Senior Design Manager - Mercari Marketplace (Commerce New Service)
- Employment Status: Full-time
- Work Hours: Full Flextime (no core time)
- Office: Roppongi
For more details, see the Overview of Our Positions section on our Careers site.
About Mercari
Circulate all forms of value to unleash the potential in all people
"What can I do to help society thrive with the finite resources we have?" The Mercari marketplace app was born in 2013 out of this thought by our founder Shintaro Yamada as he traveled the world. We believe that by circulating all forms of value, not just physical things and money, we can create opportunities for anyone to realize their dreams and contribute to society and the people around them. Mercari aims to use technology to connect people all over the world and create a world where anyone can unleash their potential. For more information about Mercari Group’s mission, see Mercari’s Culture Doc
Organization/Team Mission
The New Business Design Team leads end-to-end user experience design for emerging product initiatives at Mercari, shaping intuitive, trustworthy, and high-quality experiences for domestic and international users. We partner closely with Product, Engineering, Research, and Business Development to explore new problem spaces and raise the bar for craft, consistency, and innovation.
新規事業デザインチームは、メルカリの新興プロダクト領域におけるエンドツーエンドのユーザー体験デザインをリードします。国内外のユーザーに対して直感的で信頼でき、高品質な体験を創造します。プロダクト、エンジニアリング、リサーチ、ビジネス開発と緊密に連携し、新しい課題領域を探索し、職人技、一貫性、革新の水準を高めます。
See here for more information about our mission and values.
Why this role matters
This leadership role shapes both the strategic direction of design and the capabilities of the design team for new business initiatives at Mercari. As we expand into new product spaces, we need a Senior Design Manager who can build and lead a design practice from the ground up, establish design excellence standards, and drive meaningful collaboration across functions.
You'll operate with autonomy and ownership over design strategy, team growth, and product outcomes. Your leadership will directly influence how new business ventures succeed at Mercari and how design contributes to revenue, user trust, and satisfaction.
This role matters because strong design leadership creates leverage: it unlocks better product strategy, stronger cross-functional collaboration, more durable experiences, and a team invested in their growth. We're looking for leaders who combine design excellence with people leadership, strategic thinking with execution discipline, and the ability to build culture while shipping products that matter.
このポジションは、メルカリの新規事業向けデザインの戦略方向性を定め、デザインチームの能力を構築するリーダーシップ職です。新しいプロダクト領域への拡大に伴い、ゼロからデザイン体制を構築・リードし、デザイン卓越性の基準を確立し、機能横断的なコラボレーションを推進できるシニアデザインマネージャーが必要です。
あなたはデザイン戦略、チーム成長、成果に対して自律性と所有権をもって職務を遂行します。新規事業の成功、および売上成長、ユーザー信頼、満足度へのデザインの貢献は、あなたのリーダーシップに直接的に左右されます。
強力なデザインリーダーシップは、優れたプロダクト戦略、強固な機能横断的コラボレーション、耐久性のある体験、そしてチーム成員の継続的な成長をもたらします。当社が求めるのは、デザイン卓越性と組織マネジメント力、戦略的思考と実行力を備え、影響力のあるプロダクトを創出しながら強いチーム文化を構築できるリーダーです。
Work Responsibilities
- Develop and mentor individual designers through design critiques, feedback, and coaching on craft to support career growth.
- Own design strategy and direction across assigned product initiatives, translating business and market opportunities into compelling experience strategies.
- Lead design decisions through strong systems thinking, research integration, and user-centered rationale; communicate design strategy and vision to cross-functional partners.
- Collaborate deeply with Product, UXR, and Business Development to shape strategy, influence roadmaps, and ensure design excellence in execution.
- Collaborate across new business domains and with other design leads and stakeholders to ensure experiences align, build on shared learning, and prevent silos.
- Drive design scalability by building design systems, patterns, and processes that enable efficiency and consistency across multiple initiatives.
- Manage design resources, timeline priorities, and cross-project allocation to maximize team impact and business outcomes.
- Represent design perspective in business strategy discussions and contribute to go-to-market planning for new product launches.
- デザインクリティークとフィードバック、職人技指導を通じて個々のデザイナーを育成・メンタリングし、キャリア成長をサポート
- 割り当てられたプロダクト領域のデザイン戦略と方向性を所有し、ビジネス・市場機会を説得力のある体験戦略に翻訳
- システム思考、リサーチ統合、ユーザー中心の根拠を用いてデザイン決定をリード。戦略とビジョンを機能横断的パートナーに伝える
- プロダクト、UXR、ビジネス開発と連携し、戦略を形成し、ロードマップに影響を与え、実行時のデザイン卓越性を確保
- 新規事業領域全体およびその他のデザインリード・ステークホルダーとの連携を通じ、体験の一貫性を保ち、学習を共有し、サイロ化を防止
- デザインシステム、パターン、プロセスを構築することで、複数の取り組み全体における効率性と一貫性を実現
- デザインリソース、スケジュール優先度、クロスプロジェクト配分をマネジメントし、チームのインパクトとビジネス成果を最大化
- ビジネス戦略ディスカッションでデザイン視点を代弁し、新規プロダクト立上時のGTMプランニングに貢献
Unique Challenges
- Leading design with high ambiguity and evolving business models across multiple emerging initiatives.
