Design Manager - Mercari Marketplace

Salary not provided

Japanese only

English: FluentJapanese: Fluent

Minimum year of experience: 2

Work Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end design hands-on in key areas, while holding overall accountability for experience quality across your scope
Define the experience direction and design quality bar across the Marketplace, and continuously improve them by building out patterns and critique processes with the design system team
Decide what to prioritize among ambiguous business and user problems, and steer the team toward a clear experience strategy
Shape team composition and designer assignments, and take responsibility for overall team performance and health
Lead designer hiring and design the onboarding experience, and support each member's growth and career development through feedback and performance reviews
Partner closely with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, and UX Researchers to shape product direction and influence the roadmap
Identify problems and opportunities beyond your immediate scope, and proactively propose new ideas, concepts, and improvements

Owning experience quality across buyer and seller journeys in a marketplace used by tens of millions and expanding globally.
Deciding who takes on which unexplored product areas, and leading the team into high ambiguity with few precedents.
Building the systems that let the team balance speed, experimentation, and innovation with a high bar for craft, trust, and usability.
Shaping how a growing design organization works, from team composition and hiring to growth and process, while continuing to lead design yourself.
Building a team that designs for the Japanese market with strong attention to cultural nuance, trust, and clarity.
Raising the team's AI fluency from very different starting points, without lowering the bar for craft.

2+ years of design management experience.
Strong design skills across UX, interaction, and visual design, with a sharp eye for detail and craft.
Experience leading design in complex or ambiguous problem spaces, and shaping product direction through concept development and storytelling.
Deep understanding of design systems, scalable patterns, and maintaining consistency across large-scale products.
Experience raising the quality of a team's output through feedback and mentorship.

6+ years of professional experience in product design or UX design, owning end-to-end experiences.
Design experience with marketplaces, e-commerce, or transactional products.
Experience growing designers into high-impact roles aligned with their strengths and aspirations.
Experience managing a design organization across multiple teams or product areas.
A portfolio or website showing your past design work.
Familiarity with user research methods and experience applying insights to design decisions.
Professional experience in the Japanese market, or experience designing products for it.
Comfort with experimentation, prototyping, and rapid iteration in high-uncertainty environments.
Experience contributing to designer hiring, such as defining role requirements, designing interview processes, or employer branding.
Uses AI tools in daily design work and has reshaped your own workflow around them, from exploration to prototyping.
Experience using AI tools in daily design work and reshaping your own workflow around them, from exploration to prototyping.