MTC2018 - Introduction to the Corporate Solutions Engineering

Speaker: Sotaro Karasawa

Mercari has a Corporate Solutions Engineering Team for solving the challenges faced in managing the company. In this session, Karasawa will introduce the activities of his team, the kinds of challenges they are trying to resolve, how they go about developing products to overcome these challenges, and the fundamental philosophy behind what they do.

Transcript

1. Introduction to the Corporate Solutions Engineering Sotaro Karasawa Manager (CSE)
2. An Introduction to Corporate Solutions Engineering
3. Manager CSE Sotaro Karasawa
4. Corporate Solutions Engineering at Mercari
5. Corporate Solutions Engineering “Solving business challenges with engineering”
6. The Origins of CSE 1 member/1 field • Launched Corporate Engineering as a way of tackling organizational challenges • Welcomed 2 new members in January and launched an MVP of Reviews 2017/11 8 members/1 field • Reviews officially launched • Launched Teams at the same time as a core part of Reviews. Began operation of these services. 2018/04 20 members/4 fields • Changed the team name to CSE, hired more members involved in more fields • Set our mission as solving business challenges with engineering 2018/09
7. Accounting system, consolidated accounts, and accounting audit reports What CSE Looks Like Now Teams: a database of people and teams Reviews: an HR evaluation tool People Products Corporate website PR & Branding Wiki and Slack coordination Accounting Products Communication & Knowledge
8. Teams • A database of people and teams that forms the foundation for all other related applications • A snapshot of report lines
9. Reviews • Setting OKRs, self evaluation, manager evaluation, 360 degree reviews, calibration, feedback • Comprehensive support for the evaluation cycle Performance Review Peer Review OKR Feedback Calibration Review Cycle
10. Teams, Reviews, and People Products Teams Talent Pool ATS Review Cycle Career Development Offer Wait for Join/ Onboarding Resign • Collect data in Teams. In-house system authentication/data platform • API coordination with existing SaaS
11. What is Corporate Solutions Engineering?
12. Corporate Solutions Engineering “Solving business challenges with engineering”
13. Corporate Solutions Engineering “Inventing fundamental solutions for challenges faced by the company that, once implemented lead to long-term improvements, and materializing these solutions with finesse and expertise”
14. The Role of CSE in a Company
15. The Role of CSE in a Company • Responsible for developing and operating the very product that drives the growth of a business • In other words, developing products seen by users • This is the most important thing and without it a company can’t exist Product Development • Responsible for incorporating fundamental solutions for challenges outside of the main business • Developing products that aren’t seen by users • Things that may not even be necessary unless the company is a certain scale CSE
16. The Value of Doing this In-house • We attack the roots, not the branches ◦ If you are only interested in trimming the branches, it would be faster to use an existing SaaS • The best environment for dogfooding • Possible to start from a true MVP
17. The Origins of CSE and Anti-patterns
18. When we decided to start CSE...
19. A Minimal Start and MVP The first challenge to tackle The time we need to solve it The definition of MVP
20. Examples at Mercari ~ The Origins of CSE • In the past we used an SaaS tool for managing evaluation... • HR evaluation ◦ “How do we want to evaluate people?” ◦ The ardent philosophies of management We decided to make tools in-house to deal quickly with any changes to the evaluation system and avoid tools becoming restrictions
21. CSE Anti-patterns
22. CSE Anti-pattern (1) “Handyman” • Can this be automated? • When engineers enter a field that didn’t exist in the engineering organization before, an endless list of things they want to do awaits • There’s endless demand for the automation of superficial changes → We become unable to tackle the root of problems
23. CSE Anti-pattern (2) “You guys just want to make stuff” • Can’t you use SaaS for that...? • It's crucial to master the tools at your disposal or understand and focus on what you want to achieve from the outset ◦ e.g. Evaluation management tools, ATS → Resources (time, people, money) are limited
24. From MVP to the Next Phase • From a 0→1 product launch to the product improvement phase • Building team structures • Product improvements ◦ Interviews with people of all positions ◦ Retrospective questionnaire ◦ Customer journey map workshop
25. Customer Journey Map Workshop ref. https://mercan.mercari.com/entry/2018/07/26/203626
26. The Tech Behind CSE
27. The Structure of Teams and Reviews User Cloud SQL (MySQL) React + Redux API (Go) Frontend (SPA) Backend (Microservices Platform) REST Sentry DataDog PagerDuty
28. Go - Backend Go For the API server Framework for REST (to be made public) • Type • Hot new trend for Backend at the company For tools to cover operations (a temporary measure) PHP
29. JavaScript - Frontend React/Redux Frontend Single Page Application • Full-fledged ecosystem, volume of information • Knowledge of members UI Framework • Reviews: Bootstrap 4 + Reactstrap • Teams: Ant Design Redux-actions Flow
30. Handling Sensitive Data • Salary and evaluation information... • Development using information that even the product development teams and SRE don’t have access to Before • Limiting admin privileges • Saving the operations log • Providing tools to admins • Reviewing queries for operations Now • Encryption of data • Protecting data from operational mistakes and abuse
31. Sensitive Data and Encryption Cloud SQL (MySQL) API (Go) Server-side encryption/ decryption Cloud KMS Encrypted data Browser Raw/decrypted data Store private key Even with SELECT queries
32. The Road to Encryption Data migration Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Columns for both raw data and encrypted data Use only encrypted data Delete all raw data
33. The Future of CSE
34. The Future of CSE • Recognition of CSE • Sharing best practices • Common concerns • Making challenges abstract • ... • Define CSE as a new engineering organization in the industry • Share the very tools themselves...
35. Conclusion
36. Conclusion • Today I discussed... ◦ What CSE is, fundamental solutions, what to do if you’re starting out, and tech • If you want to learn more about CSE, visit our booth ◦ Drop by and say hi! (If you have any questions, feel free to ask us there)