Building a Strong Development Organization to Drive Business! PayPay’s Engineering Manager

In this edition of our Professional Series, which delves into the lives of the extraordinary professionals working in the PayPay group, we spoke with Alex, the Engineering Manager at PayPay. We discussed his journey to joining the company, the development organization at PayPay, his mission, and the future vision he holds.

Aiming to Become a Developer Who Can Feel the Business Growth Firsthand

Please tell us about your career thus far and what brought you to PayPay.

I have over eight years of experience in mobile development. Two years after relocating to Japan, I became the Tech Lead for the iOS team in the live streaming industry and also oversaw the Android team, focusing heavily on mobile development. Later, I took on a Tech Lead role in another department, realizing a career shift towards becoming an Engineering Manager. I wanted to have an overarching view of the business and organizational impact beyond just engineering.

As I engaged with product development while contemplating my potential contributions to the business, I grew inclined toward a company that offered flexibility in business decisions, allowing for personal growth. That is when I encountered PayPay, a tech-driven company, and made the switch in January 2024.

Could you describe your team’s mission and your role?

The Frontend team is responsible for developing the user-facing components of PayPay’s native app and web interfaces. My mission as a leader is twofold. First, I aim to nurture the team into a self-managing organization. Ensuring that members can proceed with daily development without significant barriers, I coach them to make their own decisions and act autonomously. The ideal scenario is one where I merely indicate the “direction” without engaging in micromanagement, enabling focus on development.
Secondly, I concentrate on how effectively my team can achieve business objectives. This involves setting up new processes, optimizing existing ones, and expanding the team.

A Development Style That Enables Weekly Releases and Development Style

What are the unique traits of PayPay’s product organization?

Having been a part of PayPay for about a year, I perceive synergy effectively realized between the business and product sides. Unlike other companies where the business side often takes the lead, leaving the product side to follow, at PayPay, they exist on equal footing. While business is crucial, the product side is equally involved in decision-making and providing feedback, empowering engineers with a sense of ownership.

What is the development style at PayPay?

At PayPay, we engage in weekly releases. Unlike other companies that typically adopt waterfall development models and monthly releases, PayPay delivers the latest features and improvements to users in a weekly release cycle. Although releasing on-time each week poses challenges, a solid process ensures smooth operations.

Additionally, the scale at which we operate our products is distinctive at PayPay. While it’s common for a single team to handle native apps or individual web pages at other companies, PayPay collaborates across numerous teams. Providing a super app is made possible because native app teams, web teams, and backend teams each advance their assigned missions. Changing even one screen on the app involves multiple development teams, Product Managers (PdM), and business stakeholders.

To ensure PayPay’s continuous evolution, fortifying stability is crucial. During app maintenance, we are supported by the business side to invest time, allowing engineers to thoroughly enjoy refactoring, which creates a favorable environment for developers.

How do you view PayPay’s Tech Stack and CI/CD flow?

We can execute development tasks without incurring excessive costs, and simultaneously, our tech stack is not static; it is continually improved based on current needs. The CI/CD flow is mature. While there’s always room for improvement, the ability to conduct weekly releases without issues signifies how reliable our CI/CD flow is.

There’s also a high degree of flexibility when it comes to introducing new technology. A core team focused on improving the tech stack and practices exists within PayPay, and they are adopted by other teams. It’s significant that each team can incorporate “tech enablers” into their quarterly roadmap, ensuring continuous enhancement of the tech stack.

What do you find most rewarding about your work?

I always prioritize these three aspects in my work: “Enable members. Optimize processes. Drive business.”
When a new team joins, my first task is to ensure the team is functional. Once it operates smoothly, I shift the focus to the business side, optimizing processes and minimizing costs. Not only do I drive business through development, but I also find joy in process improvement as an Engineering Manager.
Contributing to maximizing the value of engineer teams in an organization that experiences daily growth like PayPay provides me with immense job satisfaction.

The Mission to Guide Members as Needed

Could you describe the atmosphere of your team?

If I were to describe it, the members are like “one-man armies” (laughs). They are professionals who can participate in each project independently, yet maintain a good atmosphere of collaboration with team members and other stakeholders when necessary. Regular check-ins ensure that the team progresses toward the intended goals through development. The diverse skill sets of the members lead to mutual trust, ensuring everything runs smoothly.

Is there anything you consciously do to support member growth?

Adopting agile methodologies, I focus on continual KAIZEN (improvement). I regularly engage with the team to identify any factors hindering task execution while also considering the bigger picture to ensure all is well. On top of that, if any feedback, challenges, or points for improvement are discovered, I work to embed them as processes to prevent reoccurrence.
Occasionally, I even set up challenging tasks to encourage an environment where members can devise optimal solutions on their own.

What are your goals and vision moving forward?

There’s still so much I wish to learn in both technical and business aspects at PayPay. Firstly, I want to deepen my knowledge in my area and broaden my business perspective. My aspiration moving forward is to aim for the role of Senior Engineering Manager, eventually expanding my horizon beyond Frontend to other areas.

Lastly, do you have a message for the readers?

To work at PayPay, having excellent technical skills is essential, but so is the ability to understand the business impact of the code you write.

Merely writing code will not cut it at PayPay. We need individuals who comprehend how their code impacts people’s lifestyles, who can drive business forward, and who can openly communicate and collaborate with multiple teams to contribute to the creation of products. I look forward to working with those who are strong in technology and possess a comprehensive understanding of the business picture.

*Job openings and employee affiliations are current as of the time of the interview.