Product Development Manager (New Business) / Team Lead

This full-time role manages product development for new businesses such as MAP AI, pensions, life insurance and financial education. The manager works with a product manager from the stage when requirements are still uncertain, defines hypotheses and MVP priorities, and drives validation through release.

Responsibilities include creating development plans, managing milestones, and controlling quality, cost and delivery schedules. The role coordinates requirements and agreements with external partners and internal departments, including legal and compliance. It also identifies team resource needs, helps write job descriptions, participates in hiring, operates the team transparently, and handles goal setting, one-to-one meetings and member development according to experience. The manager makes technical and design decisions that balance future extensibility with the speed needed for current validation.

The product manager leads customer-value definition and experience design, while a tech lead or senior engineer leads architecture. Writing all specifications or code is not required, although managers may participate in design and implementation according to their strengths and interests.

Required experience includes at least five years of practical development and operations experience with web applications of a certain scale, with no specific programming language required. Candidates must have defined requirements by discussing them with product managers and business teams before specifications were finalized, led projects through release while managing quality, cost and delivery, and assigned development members and determined ways of working that produced team results. Experience leading technology or engineering management for a new business, knowledge of pensions, insurance or asset management, early-stage development-team formation, and practical landing-page or frontend development experience are welcome.

The named technology stack includes Java and Spring Boot for backend development; TypeScript, JavaScript, Next.js, HTML and CSS for frontend development; AWS services including ECS, EKS, Lambda and API Gateway; Aurora MySQL; GitHub; Notion and Jira for project management; Confluence for documentation; Figma; GitHub Actions; and GitHub Copilot, Gemini and Notion AI for generative-AI use.

The new-business teams have approximately 10 to 15 members, with engineers, product managers and business staff discussing work together. The development organization has about 300 employees, around half of whom are engineers, and most systems, including internal business systems, are developed in-house. Managers receive support from their supervisors and other managers in areas where their management experience is limited.

The position is based in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Working hours use a flextime system with core hours from 10:00 to 16:00 and a 60-minute break, although some positions are not covered by flextime. Hybrid work combines at least three days per week in the office with working from home, subject to exceptions by assignment. Annual salary is JPY 9 million to JPY 16 million, paid in 12 monthly installments. Holidays include weekends, public holidays, year-end and New Year holidays, and company-designated leave. Social insurance, commuting allowance for direct employment, a defined-contribution pension, learning support, office amenities, team events and the choice of Mac or Windows are provided as stated in the posting.