Hello! 👋
We are a mighty team of product designers, researchers and UX writers working together to build the most rewarding place to shop.

Images from our last Product Design offsite in San Francisco

You’ll find us working out of our San Francisco and New York headquarters, or remotely from places like Seattle, Boulder, New Orleans and San Diego. While we’re a hybrid team, we find ways to get together in person a few times a year for offsites and brainstorms.

We’re a highly collaborative group, both among ourselves and cross-functionally with business partners. Our work is always insights informed, leveraging quantitative data signals as well as qualitative user research. We are champions of design excellence and inspire everyone at Rakuten to advocate for best-in-class UX.

Images from our offsite, SF Happy Hours, and our NYC Holiday Pop-Up.

☀️ Monday Design Team Weekly Sync:
We kick off by sharing a photo from our weekend, or something that inspired us. Then each team member communicates their focus areas for the week, referencing our Monday board.

🎨 Tuesday Design Critique:
This 90-minute design review (our first of two for the week) is a collaborative space for providing feedback on our work, sharing inspiration and brainstorming team initiatives.

🌜Friday Retro + Design Critique:
We reflect on our week by sharing what went well, what didn’t go well and what we could do differently. Then we head into our second design review of the week.

🍷 Monthly Happy Hours:
I know what you’re thinking…this is not a typical awkward virtual happy hour! Past happy hour activities have included heated rounds of Jeopardy, a guided meditation from a teammate, AI-driven co-creation of a team mascotte, and wine tasting (I mean, “wine education”).

Beside our team rituals, designers and writers also participate in their weekly product squad meetings and rituals.

Lead UX Writer Miranda Geraci-Yee is recording an album…in Mexico! She wrote, performed and produced all of the music, which she describes as “Electric-harp-rock-indie-pop."

Giuliano Manno, Principal Product Designer and certified sommelier, has been known to lead the team in wine tastings. Or as we like to call them, “wine education” sessions.

Two of our designers, Sam Kim and Nikita Tauro, came to product design via healthcare. In a past life, Sam was an optometrist and Nikita still picks up night shifts as a nurse when she’s back home in Canada.

It takes a lot of tools to keep our hybrid team up and running! Here are our go-to’s:

💬 Communication:

Zoom, Slack

🎨 Design Tools:

Figma, Miro

📝 Documentation:

Confluence, Jira, Box Notes, Google Workspace, Zeroheight

📊 Research

UserTesting, Sprig, Optimal Workshop

Come for the Cash Back, stay for the fun vibes 😎

• Hybrid flexibility: Work remotely or in one of our offices (SF, NYC, San Mateo)

• Competitive salary + annual bonus

• Employee stock program

• Wellness Fridays (close at 1pm on Fridays from Memorial Day through Labor Day)

• Paid parental leave

• Generous PTO and holiday policies

• Extra Cash Back for employees

• Wellness Benefits

• Cool people!