Technical Program Manager - India Engineering

Mercari is a Japan-based C2C marketplace company founded in 2013 with the mission to “Create value in a global marketplace where anyone can buy & sell.” From being the first tech unicorn from Japan before its IPO in 2018 we have come a long way towards becoming a global player and continuously and diligently work towards our transformation journey with a strong focus on our mission. 

Since its inception, Mercari Group has worked to grow its services, investing in both our people and technology. Over time, Mercari has expanded from being the top player in the C2C marketplace in Japan to new geographies like the U.S. We have also successfully launched new businesses such as Merpay, which is a mobile payment service platform with a vision to create a society where anyone can realise their dreams through a new ecosystem centered not only on payment service but also on credit. Today, Mercari Group is made up of multiple subsidiary businesses, including logistics, B2C platform, blockchain, and sports team management.

About Mercari India 

Established in Bangalore in 2022, Mercari India serves as a crucial technology hub for the Mercari Group. Leveraging the rich and diverse tech talent in India, we primarily collaborate closely with our development hub in Japan to drive engineering development for Mercari's applications. Having grown to an organization of approximately 80 members over about three years since its inception, Mercari India aims to evolve into an even stronger engineering organization that spearheads technological innovation for the entire group. This will be achieved by further enhancing our engineering capabilities and promoting AI initiatives that reflect India's cutting-edge technology and knowledge.

Our Culture

To achieve our mission at Mercari, our organisation and each of our employees share the same values and perspectives.

Our individual guidelines for action are defined by our four values:

• Go Bold
• All for One
• Be a Pro
• Move Fast

Our organisation is also shaped by our four foundations:

• Sustainability
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Trust & Openness
• Well-being for Performance

Regardless of how big Mercari gets, the culture will remain essential to achieving our mission and something we want to preserve throughout our organisation. 

We invite you to read the  which summarizes the behaviours and mindset shared by Mercari and its employees. We continue to build an environment where all of our members of diverse backgrounds are accepted and recognised, and where they can thrive while holding dear to Mercari’s culture.

About the Role

We're looking for a Technical Program Manager to drive execution and operational excellence across our India engineering organization. This is a cross-functional, umbrella role — you'll be the connective tissue across teams, owning program health while also building the automation and tooling that makes the org run better.

This role partners closely with the VP of Engineering and India Site Leader. About half your time will be spent on: automating workflows, and improving how the engineering org operates. The other half is driving programs — tracking, unblocking, and bringing structure to complex, multi-team initiatives across India and Japan.

What You'll Do

Program Management

• Own end-to-end program management across India engineering Special projects: milestones, dependencies, risk tracking, and execution hygiene
• Develop deep familiarity with ongoing projects and initiatives across the engineering org — well enough to represent them, track them, and identify gaps
• Drive some meaningful initiatives per quarter (e.g. AI tooling adoption, talent review cycles, automation coverage/stability) — from framing through execution
• Establish lightweight processes and reporting cadences that give leadership visibility without slowing teams down
• Contribute to planning cycles (roadmap, headcount, capacity) with structured data and clear framing

Automation & Workflow & Speed

• Partner closely with engineering leadership on org-level process automation — identifying bottlenecks and reducing manual overhead at scale
• Design and implement workflows, dashboards, and automation using Notion, scripting, or equivalent modern tooling
• Evolve internal reporting from information-sharing to insight-sharing — surface what matters, not just what happened

Stakeholder & Cross-border Collaboration

• Work with Japan-based stakeholders to understand their information needs and provide structured, timely reporting and responses
• Align cross-functional stakeholders across India and Japan; navigate complex, multi-national environments with clarity and ownership

Team & Operations

• Manage a small Enterprise Security and India IT support team
• Provide site-level operational support as needed in partnership with the India Site Leader

Requirements

Must-Have

• 8–12 years of overall experience in technical program management, software engineering, or a closely adjacent role; at least 1–3 years specifically in engineering operations or management
• Hands-on scripting and automation experience in the last 2–3 years (Python, shell scripting, or similar)
• High adaptability and outcome-focused mindset, with a strong ability to zoom-in to details, when needed and zoom-out to find patterns/issues that hamper the org
• Strong cross-border communication skills — you can work effectively across India/Japan time zones and cultural contexts

Nice to Have

• Experience at a high-velocity engineering org (startup or large-scale tech)
• Familiarity with workflow automation platforms (Zapier, n8n, internal tooling stacks) or data pipelines
• Prior exposure to developer productivity optimization, Growing GCCs from 1 to 10 stage

Can Grow Into

• Advanced AI tooling and workflow design within a large tech org
• Designing corporate L&D and SME development programs at the org level
• Strategic site-level leadership and executive-facing reporting

Employment Status : Full-time

Office location: Bangalore

Hybrid workstyle

(We believe in high performance and professionalism. We work from office for 2 days/week and work from home 3 days/week

To build a strong & highly-engaged organization in India, we highly encourage everyone to work from our Bangalore office, especially during the initial office setup phase

We will continue to review and update the policy to address future organizational needs)

Work Hours

Full flextime (no core time)

*Flexible to choose working hours other than team common meetings