An Introduction to Merpay for Global Engineers

#Merpay will be hosting its first English #OnlineEvent, "An Introduction to Merpay for Global Engineers" on November 6th, Wednesday at 11 am (JST)If you would like to know more about what its like to work at Merpay, a mobile payments service within the Mercari app

Transcript

1. 2 6th Nov 2019 An Introduction to Merpay for Global Engineers
2. 3 Talk session • 11:00-11:15(15min) ◦ Company introduction • 11:15-11:25(10min) ◦ Life in tokyo • 11:25-11:50(25min) ◦ Session on each position ▪ Backend/Android/Frontend/iOS/SRE • 11:50-12:00(10min) ◦ Hiring Process • 12:00-12:10(10min) ◦ Q＆A
3. 4 What is Mercari＆Merpay What is Mercari/Merpay
4. October 1st, 1991 
 Operation of football club 
 Fumiaki Koizumi 
 Management of Kashima Soccer Stadium 
 Higashiyama 2887, Aō, Kashima, Ibaraki 
 Company Overview Mercari, Inc.
 Founded
 Capital
 
 Main Business Activities
 
 Representative 
 
 Locations
 
 
 
 
 February 1st, 2013 
 69.5 billion JPY (including cap. reserve) 
 
 Planning, development, and operation of the Mercari marketplace app 
 
 Shintaro Yamada 
 
 Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-6118, Japan 
 
 Tokyo, Sendai, Fukuoka, Palo Alto, Portland, Boston 
 
 The Mercari Group is made up of Mercari, Inc., and it’s consolidated subsidiaries. 
 Founded
 Business 
 Representative 
 Locations
 November 20, 2017 
 New financial business 
 Naoki Aoyagi
 Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1 Roppongi, 
 Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-6118, Japan 
 
 
 Founded
 Business 
 Representative 
 Locations
 January, 2014 
 Planning, development, and operation of Mercari US 
 John Lagerling 
 1. Palo Alto, California 
 2. Portland, Oregon 
 3. Boston (Cambridge), Massachusetts 
 
 Founded
 Business 
 Representative 
 Locations
 December 5, 2016 
 Operation of community services 
 Makoto Fukuyama 
 MSD20 Building, 5-17-14 Sendagaya, Shibuya, Tokyo 151-0051, Japan 
 
 
 Merpay, Inc.
 Mercari, Inc.
 (US)
 Michael, Inc.
 Founded
 Business
 Representative 
 Locations
 Kashima Antlers FC, Inc.
 5
5. What Is Mercari? •Service start: July 2013 
 •OS: Android, iOS
 *Can also use from web browsers 
 •Usage fee: Free
 *Commission fee for sold items: 10% of the sales price 
 •Regions/languages supported: Base specs for Japan/Japanese 
 Many sellers enjoy having the items they no longer need purchased and used by buyers who need them, and buyers enjoy the feeling of hunting for treasure as they search through unique and diverse items for lucky finds. In addition to buying and selling, users actively communicate through the buyer/seller chat and the “Like” feature. 
 The Mercari app is a C2C marketplace where individuals can easily sell used items. We want to provide both buyers and sellers with a service where they can enjoy safe and secure transactions. Mercari offers a unique customer experience, with a transaction environment that uses the payments Mercari holds in escrow, and simple and affordable shipping options. 
 6
6. Merpay Mission Building trust for a seamless society Mercari established a marketplace for secondary distribution that brought greater liquidity and innovation, and started a revolution in consumer behavior. Merpay aims to bring liquidity and innovation to the world of finance, and create new value not just for consumers, but for businesses as well.
7. About Merpay November 20th, 2017
 Established
 Tokyo
 Offices
 4.1 billion
 
 
 Capital
 8
8. Naoki Aoyagi is the former Executive Director of GREE, Inc. After working at Deutsche Bank, he joined GREE, where he led the company’s pre-IPO financing and managed the IPO as CFO. He also headed business development activities at GREE, including the launch of the company’s game platform. From 2011, Aoyagi was instrumental in GREE’s international business expansion in San Francisco. He held the position of General Director before stepping down from his role as Executive Director in September 2016. He assumed the role of Merpay CEO in November 2017, and the role of Mercari, Inc. Director in September 2018. Naoki Aoyagi Profile Apr 2002 Mar 2006 Jul 2006 Jan 2011 Mar 2014 Jan 2017 Nov 2017 Dec 2017 Jul 2018 Sep 2018 Sep 2019 Joined Deutsche Securities Limited (currently Deutsche Securities Inc.) Joined GREE, Inc. GREE, Inc. Director GREE International, Inc. CEO and Board Member Glossom, Inc. Representative Director Glossom, Inc. Executive Board Member Merpay, Inc. CEO (current position) CrowdWorks Inc. Outside Director Merpay Connect, Inc. Representative Director Mercari Director (current position) Merpay CEO Merpay CEO 9 Leadership
9. Values With the whole team working together and all members working to their highest potential, the team can achieve large missions that one person alone cannot. In order to create innovation with a big impact on the world, everyone takes on bold challenges and learns from many failures. All members take ownership of their work as professionals in their field, learn every day, and commit to showing results. Go Bold All for One Be 10 a Pro
10. What is Merpay? Merpay is a mobile payments service operated by Merpay, Inc. The company belongs to the Mercari Group, widely recognized for its service ‘Mercari,’ the top C2C marketplace app in Japan.
 
 Money earned by selling unwanted items on the Mercari app and money charged to the app through user’s bank accounts can be used to make payments at stores and on the Mercari app itself.

11. Three reasons why customers choose Merpay Use within the Mercari app
 Use your Mercari sales balance on Merpay
 Use it at many different stores

12. Mercari Use within the Mercari app
13. Use your Mercari sales balance on Merpay
14. Utilize user data and sales balance on Mercari to create a widely used payment service 13 million Cash IN Cash OUT MAU Sales balance/points on Mercari Top-up from bank account Mercari in-app payments Merchants over 5,000 billion JPY/year Utilize Mercari data
15. Merpay Total Customers Amount of Users
 Retention Rate of First Time Users 

16. Number of locations that support our payment method 1,350,000locations *Total locations that will support code payment and locations that support our method of payment (numbers taken on 2019/2/20) iD payment 90 thousand locations, code payment 45 thousand locations
17. Ranked “#1 in Overall Satisfaction” by Mobile Marketing Data (MMD) Labo MMD Labo, “July 2019 QR Code Payment Satisfaction Survey” 
 
 

18. Available for online payments You can use Merpay for both online (E-Commerce) and offline (at physical stores) purchases *You are required to purchase points or make adjustments to your settings in order to use your sales balance Purchase items at physical stores or via E-Commerce sites List items that you no longer use on Mercari Use sales balance generated on Mercari to make purchases on E-Commerce sites
19. Working at Merpay
20. Our office We are situated in Roppongi, Tokyo - a highly international city and a hub for major global businesses and tech startups. Roppongi is Known for luxurious & foreigner-friendly restaurants, bars, and nightlife. Surrounding districts are home to many embassies and a large expat community.
21. Our people • We have apx. 1800 employees at Mercari, 400 at Merpay • In engineering team, 15% are non-Japanese at Merpay
22. Other perks • Free lunch events and drinks ◦ Welcome lunch, Team-building lunch, English/Japanese lunch, Free Vending Machines • Language support ◦ English/Japanese learning opportunities ◦ in-house interpreter/translator team • In-house learning opportunities ◦ Lunch&Learn ◦ Opendoor • Overseas conferences ◦ Google I/O, WWDC, SXSW, iOSDC, DroidCon, etc • Tech equipment of your choice
23. Club Activities English Lunch Club Board Games Club Champagne Club Basketball Club Coffee Club Wine “tasting” Club Ghibli Club Smoothie Club Splatoon 2 Club Marathon Club
24. FAQ • Do I need to speak Japanese? ◦ Japanese is not required for software engineer roles ◦ We have a Language teaching team and interpretation team • What is work hours like? ◦ Flex-time with 12pm-4pm core time ◦ 9 hour work day (with a 1 hour lunch break) ◦ WFH is not officially approved but is up to team decision ◦ Overtime kept to a minimum and time off in lieu is available • How many holidays? ◦ Paid holiday : 10 days a year ◦ Relax holiday : 3 days a year ◦ Sick leave : 10 days a year ◦ + Sat/Sun, New Years holiday, National holidays (around 16) …
25. Life in Tokyo
26. You’ve heard Tokyo is incredibly expensive 1. 31m2 (Around 340 square feet) apartment less than 30 minutes from Roppongi station as low as $700 USD per month.1 2. Commuting cost paid 3. Even DisneyLand is cheaper.2 4. All you can drink, dinner courses around $25 USD.3 5. Interest and loan rates are lower.4 6. Cost of living difficult to compare (Because it’s much cheaper than US).5
27. What do I like about living in Japan • Safety: Even our female staff feel safe commuting at night alone • Easy Commuting: You can take a train pretty much anywhere! • A neighborhood for everyone: Ginza for shopping, Akiba for tech, Nakameguro for food, Shimokitazawa for bar hopping, etc • Convenience Markets: They’re actually convenient!
28. Engineering Teams
29. 30 30 Microservices Architecture (over 40 microservices) Payment services which trades 144.4 B JPY on Mercari Apps (Including US apps) Above 2,000,000 users （the number of users who submitted merpay "electric money". *not include code payment users） About Merpay
30. 2018/07〜 Project D Project C Project B Project A Product Engineering ... ... SRE Backend 1 Backend 2 iOS Frontend ... EM EM EM EM EM TL TL TL TL PM PM PM PM #merpay_product
31. Backend Team 32
32. Backend: Tech Stack 33
33. 34 About Backend Team Responsibility • Developing web applications with Go; API development • I/F design between micro services using Protocol Buffers + gRPC • Making service improvements and efficacy judgments based on qualitative/quantitative analysis carried out with user activity logs, etc. • Designing architecture based on the needs of specific applications and selecting middleware • Identifying challenges facing users through surveys/analysis and taking concrete action to solve these challenge • Performance tuning, monitoring, alert correspondence of micro service
34. 35 Docs Screening
 Skill Test
 (Go/PHP/Java) 
 1st Interview
 (w: engineer)
 2nd Interview
 (w: manager)
 Final Interview
 (w: VPoE)
 Choose your preferred language! Backend Selection flow
35. SRE Team 36
36. Merpay SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) Responsibility • Make Merpay Reliable with Fintech service level • Provide platform/tools/guides for developers to build and operate reliable services Projects • Design, Build & Operate Merpay Infrastructure • Keep merpay microservices Reliability（Releases・Monitoring） • Microservices’ Operation and Improvement（with automation）
37. Merpay SRE Tech Stack Google Cloud Platform - Google Kubernetes Engine - Cloud Spanner - Other resources(GCS, Pub/Sub etc) Kubernetes Fastly(CDN) Datadog Terraform Go
38. Examples of Merpay SRE task Reliability • Review Design Docs and Production Readiness Checklist • Introduce Fastly WAF • Plan and simulate Disaster Recovery • Write a service to monitor Kubernetes cluster network to detect latency issues • Capacity planning and load test for campaigns Operation & Improvement • Investigate Cloud Spanner latency issues • Automate alert and monitoring configurations with Terraform • Introduce a tool for Cloud Spanner which developers can easily operate database
39. iOS Team 40
40. Merpay iOS Simplified Development Process Mercari iOS Dev Team ‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍ Merpay iOS Dev Team ‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ Product Increment Dev. Product Incr. Integration! Dev. Next Sprint Plan Next Sprint Plan
41. Merpay iOS is 100% Swift Use Fastlane and custom script based automation bots for deployment, unit testing, PR status checks Strong MVVM architecture with Protocol Oriented Programming Screenshot based UI tests We will be ready for SwiftUI! iOS Tech Simplified
42. What we enjoy Strong Automation Weekly Lunch & Learn New Ideas Are Welcome No Leadership Hierarchy Minimum frameworks iMac Pro
43. Android Team 44
44. Tech Stack Merpay Android is 100% Kotlin We are mainly using the Flux architecture and Reactive programming (RxJava). Focusing a lot on separation of concerns. We are using Spek to write tests, in combination with Mockk Every feature is a different module, and everything was recently migrated inside the Mercari Android repository to improve our productivity.
45. The Team Currently 8 engineers for 1 EM We have a lot of senior engineers who have experience from many different companies. Members are part of different projects inside Merpay. We use a variety of development styles (scrum, kanban, etc.)
46. Weekly Lunch & Learn on Fridays, in which we share good development practice and new tips to improve ourselves, over a delicious Bento Easy to have an impact. We deeply appreciate any new improvement and initiative, be creative Half of the team speaks can easily communicate in English, and the others are getting better every weeks Why you should join our team
47. Few words about the skill test
48. Frontend Team 49
49. Responsibility • Develop and maintain web application using web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, Vue.js, Nuxt, Node.js, Docker, Kubernetes) • Keep improving software quality (performance, accessibility, testability, maintainability, reliability, etc) • Input and output through the study meeting, meetups, engineering blog, What we develop • Coupon, Deferred payment, and some feature for Customers • Partner Dashboard for Merchants • Customer/Merchant Support Tool for Customer Success Team About Merpay Frontend Team
50. 51 Hiring process
51. Hiring Process Total around 4 weeks Docs Screening
 Skill Test
 
 1st Interview
 2nd Interview
 Final Interview
 (w: VPoE)
 3days
 2 or 3 weeks
 Reference
 check
 Offer
 1 week
 3 days
 The most Important Takes 1 week ◦ For reference, below is the estimated time it took successful candidates to complete the skill test. ▪ Backend: approx. 10 hours ▪ SRE: approx. 3 hours ▪ Android/iOS/Frontend: approx. 15 hours ▪ Machine Learning: approx. 5 hours ▪ Data Platform: approx. 8 hours On site interview
52. Benefits - Before and after joining!
53. 
 Backend
 Software Engineer, Backend [Merpay] 
 Engineering Manager, Backend [Merpay] 
 
 SRE
 Software Engineer, Architect [Merpay] 
 Software Engineer, SiteReliability [Merpay] 
 
 EngineeringManager, SiteReliability [Merpay] 
 Data Engineering
 Software Engineer, Data Platform [Merpay] 
 Engineering Manager, Data Platform [Merpay] 
 frontend
 Software Engineer, Frontend [Merpay] 
 
 
 Mobile
 Software Engineer, Android [Merpay] 
 Software Engineer, iOS [Merpay] 
 Engineering Manager, Android [Merpay] 
 Machine Learning
 Software Engineer, Machine Learning [Merpay] 
 Software Engineer, ML Reliability/SysML [Merpay] 
 QA
 
 Engineering
 Office
 Software Engineer, QA Test [Merpay] 
 
 
 Engineering Office Manager [Merpay] 
 We look forward your Application
54. 55 Q＆A
55. 56 Please give us feedback and keep in touch Click here
56. 57 We look forward your Application
57. 58 Learn more about us
58. 59 Media Our in-house media “Mercan” Linkedin Instagram
59. 60 Media Mercari tech blog Twitter dev account