Business
The Technology Platforms Division (TPD) drives the growth of Rakuten's ecosystem by delivering innovative, high-quality technology platforms characterized by integrated control and strategic partnerships.
Within TPD, the Cloud Platform Supervisory Department (CPSD) develops and manages Rakuten's state-of-the-art cloud platform, empowering global scalability and accelerating innovation across its diverse business units.
Department
The Cloud Platform Enablement Department (CPED) drives Rakuten Group's global infrastructure strategy by building and operating a robust private cloud platform and supporting public cloud environments. We empower application engineers to build reliable and scalable systems while ensuring unified support and consistent quality across all departments.
The Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) is a cross-functional team responsible for creating and implementing cloud-related best practices, guidelines, and governance policies. Our primary mission is to ensure that cloud resources are used effectively and efficiently to achieve Rakuten's business objectives. We drive our multi-cloud strategy across GCP, AWS, Azure, and OCI, accelerating cloud adoption, enhancing security, standardizing processes, fostering faster innovation, and optimizing cost efficiency (FinOps) throughout the organization.
Position:
Why We Hire
As public cloud adoption expands and grows more complex across the organization, there is an urgent need to define and drive a holistic architecture strategy across our multi-cloud environment. We currently manage over 50 operations across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI, and require a professional who can provide enterprise-level architecture design, standardization, and technical leadership based on a deep understanding of each cloud platform. We are looking for a Cloud Architect who can lead the entire organization in designing security guardrails, standardizing network architecture, and driving the Well-Architected Framework.
Position Details
As a technical lead within the CCoE, you will play a broad role spanning from defining the organization-wide architecture strategy across multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI) to establishing and driving technical standards.
Key Responsibilities
1. Multi-Cloud Architecture Design & Standardization
- Provide upper-level architecture reviews for service teams across multi-cloud environments
- Define reference architectures for Landing Zones, account structures, and network design (VPCs, VPNs, Dedicated Interconnect, Cloud to Cloud Connectivity, hub-and-spoke, etc.)
- Conduct architecture reviews based on the Well-Architected Framework for AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI
- Provide technical consulting on cloud migration and modernization plans for each Business Unit (BU)
2. Governance & Security Architecture
- Design, implement, and continuously improve the multi-cloud governance framework
- Architect security guardrails and compliance policies (IAM, network controls, encryption, audit logging, etc.)
- Support the cloud-side implementation of Zero Trust Architecture and CSPM in collaboration with the dedicated security team
- Collaborate with security and legal teams on risk assessment and remediation design
3. Governance & Security
- Provide technical leadership for CCoE roadmap initiatives (Security Guardrails, Landing Zone, etc.)
- Drive codification and standardization of infrastructure architecture using IaC tools such as Terraform
- Provide architecture guidance on container platforms (Kubernetes), serverless, and managed service adoption
- Standardize Disaster Recovery (DR), High Availability (HA), and scalability design
4. Cost Optimization (FinOps)
- Define FinOps strategy and design cost optimization architecture
- Design cost allocation, tagging standards, and cost visibility mechanisms across multiple clouds
- Recommend optimization of Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, and Committed Use Discounts
- Drive architectural improvements to reduce data egress costs
5. Technical Leadership & Enablement
- Provide technical mentoring and architecture reviews for Cloud CoE engineers
- Operate an Architecture Review Board for internal cloud users
- Create and promote cloud architecture best practices and design guidelines across the organization
- Research and evaluate new technologies and services, and assess their integration into existing architecture
- Develop and create e-Learning content
6. Vendor Management & External Collaboration
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for cloud vendors (AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI) and build strong vendor relationships
- Evaluate new vendor services and roadmaps and determine their applicability for internal adoption
- Collaborate with Co-CCoE organizations (equivalent CCoE teams in other groups/departments) to align architecture standards
- Work with external partners on cross-group cloud strategy and governance initiatives
Mandatory Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- More than 5 years of hands-on experience designing, building, and operating cloud infrastructure on AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Experience leading upper-level architecture design on at least one cloud platform (GCP, AWS, or Azure); willingness to learn additional cloud platforms is acceptable
- Hands-on experience with Landing Zone and network design (VPC, VPN, hub-and-spoke, multi-region)
- Practical experience designing and implementing infrastructure using IaC tools such as Terraform
- Experience designing and implementing cloud IAM and security guardrails
- Professional-level or Specialty/Expert architect certification from AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI (e.g., AWS Solutions Architect Professional, GCP Professional Cloud Architect, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, OCI Architect Professional)
- Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
- Business-level English and Japanese communication skills
Desired Qualifications:
- Experience designing multi-cloud architectures (2 or more providers)
- Experience presenting and driving cloud strategy to executives and non-technical stakeholders
- Experience designing Kubernetes and container platform architectures
- Experience implementing Zero Trust Architecture and CSPM
- Hands-on FinOps experience (cost allocation design, tagging standardization, cost optimization)
- Experience with GCP Dedicated Interconnect and Shared VPC design, implementation, and operations
- Hands-on experience with OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure)
- Experience operating an Architecture Review Board
- Practical experience with DevSecOps and GitOps
- Experience developing and creating e-learning content
- Experience in technical negotiations and relationship building with multiple cloud vendors
#engineer #infrastructureengineer #technologyplatformdiv
Languages:
English (Overall - 3 - Advanced), Japanese (Overall - 3 - Advanced)
SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards, and consumer finance. The Group has more than 150 offices and 120,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG's shares trade on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges, and its ADRs trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SMFG).
Americas: https://www.smbcgroup.com/
EMEA: https://www.smbcgroup.com/emea/
APAC: https://www.smbc.co.jp/asia/
Tokyo: https://www.smfg.co.jp/english/
