AI Engineer

Mercari is a Japan-based C2C marketplace company founded in 2013 with the mission to “Create value in a global marketplace where anyone can buy & sell.” From being the first tech unicorn from Japan before its IPO in 2018 we have come a long way towards becoming a global player and continuously and diligently work towards our transformation journey with a strong focus on our mission.

Since its inception, Mercari Group has worked to grow its services, investing in both our people and technology. Over time Mercari has expanded from being the top player in the C2C marketplace in Japan to new geographies like the U.S. We have also successfully launched new businesses such as Merpay, which is a mobile payment service platform with a vision to create a society where anyone can realize their dreams through a new ecosystem centered not only on payment service but also on credit. Today, Mercari Group is made up of multiple subsidiary businesses including logistics, B2C platform, blockchain, and sports team management.

For our services to be utilized by people worldwide; however, there is still a mountain of work ahead of us. This endeavor naturally requires the capability of the best talent and minds, and that is exactly the reason for us to launch the India Center of Excellence. With your help, we will continue to take on the world stage and strive to grow into a successful global tech company.

To achieve our mission at Mercari, our organization and each of our employees share the same values and perspectives. Our individual guidelines for action are defined by our four values: Go Bold, All for One, Be a Pro and Move Fast. Our organization is also shaped by our four foundations: Sustainability, Diversity & Inclusion, Trust & Openness, and Well-being for Performance. Regardless of how big Mercari gets, the culture will remain essential to achieving our mission and something we want to preserve throughout our organization. We invite you to read the Mercari Culture Doc which summarizes the behaviors and mindset shared by Mercari and its employees. We continue to build an environment where all of our members of diverse backgrounds are accepted and recognized, and where they can thrive while holding dear to Mercari’s culture.

As an AI Engineer in our new AI Taskforce team, you will be at the forefront of designing, developing, and deploying innovative AI applications using foundation models (e.g., Large Language Models, Multimodal Models) across Mercari. You will build foundational platforms and services that empower product teams to ship robust, scalable AI-powered features. This role is crucial for bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and production systems that deliver measurable value to millions of users, directly contributing to our mission to “Create value in a global marketplace where anyone can buy & sell.”

• Build Foundational AI Services: Design, build, and deploy core generative AI applications and services using modern techniques like prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and fine-tuning to solve high-impact problems across the Mercari ecosystem.
• Drive AI Adoption: Collaborate closely with product, engineering, and infrastructure teams to integrate powerful AI capabilities into the Mercari app, architecting modular and scalable solutions that other teams can build upon.
• Ensure AI Quality and Safety: Develop and champion robust evaluation pipelines to rigorously measure, monitor, and improve model performance, focusing on accuracy, latency, cost, and responsible AI principles.
• Lead the Full AI Lifecycle: Own features end-to-end, from problem scoping and prototyping to production deployment, maintenance, and iteration based on quantitative metrics and qualitative user feedback.
• Innovate and Educate: Be a key technical voice on our new central team. Stay at the forefront of advancements in AI engineering and share your knowledge to help uplift the technical capabilities of the entire organization.

Minimum Requirements

• 2-6 years of professional software engineering experience, with a demonstrated focus on building and deploying AI/ML-powered systems in production.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Proficiency in Python and hands-on experience building applications with Large Language Models (LLMs) and familiarity with core concepts such as prompt engineering, RAG, and fine-tuning.
• Experience building Model Context Protocol(MCP) servers in either Python or Go.
• Solid understanding of software engineering fundamentals and the ability to write clean, maintainable, and production-ready code.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a data-driven approach to decision-making.
• Excellent communication skills to collaborate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders across multiple teams.
  Kindly add details here as well: https://forms.gle/fYqzC2aStCoLMsCN8
  

Preferred Skills

• Experience designing and implementing systematic evaluation strategies for generative AI systems (e.g., AI-as-judge, human-in-the-loop).
• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, etc.) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Contributions to open-source projects or publications in top-tier AI/ML conferences.
• Experience with microservice architecture and development.

• Employment Status: Full-time
• Office: Bangalore
• Hybrid workstyle: We believe in high performance and professionalism. We work from the office 2 days/week and work from home 3 days/week.
• To build a strong & highly-engaged organization in India, we highly encourage everyone to work from our Bangalore office, especially during the initial office setup phase.
• We will continue to review and update the policy to address future organizational needs.
• Work Hours: Full flextime (no core time).
• Flexible to choose working hours other than team common meetings.

Kindly add details here as well: https://forms.gle/fYqzC2aStCoLMsCN8 (ignore if already filled earlier)