Senior Data Scientist - AI Agent Development Section, Business Support Development Department (BSD)

Job Description:

Business Overview

Rakuten is one of the leading E-commerce companies in the world. Our mission is to empower people and society through the internet while aiming at becoming the "Global Innovation Company."

Department Overview

The Business Support Development Department (BSD) plays a crucial role in supporting various business operations that occur between users, clients, and Rakuten businesses from a systems perspective. Our division provides diverse services across four key domains: DATA, Business Support/Accounting, CRM, and AI Agent, which builds the foundation for leveraging AI across the entire Rakuten organization. We are committed to pursuing business process optimization and efficiency while delivering high value through our system offerings.

AI Agent Development Section, established under BSD in January 2026, is dedicated to building next-generation AI agent application that empower Rakuten’s diverse business units through AI technology.

Our mission is to reshape the digital future of E-commerce by building AI-native solutions that empower Rakuten merchants, catalyze new revenue growth, and radically reduce operational costs.

Our main goal is to unify Merchant Communication Services.

Consolidating fragmented communication services into a single, cohesive merchant interface to streamline communication and user experience.

Position:

Position Details

Design and deploy advanced machine learning models and LLM-based agents to automate and optimize merchant communication. Develop RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) systems to provide accurate, context-aware responses to merchant inquiries. Analyze large-scale transactional and behavioral data to uncover insights that drive revenue growth and operational efficiency. Collaborate with product managers and engineers to integrate AI capabilities into the unified merchant interface. Mentor junior data scientists and establish best practices for AI development and model evaluation within the team.

Mandatory Qualifications:

・Master’s or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.

・More than 5 years of experience in data science, machine learning, or AI research.

・Proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).

・Strong experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, and fine-tuning techniques.

・Excellent communication skills in English and Japanese (to bridge technical and business requirements).

Desired Qualifications:

・Experience in building end-to-end AI agent systems or conversational AI platforms.

・Proven track record of leading data science or AI engineering teams, including mentoring and project management.

・Knowledge of cloud infrastructure (e.g., GCP, AWS) and MLOps practices.

・Experience in E-commerce domain or large-scale B2B SaaS platforms.

・Contribution to open-source AI projects or publications in top-tier AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML).

Other Information:

Additional information on Location

Rakuten Crimson House (Head office)

Additional information on English Qualification

・TOEIC Score of 800 above or possess equivalent qualifications

・Business-level English proficiency

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