My Rakuten Experience: Jesus
Jesus is Web Developer in the Ichiba Creative & Web Design Department
Current Job
I am in charge of Quality Assurance (QA) for the front-end development team of Rakuten Ichiba’s major events, such as Super Sale and Okaimono Marathon. My role involves meticulously checking services to ensure users can enjoy them comfortably in any environment.
QA work extends beyond finding bugs; it requires us to think from the user’s perspective, considering how we can provide a more user-friendly and enjoyable experience. To me, the work of a QA resembles that of a mechanic, preparing a car for a long journey by checking every detail. My role is to thoroughly inspect the website, app functionalities and usability, and identify potential errors that could impair the user experience, striving to provide high-quality services so that users can have a safe “journey” (shopping experience).
A significant part of my motivation comes from being able to contribute to the overall service quality improvement by sharing issues found during the QA process with the development team, and proposing and implementing solutions.
For example, during the Black Friday campaign last year, we collaborated with a popular character. The subsequent feedback from users highlighted that the app was fun and easy to use. This was a powerful testament to the team’s efforts and dedication.
Why Rakuten?
I majored in philosophy in Spain and worked as a teaching assistant supporting students. Later, I developed an interest in IT and retrained at a vocational school in Japan. Living in Japan gave me the opportunity to experience Rakuten’s services and I was strongly attracted by their social impact and technological capabilities.
I realized that Rakuten is deeply embedded in the daily life of people in Japan and as a user, I felt the convenience and innovation firsthand. This experience strengthened my desire to contribute to society as a member of Rakuten. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to join Rakuten in 2021.
Customer Satisfaction
Our work directly impacts the lives of many Rakuten Ichiba users. We take great pride in providing an environment where everyone can enjoy shopping without stress, particularly through the quality improvement of our apps and web pages. Rakuten’s point system, in particular, transforms online shopping into a more attractive and rewarding experience during large-scale campaigns like Okaimono Marathon and Super Sale. As a user, I also enjoy this experience. Our role is to provide Rakuten Ichiba users with a shopping service of the highest quality on Rakuten Ichiba, and excellent user experience. The strength of Rakuten’s services lies in the seamless collaboration of various teams and services behind this seemingly simple act of shopping. For instance, the success of the Okaimono Marathon campaign required a tremendous collaborative effort by the Rakuten Points team, Rakuten Card, UI/UX design, and many other departments. My contribution as a QA professional is to ensure that all these integrated elements function flawlessly, providing the user with an intuitive, reliable, and enjoyable journey from discovery to purchase.
In this way, the role of Quality Assurance is not merely about technical checks; we believe it contributes to enhancing user satisfaction. We are confident that contributing to users’ comfortable service experience and enriching their lives ultimately leads to social contribution.
Club Activities
Rakuten’s club activities (*) enrich my daily life. As a football enthusiast, I participate in the Rakuten Futsal Club and enjoy playing with colleagues after work. It helps me refresh my mind and body, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to interact with various members across the company. I feel that maintaining a balance between work and personal life contributes to long-term growth and sustained motivation.
Future Goals
Moving forward, I aim to take on a leadership role within the QA team, actively engaging in mentoring junior colleagues and optimizing testing processes. I also plan to focus on enhancing operational efficiency through the introduction of AI tools, striving to establish a system for faster, higher quality service delivery. Specifically, I want to make testing more efficient and accurate at various stages. This includes leveraging AI in various ways, such as automatically generating bug reports, having AI suggest test items, proactively identifying potential problem areas, automatically checking website usability (accessibility), pinpointing causes of slow app performance, and linking development requirements with test content. By doing so, we can significantly reduce repetitive manual tasks and shorten testing times, ultimately establishing a system that can quickly deliver higher quality services and contribute to further enhancing the user experience.
Personally, I’m also focused on strengthening my Japanese language skills to facilitate smooth internal and external communication, thereby contributing to the overall performance improvement of the team.
*Club Activities (Rakuten Official Club)
Rakuten has approximately 50 clubs, and employees can freely join and participate regardless of their position or employment type. The company also provides partial subsidies for club activities, promoting communication among employees.
*The content and affiliation presented in this article are accurate as of the time of the interview.
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