Senior Product Designer - Marketplace / Mercari

本ポジションは日本語JDの用意がありません。

Senior Product Designer - Marketplace / Mercari

• 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

In the Marketplace Design Team, we lead end-to-end user experience design for buyers in Japan by shaping intuitive, trustworthy, and high-quality shopping experiences. We partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Research to explore new problem spaces, define experience direction, and raise the bar for craft, consistency, and innovation across the marketplace.

See here for more information about our mission and values.

　
Why this role matters 

This role plays a critical part in shaping how buyers experience Mercari at scale. As the marketplace evolves, we’re entering new problem spaces where clarity, trust, and experience quality matter more than ever. Senior Designers in this role don’t just execute solutions — they help define the problems worth solving and set the bar for what “good” looks like.

You’ll be trusted to operate with a high degree of ownership, leading end-to-end experiences in ambiguous areas while balancing user needs, business goals, and long-term product quality. Your work will directly influence how buyers discover value, make confident decisions, and build trust with the marketplace.

This role matters because strong design leadership here creates leverage: it unlocks better collaboration, sharper product thinking, and more durable experiences that scale beyond a single feature or release. We’re looking for designers who care deeply about craft, can think beyond the immediate task, and want to shape the future of the buyer experience in Japan.

　
Work Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end design for buyer-facing experiences, from discovery and problem framing through execution and launch.
• Act as Lead Designer for assigned product areas, setting experience direction and design quality standards.
• Translate ambiguous business and user problems into clear experience strategies, flows, and high-quality UI.
• Drive design decisions through strong craft, systems thinking, and user-centered rationale.
• Collaborate deeply with PM, Eng, and UXR to shape product direction and influence roadmaps.
• Identify gaps and opportunities beyond the immediate scope and proactively propose new ideas, concepts, or improvements.
• Contribute to and evolve shared design systems, patterns, and best practices.
• Provide thoughtful feedback and mentorship to other designers, raising the overall quality of work.

　
Unique Challenges

• Designing for large-scale, real-world marketplace complexity with diverse buyer needs and behaviors.
• Leading design in unexplored or undisclosed product areas with high ambiguity and few precedents.
• Balancing speed, experimentation, and innovation with a high bar for craft, trust, and usability.
• Navigating cross-team and cross-function alignment while maintaining clear experience ownership.
• Designing for the Japanese market with strong attention to cultural nuance, trust, and clarity.

　
Qualifications

• Required Experience/Skills
• 6+ years of experience in product, UX, or interaction design with ownership of end-to-end experiences.
• Strong craft skills across UX, interaction design, and visual design, with a sharp eye for detail and quality.
• Proven ability to lead design for complex or ambiguous problem spaces.
• Experience influencing product direction through design thinking, concepts, and storytelling.
• Solid understanding of design systems, scalable patterns, and consistency at scale.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills with cross-functional partners.
• A portfolio demonstrating high-quality shipped work, problem-solving depth, and design leadership.
  
• Preferred Experience/Skills
• Experience designing marketplace, e-commerce, or transaction-based products.
• Experience acting as a lead designer across multiple teams or initiatives.
• Familiarity with user research methods and applying insights to design decisions.
• Experience working in or designing for the Japanese market.
• Comfort experimenting, prototyping, and iterating quickly in uncertain environments.
• Conversational Japanese proficiency preferred, but not required

• Language 
• English: Proficient (CEFR – C1)
• Japanese: NoIndependent (CEFR – B2)

For details about CEFR, see here.

　
Learn More About Mercari Group

• Careers site: https://careers.mercari.com/en/   
• Mercan: https://mercan.mercari.com/en/  
• 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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