JD in Japanese follows. 英文の後に和文JDをご覧いただけます。 Product Manager(Metadata) - Mercari Marketplace Employment type: Full-time employee Work style: Flextime (no core hours) Location: Roppongi For details, please see the application guidelines on our careers site. About the Mercari Group Circulate all forms of value to unleash the potential in all people "With the earth's resources limited, what can we do to build a more abundant society?" In 2013, the flea market app "Mercari" was born out of this sense of purpose that founder Shintaro Yamada developed during a trip around the world. We believe that by circulating all forms of value—not limited to physical goods and money—we can expand everyone's options to realize what they want to do and to contribute to people and society. Through the power of technology we connect people around the world and work to realize a world in which the potential of all people can be unleashed. For the Mercari Group's direction, please see the Mercari Culture Doc . Organization / Team Mission In the Marketplace business, we aim to realize a global marketplace that creates new value—driving the growth of diverse businesses through the creation of user value. Starting with the operation of Mercari, Japan's largest flea-market service, we advance the Mercari Group's mission through our cross-border business and various new ventures. At Mercari, over one million items are listed every day. But if product data isn't properly structured, users can't find what they're looking for, and sellers can't deliver items at the right price. The Metadata team takes on the heart of this challenge. Through the design, construction, and quality improvement of categories, brands, product attributes, and catalog data, we raise the precision of every user touchpoint in the marketplace—search, recommendations, listing, price suggestions, and more. Under a development structure that assumes AI, we pursue both speed and the maximization of user value at the same time. Product Managers concentrate on the most important problem discovery (Discovery) and business outcomes (Outcome), and move the product forward in small, autonomous teams. For details on Mercari's mission and values, please see here . Responsibilities As a Product Manager, you will own everything from strategy to execution for the Metadata area (categories, brands, product attributes, and catalog data), leading a cross-functional team made up of engineers, designers, data analysts, and others. Under an AI-powered development structure, you will take end-to-end ownership and drive everything from problem discovery to business outcomes. Key Responsibilities 1. Define the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the metadata platform Define the ideal state of each type of metadata, and establish a 1–3 year vision and an actionable roadmap Based on market and competitive trends and quantitative/qualitative data, decide the priorities most directly tied to business growth while building alignment with leadership and related divisions Design KPIs and build a monitoring structure 2. Continuously improve metadata quality Based on the ideal state, plan concrete improvement initiatives for each type of metadata; partner with project managers and operations teams to design data schemas and deliver them incrementally Define metrics for metadata quality and build mechanisms that automatically improve quality using AI and other technologies 3. Build and expand catalog data Select and evaluate external data sources (partner companies, data providers, etc.), and lead business discussions and contract negotiations in collaboration with business teams Partner with project managers and operations teams to define the mapping policy between acquired data and Mercari's existing master data 4. Lead product development Coordinate requirements with engineering teams, manage the backlog, and set priorities Design and evaluate effectiveness validation, and manage releases 5. Collaboration with stakeholders Coordinate requirements and decide priorities with related teams that leverage metadata, such as the Search/Recommendation team, cross-border commerce, and new businesses Report to and build alignment with leadership Examples of tools used on the job General chat / generative AI : Gemini, Claude Knowledge QA / research support : Notion AI, NotebookLM (upload documents + Q&A) Development support (code completion / coding agents / IDE) : Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Devin, Codex, Gemini Code Assist Workflow automation / AI app development (no-code / low-code) : n8n, Dify Unique Challenges Mercari's metadata is the foundation that influences every function of the service—search, recommendations, listing, price suggestions, and more. Decisions in this position have a direct and significant impact on the entire marketplace's revenue, the user experience, and the growth of new businesses. Much of this area is still untouched, and the large amount of white space is part of its appeal. There's a real thrill in designing the optimal data structure for product groups with very different data characteristics by category—trading cards, home appliances, fashion, ACGE (anime, comics, games, entertainment), and more. Unlike major e-commerce players, our base is one-of-a-kind items, so you can take on the unique challenges that come with that. Beyond building the data platform, you can work with broad discretion—planning and driving new in-app experiences that start from data (e.g., optimizing listing information through catalog-based listing, or improving the search experience using structured data). You can also be involved in business areas that go beyond product development, such as negotiations and contracts with external companies and decisions around data procurement. Today, building each type of metadata still relies on manual work. There is significant room to fundamentally transform this process using AI, making it a rewarding and challenging theme. Requireme