- Building team capabilities and processes while simultaneously executing on time-sensitive initiatives and maintaining design excellence standards.
- Balancing speed of iteration with craft quality and design consistency across domains while respecting domain-specific needs.
- Making critical resource and prioritization decisions across multiple initiatives based on priority and intuition.
- Navigating organizational complexity, cross-team dependencies, and growing design agency and ownership through ambiguity and change.
- 複数の新興プロダクト領域において、高い不確実性と進化するビジネスモデルの中でデザインをリード
- チーム能力とプロセスを構築する一方で、時間的制約のある取り組みを実行し、デザイン基準を維持
- 反復速度と職人技、領域横断的デザイン一貫性のバランスを取りながら、領域固有の要件を尊重
- 複数の取り組みにおいて、優先度と判断に基づいて重大なリソース配分を決定
- 不確実性と変化の中で、組織の複雑性とチーム間の依存関係をナビゲートし、デザインの主体性と所有権を拡大
Qualifications
- Required Experience/Skills
- 7+ years of experience in product design, UX leadership, or related fields, with demonstrated progression into management roles.
- Proven success leading and developing design teams—hiring, mentoring, performance management, and building team culture.
- Strong craft skills across UX, interaction design, and visual design with a sharp eye for detail and quality; portfolio demonstrating high-quality shipped work and design leadership.
- Experience leading design strategy in complex or ambiguous problem spaces and translating strategy into compelling experiences.
- Track record of influencing product direction, business strategy, and cross-functional decisions through design thinking and storytelling.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills with strong understanding of design systems, scalable patterns, and design infrastructure; ability to represent design perspective to senior leadership and manage resources, timelines, and cross-project allocation.
- プロダクトデザイン、UXリーダーシップ、または関連分野での7年以上の経験を有し、マネジメント職への昇進が実績で示されていること
- デザインチームの構築・育成における実績：採用、メンタリング、パフォーマンスマネジメント、チーム文化の構築
- UX、インタラクションデザイン、ビジュアルデザイン全般における優れた職人技と細部・品質への目利き。高品質の実績のある作品とデザインリーダーシップを示すポートフォリオ
- 複雑・曖昧な課題領域でのデザイン戦略リード経験および戦略を説得力のある体験に翻訳する能力
- デザイン思考とストーリーテリングを通じた、プロダクト方向性、ビジネス戦略、機能横断的意思決定への影響実績
- 優れたコミュニケーションおよび協働スキル、デザインシステム、スケーラブルなパターン、デザインインフラストラクチャについての深い理解。シニアリーダーシップへのデザイン視点の代弁、リソース・スケジュール・クロスプロジェクト配分のマネジメント能力
- Preferred Experience/Skills
- Experience scaling design or building design teams from early stage to maturity.
- Background designing marketplace, e-commerce, or transaction-based products; experience launching or scaling new business initiatives.
- Familiarity with user research methods and demonstrated ability to apply research insights to design strategy.
- Understanding of both international and Japanese domestic user needs, cultural nuance, and trust dynamics.
- Comfort with experimentation, rapid prototyping, and learning in uncertain environments; ability to make decisions with incomplete information.
- Track record of building and shipping products that drive business value and user impact.
- デザイン組織をスケールした、またはデザインチームを初期段階から成熟段階へ構築した経験
- マーケットプレイス、eコマース、取引ベースのプロダクト設計経験。新規事業領域の立上・スケール経験
- ユーザーリサーチ手法についての知見およびリサーチインサイトをデザイン戦略に適用した能力
- 国内外のユーザーニーズ、文化的ニュアンス、信頼ダイナミクスについての理解
- 試験、高速プロトタイピング、不確実な環境での学習への適応。不完全な情報での意思決定能力
- ビジネス価値とユーザーインパクトを生み出すプロダクトの構築・提供実績
- Language
- English: Independent (CEFR – B2) Preferred
- Japanese: Independent (CEFR – B2) Preferred
For details about CEFR, see here.
Learn More About Mercari Group
- Careers site:
- Mercan:
- Social media: X / Linkedin
Recruiting at Mercari
At Mercari Group, we value empathizing with and embodying the mission and values of the Group and each company. To promote the creation of an organization that maximizes the total amount of value exhibited by all members, we would like to understand the experience and skills of each candidate as accurately as possible.
Recruiting cycle at Mercari Group
- Application screening
- Skill assessment: For engineering positions, you will be asked to complete a skill assessment on HackerRank or GitHub. For non-engineering positions, you may be asked to complete an assessment depending on the position. (The timing of the assessment may coincide with the interview process.)
- Interview: The number of interviews may vary depending on the position.
- Reference check: We will ask for online references around the timing of the final interview.
- Offer: Offers will be determined carefully in consideration of the final interview and the reference check.
Learn more about our recruiting process here.
Equal Opportunity Hiring
Here at Mercari, we work to realize a world in which no one’s potential is limited by their background and everyone has the opportunity to freely create value. We also firmly believe that a mindset of Inclusion & Diversity is essential for us to achieve our mission.
This, of course, extends to our hiring practices as well. Mercari is committed to eliminating discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, physical disability, and other such factors so that anyone who shares our mission and values can join us, regardless of their background. For more details, please read our I&D statement.
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