Senior Data Engineer

Tokyo
Remote OK - Anywhere in Japan
Full-time
December 12, 2024

Are you looking

To make meaningful changes at the fastest-growing tech company in Japan?
For a fair, highly flexible, inclusive working environment where anyone, regardless of their background, can make an impact?
To build the next bold idea in customer acquisition and revenue growth through conversational commerce technology
For a place where things are not just fast - but they happen now?

We Are Zeals - “Designing conversations. Driving conversions.”

Zeals is not another chatbot. Our automated chat solution and conversational technology change how consumers purchase or act online. Zeals converts customers who appear "unengaged" to become "valuable" through designed chat on Messaging Apps. Using AI-powered, human-designed conversation flows across chat platforms, Zeals enables brands to build personalized, automated conversations with their consumers and develop a deeper understanding of their preferences while creating a delightful, seamless shopping experience. Our last 3 years have been phenomenal. We have captured the heart of many businesses in Japan, with over 480 enterprises relying on our chat commerce offering to boost their mobile business.

The goal is simple: to “revolutionize hospitality on the Internet” by unlocking digital customer service experiences that were limited to physical stores previously.

Just Getting Started…

With more than 480 enterprise companies worldwide already utilizing our product, we are perfectly poised to seize market share and fuel exponential growth in the US market, with an eye on global expansion. Investors have taken note of our potential, leading us to recently secure nearly $40 million in funding, backed by Salesforce Ventures.

Your Typical Day With Us

As a Senior Data Engineer, you will be a key player in our data engineering team, responsible for designing, building, and maintaining our data pipelines and infrastructure. You will work on transforming raw data into structured formats to support advanced analytics and reporting. Your work will ensure the smooth ingestion, transformation, and organization of data in our data lakehouse so that it’s ready for data analysts to consume and transform into actionable dashboards and reports. We’re searching for someone with at least 5 years of experience in data engineering.

Your day-to-day responsibilities will include:

Design, develop, and optimize data pipelines to ingest data into our data lakehouse.
Implement and manage ETL processes using Google Cloud Composer, Dataproc, and dbt.
Develop data transformations within a medallion architecture (bronze, silver, gold layers).
Collaborate with data analysts, data scientists, and business stakeholders to understand data requirements.
Implement data quality checks and monitoring.
Monitor and optimize the performance of BigQuery datasets and queries.
Document processes, designs, and architectural decisions.
Design and develop a read-optimized data warehouse layer.
Troubleshoot daily reporting pipelines
Conducting code reviews and providing mentorship to junior engineers.

What You’ll Need

5+ years of experience in data engineering or related roles.
Strong analytical skills with the ability to manipulate and interpret complex datasets.
Proficiency in SQL and experience with databases such as MySQL and BigQuery.
Experience in both Python and Scala is preferred
Knowledge of dbt is a must
Experience with data platforms like Airflow, Dataproc, Great Expectations.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams.
Demonstrated ability to work independently and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
English proficiency is a must. Conversational Japanese is nice to have.

What Makes You Stand Out

Japanese language proficiency at a business or native level which allows you to liaise with our primarily Japan-based users
Understanding of cultural differences
Knowledge and experience in chatbots, AI, marketing, and SaaS products

Don’t Just Take Our Word For It

Zeals has received the LinkedIn Top Startups award twice in a row. We believe this is a testament to our growth and our ability to attract great talents–who could potentially be your colleagues!

Our Tech Stack

Backend Languages: Go, Python, Elixir
Frontend Languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (TypeScript, React.js, Recoil, Zod, Tanstack, etc)
Mobile Languages: None
Infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform, GCP Pub/Sub, Kubernetes, MongoDB, MySQL, Postgres, BigQuery, Elasticsearch, Qdrant
Configuration management tool: Terraform
CI/CD: Github Actions, ArgoCD, CircleCI
Monitoring: Grafana, GCP Cloud Monitoring, GCP Logging, GCP Cloud Trace, Opsgenie
Data: BigQuery, Parquet, Spark, Scala, Python, dbt
Knowledge Tools: Confluence
Other: GitHub / Slack / Jira
Process: Scrum

Ready To Roll Up Our Sleeves

We obsess over bringing hospitality to everyone–be it our customers or you! You’re an individual with unique needs. So, while we can’t attract you with ping-pong tables or all-you-can-drink espresso bars, we promise you a once-in-a-lifetime experience and co-workers that you can brag about to your friends, family, or anyone you meet the next time you go out for a party! As an employer, we are ready to roll up our sleeves and change the status quo if it means to make your experience better!

