Senior Manager

Job Description:

Rakuten International is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc., a Japanese global technology leader in services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California with more than 4,000 employees worldwide, the Rakuten International business portfolio includes market leaders in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, communications and entertainment. We create products and services that provide exceptional value by aligning members and the businesses that want to engage them in a shared community. 

Rakuten is a leading shopping platform that offers Cash Back on purchases from your favorite brands. By partnering with thousands of brands in apparel, beauty and wellness, dining, grocery, travel, on-demand services, subscription boxes, and more, Rakuten helps members save and get more on everyday purchases. Since its founding in 1999, Rakuten has become the largest and most rewarding shopping program, and its members have earned $4.6 billion in Cash Back just for shopping through Rakuten. For more information, visit Rakuten.com.

Job Summary

We’re seeking a Senior Product Design Manager to lead a high-performing team of growth designers supporting the Acquisition, Search, Discovery, and Retention initiatives. In this role, you'll oversee strategy and design of features that attract new users, engage existing ones, and aid them in their product and store discovery. You’ll be responsible for the quality of the design work, the optimization of team processes, and the growth and development of your team.

You’ll partner closely with cross-functional stakeholders to define and execute strategic initiatives across multiple squads. Reporting to the VP of Product Design, and collaborating with leaders in Research and Design Systems, you’ll help evolve our design practice while ensuring member needs align with business goals. You’ll also play a critical role in fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and design excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

• Craft the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the squads, in close collaboration with your cross-functional leaders, aligning business objectives with member-centered problems.

• Lead and mentor a team of 4 product designers across multiple squads. Dedicate time to mentor and coach them, helping them up-level their skills and outputs.

• Drive design direction and uphold quality: guide the overall design direction, ensuring quality without compromising speed. Understand when it is needed for you to be hands-on in the design work and when to step back.

• Foster healthy relationships across Design, Product, Engineering, and Growth Marketing, maintaining collaboration across teams that work on overlapping experiences.

• Lead and participate in the design process from concept through delivery, facilitating design critiques, whiteboarding sessions, and workshops to fuel innovation.

• Support hiring and team growth, providing feedback and insights on performance, team dynamics, and career progression.

• Champion a human-centered design culture across the organization, emphasizing collaboration, empathy, and craft.

Qualifications:

• Proven track record of advocating for user needs while balancing business priorities.

• Strong experience in concept development and visual storytelling—from storyboards to user flows to prototypes across various fidelities.

• Keen attention to detail, with a solid foundation in interaction design and visual design principles.

• Experience leading design research efforts, including competitive analysis, user interviews, and synthesis.

• Comfortable communicating design strategies and rationale across a range of audiences, including executive leadership and the C-suite.

• Strong skills in project management, prioritization, and collaboration in a cross-functional environment.

• Demonstrated ability to stay current with industry trends and translate them into actionable insights for your team.

• Proficiency in modern design tools (e.g., Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, etc.)

• Background in e-commerce or two-sided marketplaces, with a mobile-first mindset.

• Experience in Growth Design, particularly in driving user acquisition, activation, engagement, and retention.

Minimum Requirements:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant design field such as Product Design, UX, or Interaction Design.

• Experience: 10+ years of experience in product design, including at least 3 years managing design teams.

• Portfolio: Strong portfolio that showcases a breadth of product design work, delivered to market, reflecting strong understanding of the user-centered design process, as well as leadership challenges.

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Five Principles for Success
Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.

Always improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen
Passionately Professional - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best
Hypothesize - Practice - Validate – Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory
Maximize Customer Satisfaction - The greatest satisfaction for our teams is seeing their customers smile
Speed!! Speed!! Speed!! - Always be conscious of time - take charge, set clear goals, and engage your team

At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the base compensation for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for discretionary bonus, health, vision, dental insurance, 401k matching, PTO, Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements.