Product Manager in Tokyo
About the Position
We are seeking an experienced Product Manager to join our leadership team. The ideal candidate will act as a strategic bridge between our delivery teams and the client's stakeholders in Japan. The ideal candidate brings strong product perspective into software delivery and client engagement experience, with the ability to interpret business intent and manage expectations. A key part of the role is helping the client translate business objectives into delivery-ready context, facilitating decision-making discussions, and ensuring that key agreements, risks, and next steps are accurately captured and communicated to both the stakeholders and the delivery teams.
About the Project
The team is cross-functional, encompassing all the necessary roles for both development and project management. It currently consists of 11 members and continues to grow. While we strive to follow Agile principles, collaboration with multiple client-side teams and external vendors necessitates a hybrid approach that combines elements of both Waterfall and Scrum methodologies.
Responsibilities
- Act as the point of contact for the product owners and executive stakeholders.
- Facilitate communication channels, ensuring technical concepts are accurately conveyed.
- Collaborate with the development team to ensure project milestones are realistic and accepted by the client.
- Translate high-level business goals into actionable contexts for the Project Management and Engineering teams.
- Identify risks related to miscommunication or mismatched expectations early in the lifecycle.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in software delivery, project management, product management or account management
- Proven track record working with Japanese enterprise clients
- Experience working with distributed engineering teams
- Understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), Waterfall and Agile methodologies
- Ability to understand complex architecture discussions to effectively brief non-technical stakeholders
- Proven ability to navigate consensus-driven decision environments and facilitate executive alignment in Japanese corporate structures
- Ability to proactively detect stakeholder friction and manage escalations in culturally appropriate ways
- Native or near-native fluency in Japanese (JLPT N1 equivalent) and professional fluency in English.
Nice to Have
- Travel, Aviation domain knowledge
- Familiarity with Airline systems (Amadeus, Sabre) or e-commerce platforms is highly desirable