Salary Range: competitive (performance review every 6 months)
Performance review: twice a year
Holidays: 10 days paid holidays during the first year, weekends off, national holidays, summer and winter break.
Visa support: We sponsor visas for the right candidates. You can expect full visa support from our professional HR team.
Flexible working: Highly flexible, remote-first international organization

For Japan residents: Work from anywhere, interim work from overseas, full flex time

Housing allowance (within 1.5KM away from office)
Club activity allowance
Shuffle Lunch allowance (Cross department lunch)
Zeals Bar (bi-monthly free-flow beer party)

APPLY NOW ➜

About Zeals

The #1 Japanese Conversational Commerce Solution.

ZEALS is not another chatbot. They are the #1 Japanese conversational commerce solution. Using AI-powered, human-designed conversation flows across chat platforms, ZEALS enables brands to build personalized, automated conversations with their consumers and develop a deeper understanding of their preferences while creating a delightful, seamless shopping experience.

Phenomenal Growth
Having nearly doubled revenue YOY the last few years, targeting a 290B TAM, ZEALS benefits from a strong product market fit, clear ROI tied to their solution, and high customer retention rates. With over 480+ enterprise companies currently using their product globally, including well-known brands like L’Oreal and Nissan, ZEALS is well positioned to capture market share and drive exponential growth both in the Japan and US market as their next target region. Investors have taken notice – they raised nearly $40M and were backed by Salesforce Ventures in May of 2022, and they are planning to use these funds to continue their aggressive investment in both technology and people.

ZEALS is Revolutionizing Hospitality on the Internet
ZEALS enables consumers to purchase and reserve products via a well-designed conversational experience. The goal is simple: to “revolutionize hospitality on the Internet,” unlocking digital customer service experiences that used to be limited to physical stores previously. By allowing customers to converse about their purchase before making it, purchase rates are increased by about 5 times, driving a 9.6% average conversion rate across 1.5 million monthly active users. ZEALS’ service is widely adopted across verticals including ecommerce/DTC, travel, cosmetics, fitness and fintech.

Won LinkedIn Top Startups Award Twice in a Row
ZEALS has received the LinkedIn Top Startups award twice in a row. They believe this is a testament to their growth and ability to attract great talents–who could potentially be your colleagues!

Opportunities to Socialize
ZEALS provide a club activity allowance, a “shuffle lunch” allowance for having cross-departmental lunches, and ZEALS Bar, free flowing beer party.

Japanese Language Policy
At ZEALS, the product and technology team members primarily speak English (dev-related discussions happen in English on Github or Slack). There might be occasional discussions in Japanese, but most Slack messages are in English (or both languages).

As for meetings, all dev-related discussions take place in English. Given the above, Japanese skills are not required for most positions in the Product & Technology departments. However, one unique aspect of ZEALS’ culture is the desire to increase teamwork and engage with each other, which is why many Japanese members are working on their English skills while many non-Japanese members also work to improve their Japanese skills.

In order to build a truly global team, ZEALS has many multilingual members that proactively support the rest of the team to ensure smooth communications.

Even outside of the Product & Technology departments, all important company-wide announcements are made in both English and Japanese. For example, hiring announcements, new product launches etc. are generally announced in both Japanese and English.

Also, simultaneous interpretation for presentations at large meetings and events is provided to ensure that everyone gets the information they need.
Paid Leave
- All Japanese public holidays off
- 10 days of PTO (awarded 3 months after joining)
- Summer Holidays, Year-end Holidays, Childcare Leave, Congratulations/Bereavement Leave
Benefits
Here are some examples of the benefits which full-time employees can receive:

💻 Loaned Laptops

👩‍🏫 Udemy E-Learning Support & Frontend Masters🇯🇵 Translation Support (EN<>JP)

👶 Shorter Work Hours for Employees Taking Care of Children

👶 Parental Leave

👕 Flexible Dress Code

🏠 Rent Allowance

💜 Social Security / Insurance Benefits Included

🏥 Healthcare Insurance, Periodic Health Checks

💚 Pension Insurance

🚃 Commuter Reimbursement
Remote Work
Although ZEALS requires you to either be in or relocate to Japan, once you’re here, you can choose whether you work from home or in the office.
- Full-time employees in Japan can work from home or come to the office. Transportation reimbursement to and from the office is available and people living close to the office can receive a housing allowance.
- If you’re not based in Japan yet, you can work from overseas while we help you obtain a Japanese working visa.
Work style
ZEALS is flexible when it comes to working hours. They have core time from 1:00pm to 3:00pm JST, but otherwise you’re free to set up your day however you want to meet the monthly working hour requirements.
Values

FROM ZEAL

< Passion >
Good things come from giving it your all

BET ON PARADOX

< Unorthodox >
Never settle for the established norm

UNITED WILL

< Team >
Teamwork is the heart of achievement

Office

The ZEALS office is in the heart of Tokyo, situated in Meguro, near Gajoen, a famous hotel known for hospitality. You can work from the office at a desk as well as use small booths or meeting rooms. You can hook your laptop to large screens and sit in Ergohuman chairs. Lounge areas and standing tables are also available. Everyone is free to choose the work style that works best for them, either full-remote or in the office.