Tom
Bachelor of Informatics
Joined in 2019
Application Engineer / Assistant Manager
Rakuten Pay Service Operation Team
Rakuten Payment
What are your current responsibilities?
I am an assistant manager in the organization responsible for the system operation of Rakuten Pay. My specific tasks include service operation work, improving response processes, handling inquiries, and so on. Rakuten Pay is a payment method that integrates closely with our users' daily lives and must be provided as an infrastructure-level service. For that reason, should an unexpected system issue occur, I cooperate with the team and other departments to respond by quickly and accurately investigating its impact, analyzing its cause and providing instructions for system recovery. We provide daily support on the system operations side to ensure that Rakuten Pay remains a service that a wide range of users can trust and use with confidence.
Why did you join Rakuten?
With the expansion of cashless payments, services offered by Rakuten Pay and the industry as a whole are growing and evolving. Most recently, I have been catching up on operations that incorporate new system infrastructure technology. As the company grows rapidly, various challenges will emerge, but I believe there is also much room for growth and will continue pushing forward. For an application engineer on the development side like myself, the opportunity to work on operations at Rakuten Pay, with its high-traffic and critical payment infrastructure, is a valuable and dynamic experience that I continue to find exciting. Since college, I have always thought that English proficiency was essential to become an IT engineer. My efforts since then have paid off, as I am now able to work with colleagues from foreign countries in a global environment at Rakuten.
What has your career path been like, and how have you grown?
After joining the company, I worked on the development-side team in Rakuten Payment’s System Department. On this development-side team, I was able to experience the entire development process of Rakuten Pay: defining system requirements → development → IT → QA → release. After development and operations were split during organizational restructuring, I transferred to my current position on the operations team, where I am making excellent use of my experience from when I was on the development side. For example, when providing feedback from the operations side to the development side, I always take into consideration the perspective of someone on the development process side. In addition, when investigating causes of problems or responding to system inquiries, etc., I can handle the source code analysis on my own without asking for help from the development side. This transfer has broadened the scope of my work, and I feel that I am able to contribute more to my current role as a result.
What company communities or clubs do you actively participate in?
I attended Rakuten Technology Conference 2019 during my first year with the company. This is a self-organized tech event held once a year by employees in Rakuten's technology department, who are responsible for everything from planning to execution. High-profile engineers and researchers in technological fields from Japan and abroad are invited to give lectures and participate in panel discussions on advanced topics. I was in charge of the marketing of the event, as part of the executive committee. As part of promotional activities meant to increase the number of visitors, I gave presentations at Asakai, updated the blog, advertised in the company cafeteria, and handed out leaflets. This was a very valuable experience for me. I also started playing tennis through Rakuten Group's tennis club, and it has become a real passion for me. As part of the club's activities, I attended the Rakuten Open as a spectator.
SCHEDULE
- 09:00
- Group morning meeting. Review the rotation for today's system alert response with the team.
- 11:00
- Team morning meeting. Assign the right member to the right position to respond to inquiries and requests
- 12:00
- Service resilience meeting with the Chief Technology Officer. Have lunch at my desk, sometimes with members of the group.
- 13:30
- Handle system issues. Assign a member of the team to quickly resolve the issue.
- 14:30
- Operations consultation meeting for new development projects, followed by the group’s work improvement meeting.
- 15:30
- Work on reviewing materials related to the release. Meeting for handover of new development project operations.
- 16:30
- Team afternoon meeting. Manage team tasks and check in with each team member about their tasks.
- 17:30
- Leave the office. Sometimes have dinner at the office. Go to the gym for strength training on days off. Invite friends to join me for recreational tennis practice.
*This article is based on information provided at the time of the interview.
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- Applications Engineer
- Infrastructure Engineer
- Data Scientist / Researcher
- Security Engineer
- Information Security / Privacy Governance Specialist
- Technology Management
- Product Management
- Development Support（Q&A, etc.)