Culture

A look into the core values of Mercari’s engineering organization.

Vision

Our goal is to create an organization where all members can learn and grow from each other.

A Nurturing Organization

The type of engineering organization that Mercari needs to have is not one where talented people gather, but one that creates them. By talented people, we mean people who can turn their ideas into a reality, sharpening their sensitivity and decision-making skills by taking on numerous challenges. This will allow us to provide our users with the best experience, and ultimately lead to the kind of society that Mercari envisions.

Microdecisions

Mercari’s ideal engineering organization is a coordinated and flexible organization where each individual can take ownership of their work and make their own decisions. In order to provide the best user experience, everyone should be able to test out their own ideas. This is what we call "microdecisions." We believe that the more attempts you make, the more accurate your strategies will become, and the more growth you’ll see as an engineer.

Data-Driven

We aim to build a coordinated organization, where everyone can make decisions to improve the structure as a whole, even as our organization grows bigger. Decisions are made and implemented in various places without worrying about the organization’s hierarchical structure, and we use data to evaluate the results. We want to build an environment where everyone can continuously make decisions and take on challenges, without being afraid to fail.

Everyone is a Software Engineer

We remove the barriers that divide people involved in software development, and call all of them software engineers. Software engineers should use the most appropriate technology to create the features, so we don’t limit people’s roles to a particular technology. This does not mean that we don’t believe in specialization, but we think that someone’s role should not be limited by their job title. The role of Mercari’s software engineers is to use every tool they can to make their ideas come true.

Blameless & Mechanism

In order for engineers to be able to take on bold challenges, we need a culture that celebrates not only success, but also failure. We can’t have a culture that puts the blame on individuals if we want to take on challenges as an organization. At Mercari, we believe that problems are essentially the responsibility of our organization’s mechanisms, not of our members. Similarly, true solutions should be found in mechanisms. Building mechanisms is the best way for us to solve issues, and they set the ground for us to take on bold challenges.

Diversity & Inclusion

Mercari aims to create value in a global marketplace, and we place a strong emphasis on diversity in our organization and team members. It’s not an easy task for members of all different backgrounds, including languages, cultures, and values, to come together as one, but we believe that treating these differences as strengths helps us create a strong engineering organization ready to compete on a global scale.

Engineering Ladder
Expectations for each stage of an engineer’s career

Engineering Ladder was born out of the need to share our image of the ideal Mercari engineer, and to build an organization that maximizes everyone’s strengths. It was essential that we share these ideas to build a strong culture and respect every member’s skills, personality, and diversity.

Engineering Ladder clearly defines the expectations for a Mercari engineer in six sets of actions derived from Mercari’s three values: Go Bold, All for One, and Be a Pro. These expectations are defined for many different levels in an engineer’s career, as expectations for a junior engineer and a senior engineer obviously differ.

Engineering Ladder is used for evaluation, setting goals, and designing career paths, and serves as a guideline to let engineers know what they need to work on to reach the next level.

Engineering Ladder is not meant to be a checklist of things that one must fulfill completely, as each individual engineer possesses a unique set of skills. We realize that everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, and that everybody grows at a different pace.

We welcome the diversity in engineers’ strengths and weaknesses. We believe this will help us create a better product for our customers.

To view the ladder in its entirety, please see the Engineering Ladder page.