As I sit down to write this, I’m filled with a sense of gratitude and pride. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I started working at Rakuten as a UX/UI Designer.
When I first walked through the glass door in Futako-tamagawa (Rakuten HQ), I felt a frisson of excitement — I didn’t know what to expect from my new job or my colleagues. But looking back on the past year, I’m amazed at how much I’ve learned, how much I’ve grown, and how much I’ve come to appreciate my job and the people who work here.
Join me as I reflect on my first year of work, express my gratitude to those who have supported me, and share some tips for others starting out on their own career journeys.
🤔 So what do I do?
Currently, I’m a UX/UI Designer at Rakuten Travel, designing end-to-end user experience for Japan’s leading hotel-booking platform. I work in a Scrum team to deliver design improvements iteratively and incrementally. This means that we work in short sprints, typically three weeks, to deliver a small piece of functionality or improvement. We prioritize features based on user feedback and business goals, with the aim of delivering value to our users as quickly as possible.
Rakuten Travel is Japan’s leading Online Travel Agency
As a designer, I have to work closely with developers, product owners, and business teams to ensure that we are all aligned on the goals for each sprint. We have daily stand-up meetings where we discuss progress, roadblocks, and dependencies, which helps to keep everyone on the same page. After each sprint, we conduct a retrospective to evaluate what went well and what we need to improve on. This feedback loop allows us to continually improve our processes and deliver better results.
Oh, did I mention that I’m also the first and only Designer New Grad hire?
Yes. Rakuten is known for their Engineer, Product Management, and Quality testing new grad hire, but Design … was unheard of. I will share how I landed the role in another article.
First day at work with my New Grad team
Being the first person to do something can be scary, but it also puts you in an exciting position where you can pioneer and set benchmarks for others. As the first UX/UI Designer New Grad at Rakuten Travel, I felt a lot of pressure to perform well, but I also saw it as an opportunity to make a positive impact and set the stage for future designers.
