American Express
Engineer III
Tokyo, Japan. September 2022 - Present
Joined as an individual contributor on the Pocket Concierge guest portal and stepped into technical leadership after leadership transitions. Owned delivery for key initiatives, clarified ownership, and improved platform reliability.
- Saved hundreds of thousands of USD in fees and unreconcilable charges by improving Stripe integrations.
- Led GraphQL performance work, cutting query latency by up to 50%.
- Introduced feature ownership practices and release rituals to strengthen delivery accountability.
- Established issue tracking and engineering quality reviews to improve delivery transparency and reduce regressions.
Le Wagon
Teaching Assistant
Tokyo, Japan. January 2022 - Present
Support student teams during product sprints by reinforcing practical delivery cycles, debugging strategies, and Rails best practices. Recognized for clear guidance, steady coaching, and team leadership.
- Lead workshops and pair programming sessions across full-stack Rails projects.
- Coach students through production-style sprints, code reviews, and testing fundamentals.
- Maintain high student satisfaction through practical, hands-on teaching.
Shippio Inc
Engineering Manager
Tokyo, Japan. October 2019 - September 2022
Joined as an early engineer (employee #16) and progressed into engineering management during rapid company growth. Led a team of four engineers, coordinated delivery with stakeholders, and shipped core logistics tooling while improving engineering practices.
- Directly managed and mentored a team of four engineers, fostering their professional development.
- Designed and implemented a shipment tracking system that provided a distinct market advantage by resolving a significant customer pain point.
- Promoted from engineer to Scrum Master, project manager, and engineering manager within three years.
Skills
English
Native
Japanese
N2 / Conversational
Ruby
6+ years
Rails
6+ years
GraphQL
6+ years
PostgreSQL
6+ years
JavaScript
6+ years
Heroku
3+ years
AWS
2+ years
React
1+ years
Education
Le Wagon, Tokyo
9-week intensive coding bootcamp for Ruby on Rails web development
University of Missouri
BA in Linguistics and Japanese Studies
Additional Work Experience
English Instructor 2012-2019
Taught English in Japan, developing lesson plans, managing classrooms, and delivering feedback to students and parents.
Laboratory Technician 2006-2009
Performed routine maintenance and assisted with experiments at a CDC- and FDA-certified laboratory.