Women at Rakuten: Sayali
Sayali
Applications Engineer
Data Platform Department
Technology Platforms Division
I learned the ropes and gained confidence thanks to the support of my highly-experienced team members
After finishing college in India, I joined Rakuten as a new graduate in 2018. Currently, I am an engineer/operator for log management systems. The EaaS Team that I am a part of operates roughly 2,000 servers dedicated to managing the logs accumulated. I oversee processes in making improvements and managing hardware and software lifecycles while fielding requests and questions from the business side. Between our Japan and India teams, we provide support to services that stay in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for the sake of our users.
I have been blessed with team members who are greatly experienced and highly capable. Thanks to them, I learned the importance of improving skills other than the ones directly related to my position and having inquisitiveness and curiosity for the sake of optimizing services. When I first entered Rakuten, I was still an inexperienced newcomer. In the course of working alongside my fellow team members, I was able to grow into a confident professional. I am thankful to those members of my team who trusted me and assisted me in my learning process.
Continuously training to reach my goals and aim to better my skills
I am taking part in many training sessions regularly arranged by Rakuten. During a problem-solving training, I learned how to identify issues and resolve them. In cross-cultural understanding training, I studied methods of working alongside fellow employees with varying cultural backgrounds. My takeaways from those training sessions are benefiting me greatly in my day-to-day tasks. Moreover, with the help of my team, I received training for acquiring the professional software certifications that my position requires. I truly feel that the support I received enabled me to better my own skills.
Under Rakuten’s bi-annual performance evaluation system, employees set multiple goals pertaining to their duties and are evaluated based on the degree to which they achieved those goals. When I first joined the company, I started with shell script and worked my way to the fundamentals of various platforms. Through this, I gradually gained skills in line with my mastery level. My efforts in trying to improve my skills eventually tied to the improvement of the services of the project that I was overseeing. These efforts were both recognized and well-received. I am quite fond of this system that allows us to personally set our own goals and be evaluated, while simultaneously acquiring new knowledge on a regular basis.
Rakuten grants equal opportunities to all its employees. It goes without saying that no one is treated differently because of our gender. Many working mothers play active roles in various departments here, and a defining aspect of the company is the systems it has in place that allow employees to efficiently go about their jobs while being considerate of their individual circumstances. An example of such a system is allowing flexible work schedules.
In the course of working at Rakuten, I learned many things, such as how everyone is on equal footing when a discussion is taking place and how to negotiate in order to obtain ideal solutions. I feel that this knowledge, experiences and skills are playing a key role in my own career-building. Moreover, I am very satisfied with my workplace environment, which is conducive to striking a balance between work satisfaction and work comfort.
Club activities and events provide employees the opportunity to interact with other employees of various nationalities and to broaden their knowledge and perspectives
The members of the group that I am assigned to represent seventeen nationalities and regions. While we all have our own culture, language and points of view, our goal is the same: To support the happiness and success of our customers.
Having a shared goal doesn’t only apply to the workplace. At Rakuten, we have a full range of club activities that provide wonderful opportunities to meet and interact with people who hold the same aspirations and build strong bonds.
I am a member of the Wine Club here. With my colleagues, we hold wine-tasting sessions in our company cafeteria and nearby restaurants, where we wine and dine together. This is a very gratifying activity for me, as it has enabled me to make friends with other employees with varying career backgrounds and nationalities. The club also allows me to communicate with them in a different setting from our daily work-related interactions.
I have also participated in Rakuten’s Technology Conference as a volunteer. In addition to deepening my understanding of different technologies, I attended lectures on blockchain tech conducted by specialists. After the conference, I had the opportunity to further my interaction with my colleagues who also participated. The ability to take on a work style of broadening your knowledge while having fun doing so is another appealing part of Rakuten.
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