you will also be in charge of developing a scalable release management system, creating the solutions to support multiple products, incident responses, velocity of releases. We highly value curiosity, a proactive and outcome-oriented mindset, as you will be expected to take ownership and collaborate with several teams to deliver change across the organization.

Role and Responsibilities:

Run the release operations across products, including the submission to mobile platforms, dealing with rejections, challenges and scheduling.
Develop a scalable release management process that increases the efficiency and quality of the product development across products and regions.
Optimize and manage timelines for internal and external releases, ensuring that criteria for release readiness are met (quality, compliance, etc.)
Identify potential risks in the release process and develop strategies to mitigate them.
Maintain a clear and effective communication with stakeholders about release schedules, progress and issues.

Requirements

Minimum requirements

Experience in managing complex app release cycles and multiple projects simultaneously.
Hands-on expertise in mobile app release operations (both Android/iOS), including knowledge about Google Play and App Store dashboards, tools and policies.
Technical knowledge about mobile development and CI/CD pipelines.
Experience with release management tools (Jira, GitHub)
Excellent communication skills to effectively collaborate across teams and roles (across regions and multilingual is a plus)
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a keen attention to detail and the ability to anticipate and mitigate risks.
Business-level communication in English

Nice to have experiences/skills

Past experience as a mobile engineer (Android, iOS, mobile cross-platform preferred)
Experience working across countries.
Background in continuous process improvement methodologies
Proficiency in automation tools and some scripting languages (e.g., Python, Shell scripting)
Business-level communication in Japanese

Working condition

Office Location: Tokyo

Benefits

Annual health check covered by the company
Visa sponsorship and overseas relocation support available for eligible candidates

APPLY NOW ➜Japanese Required ⚠️

About SmartNews

Recently crowned Japan's latest tech unicorn, this company runs a wildly successful news service that’s powered by machine learning. It's an engineering-focused company (One of co-founders is an engineer) and they have offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Shanghai, Beijing that are apparently doing quite well too.

The mission of SmartNews is to discover and deliver quality stories to the world. Since its inception in 2012, the SmartNews app has been downloaded over 50 million downloads and maintained a monthly active user count of over 20 million.

In addition to being one of the most popular smartphone apps in Japan, SmartNews has worked hard on building their business in the US. They now have partnerships with over 300 major news publications in the US like CBS, Entertainment Weekly, Business Insider, National Geographic and more. They’ve had a great deal of success due to their ML-based sorting and recommendation systems.

SmartNews has a highly diverse development team with many world-class engineers and others working from their offices in Japan,China and the US. They maintain a very strict hiring bar for technical hires and an engineering-driven culture that makes them one of the strongest tech companies in Japan when it comes to technical skill level.

SmartNews is looking to hire the best people regardless of background, so they’re willing to hire people that don’t speak Japanese and (under normal circumstances) bring them to Japan from overseas if necessary. Everyone works together as one team regardless of location, and SmartNews provides everything their employees need to do their best work and maintains a Silicon Valley-inspired culture for engineers in Tokyo.

Japanese Language Policy
We do not require Japanese language ability in the working environment. We have a language support program if employees want to learn Japanese.
Visa Sponsorship
We support candidates to get a working visa from the start to the end (for JP office joiners).
Paid Leave
Our holidays shall include Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays, and other days designated by the Company.

Annual paid holidays
- 4-10 days of paid holiday will be granted depending on the month in which you join the Company.
- From the second year and onwards, paid holidays will be granted according to the number of years of your employment on April 1st of each year. The number of days granted shall be set forth in the Work Rules.
Other leaves
- Summer holidays
- Year-end and year-beginning holidays
- Special leave for congratulation or condolence (marriage or immediate family death)
- Sick/Injured Child Care Leave
- Family nursing care leave
- Maternity and paternity leave
Benefits
☕️ ChikyuCoffee - Delicious coffee provided by our Barista every day

🍹 Free soft drinks

🌽 SmartKitchen - Healthy organic lunch on a daily basis for free at our cafeteria

👩‍🎓 Foreign language development support

💜 Various social insurance benefits included

🏥 Health insurance

📓 Free book rent from our library collections

🌎 Translation/interpretation support (EN<>JP)
Remote Work
We accept work from home policy during natural disasters and emergency situations. Our company’s working policy during the pandemic follows the government’s recommendations.
Work style
Our engineering and product teams follow the discretionary labor system to better collaborate with members in the US and China.
Diversity
We support diversity in various ways and those are not simply reflected in the quantitative goals.

We have employees with 18 different nationalities. Groups of small gatherings with similar interests are actively communicating across divisions, departments, and regions. We have monthly Global All Hands to share important notes from each region and be aligned globally.

All employees in SmartNews have different personal and professional backgrounds and experiences.
Parents and Family
We are supporting our employees in various ways to help them manage their work better with family care.

We have 10 annual paid leaves (for a child) for employees with children until they enter highschool.

Working from home is encouraged when their family needs care. Employees can freely invite their family to the Smart Kitchen (our corporate kitchen where free lunches are served).

During the working from home period because of the pandemic, employees with small children autonomously held some online sessions for their children such as reading fairy tales and mutual online babysittings.