Here at Rakuten Kobo Inc. we offer a casual working start-up environment and a group of friendly and talented individuals. Our employees rank us highly in terms of commitment to work/life balance. We realize that for our people to be innovative, creative and passionate they need to feel valued and supported. We believe in rewarding all our employees with competitive salaries, performance based annual bonuses, stock options and training opportunities.  

If you’re looking for a company that inspires passion, personal, and professional growth – join Kobo and come help us on our mission of making reading lives better.

The Role

Rakuten kobo Inc. is looking for a program manager with technical background & experience with hardware & NPI processes.

The individual will be managing multiple projects/programs, working closely with an agile cross-functional team of Hardware, Software, Product, Marketing, Supply Chain, etc. from initial concept, through development and launching kobo eReaders & accessories to in-store.
 

Key responsibilities

• An individual who is an excellent tasks organizer working with hardware, software, product, marketing, supply chain etc. who can motivate the project team in challenging circumstances and keep them accountable for project deliverables. 
• An individual who has an excellent communication skill at all levels of the organization I.e. not only communicating the high-level project update with the management but also capturing fine details from project teams,
• A project manager who has an ability to align different key stakeholders’ expectations and help to achieve the desire outcome.
• An individual who is an innovative and motivated person, able to lead a project team to identify and resolve risks and issues. Lead the project ownership of actions and initiatives, but also escalates quickly and effectively to other cross functional team leads/managers. 
• An individual who thinks critically and challenges assumptions to find better, more efficient ways to reach desired outcomes - bringing high quality, cost-effective products to market.
• Someone who can confidently move teams comprised of multiple stakeholders through project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and launch using a variety of processes and tools.
• Someone who can understand, assess, and communicate project risks, scope changes, and impacts on a consistent and ongoing basis.
• Is capable of leveraging project management processes and tools to define and execute projects, while achieving the project schedule and scope goals. 
• An individual who will be responsible managing multiple internal beta programs. Tasks including but not limited to organizing beta members meetings, feedback gathering and work with product, HW and SW development team to ensure these get logged and prioritized.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science or similar
• 3-5 years’ experience of project/program manager
• Intermediate to advanced communication and facilitation skills.
• Intermediate to advanced presentation skills. Demonstrated comfort in presenting to mid to senior level cross functional audiences.
• Demonstrated working knowledge of advanced concepts with program management approaches, tools, and methodologies.
• Demonstrated working knowledge/experience of technical business unit assigned to Hardware, Software, Business etc.
• Effective interpersonal skills including mentoring, coaching, collaborating, and team building.
• Strong analytical, planning, and organizational skills with an ability to manage competing demands.
• Proven ability to lead technology projects and ensure objectives / goals, and commitments are met.
• Creative approach to problem-solving with the ability to focus on details while maintaining the “big picture” view.
• PMP certification preferred.