Mercari Women in Tech Vol. 6 “Relocating to Japan” #MercariDays
Hi! This is @jane.c from Mercari’s Talent Acquisition Team.
On November 10th, 2021, we held our 6th Women in Tech series.
Women in Tech is an online event that focuses on women who work at tech companies and aims to provide opportunities for people to exchange information and knowledge with each other. For this installment of the series, we chose a theme that’s a bit different from our previous events.
We invited four female speakers from Mercari to a panel discussion to talk about their experiences of either relocating to Japan or working with us from overseas as they wait for Japan’s border measures to ease up.
Joining us from the Tokyo office were @Suwen (Technical Product Manager, Business Foundations) and @EmmaKiwi (Android Tech Lead). @Anastasia (Android Engineer) joined us remotely from Russia, and @muktii (Technical Product Manager, Engagement Platform) joined us from India.
Featured in this article
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Suwen Weng (@Suwen)Technical Product Manager, Business Foundations. Originally from Nanjing, China. Suwen got her master’s degree in Japan and then started her career as a software engineer at a world-leading oil service company. A fan of online shopping, she moved to a Japanese apparel company as a product manager for order management products. She joined the Mercari Technical Product Manager team in March 2021, and is currently working on transaction products. She has a five-year-old daughter with whom she shares her love for learning the piano. -
Emma Caunter (@EmmaKiwi)Android Tech Lead. Originally from New Zealand, Emma worked with experimental radios in her home country before moving to Vancouver, Canada to become an Android developer. After three years of working on a mix of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and contract projects, she joined Mercari and moved to Japan in December 2018 to take on new challenges as a tech lead and mentor. Recently, she has enjoyed exploring Japan and learning Japanese. -
Anastasia Laushkina (@Anastasia)Android Engineer. Born in the heart of Siberia, Russia, Anastasia started her career at a small shipping logistics startup company as a backend .NET engineer. Combining backend and mobile development, she moved more and more to mobile-related work and became a full-time Android developer at Yandex, a major Russian IT company, where she worked on products used across her home country. After looking for work in Japan from time to time throughout her career, she joined Mercari in March 2021 as an overseas contractor. In her free time, she likes reading, swimming, walking, and learning Japanese. -
Muktti Shukla (@Muktti)Technical Product Manager, Engagement Platform. Originally from India, Muktti lived and worked in The Netherlands for 10 years. She has a techno-functional background and an MBA from Erasmus University. Prior to starting her MBA studies, she worked as a software engineer based out of Pune, India for nearly five years. She loves swimming and loves spending time with her 18-month-old twin boys. She has been working at Mercari as an overseas contractor since June 2021.
Our MC for the night was @mikako (Manager, HR Business Partner). She started off the event by explaining our relocation and onboarding support for employees that are relocating to Japan from overseas to join Mercari. She also touched upon such topics as our customized onboarding content for software engineers, language support, work-style flexibility, and company benefits.
@mikako then kicked off the main part of the event, our panel discussion. She started by asking @EmmaKiwi and @Suwen about their experiences relocating to Japan and about the kind of support Mercari provided for their relocation. The speakers discussed their reasons for choosing to live and work in Japan, and @Muktti also talked about what drove her decision to move her family to Japan.
@EmmaKiwi and @Suwen then shared their experiences of culture shock and everyday life in Japan, while offering advice to prospective candidates who are thinking of moving to Japan in the future.
At the time of the event, two of our panelists were still working from their respective countries, because Japan’s border remained closed to non-residents as a result of the pandemic. @Muktti and @Anastasia gave us some insights on their experiences working remotely for Mercari, the challenges they face, and how they have overcome them.
All of our panelists then shared stories about their job search and interview process prior to working at Mercari, and even shared some insightful tips with the audience.
To hear our panelists’ full stories and insightful discussion, watch the recording here!
We look forward to seeing you at our next Women in Tech event. See you next time for more #MercariDays!
Check out the reports of some of our previous events:
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