Hand-on Scrum Master

At Money Forward Inc., we are dedicated to transforming financial services using advanced technology. With over 50 services for individuals and businesses, including popular products like "Money Forward ME" and "Money Forward Cloud," we help make managing money easier. We use cutting-edge "account aggregation" technology to gather user data, turning it into useful insights for our customers.

Our department leads the way in using the latest technologies to improve our products. We focus on solving engineering problems across the company and increasing the value of our services. In the future, we aim to boost productivity by addressing technical debt and creating common platforms.

Within the department, our division builds and manages shared microservices and backend systems used by various products. We work to promote these internal services, separate company-wide functions, and solve collaboration issues between products. Our goal is to enhance performance, speed up systems, and provide consistent functionality. We also aim to document and share our knowledge to support a strong service infrastructure and increase business value.

We are looking for a hands-on Scrum Master / Tech Lead who can lead a small team while contributing directly to development. In this hybrid role, you’ll drive sprint planning, stakeholder engagement, and team coordination while spending about half your time writing and reviewing code. You’ll be at the center of execution—ensuring delivery, supporting engineers, and engaging with product and management to align priorities. This is a rare opportunity to combine leadership and technical depth in a lean, fast-moving environment.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Lead a small development team (initially 2 members), balancing hands-on development and team facilitation.
• Drive sprint planning, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and other Agile ceremonies.
• Act as a key contact point between engineering, business stakeholders, and management to ensure alignment and visibility.
• Contribute directly to development (approx. 50% of the time), designing and implementing scalable backend systems and services.
• Provide technical guidance, mentorship, and regular code reviews to ensure high engineering standards.
• Track team progress and health using tools like Jira, ensuring timely delivery and continuous improvement.
• Help shape team processes, estimation practices, and foster a culture of shared ownership and accountability.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in software development with strong hands-on skills in a modern programming language (e.g., Go, Java, Kotlin, TypeScript, Python, etc.).
• Proven experience in leading small teams or acting as a Scrum Master, Tech Lead, or Engineering Manager in an Agile environment.
• Deep understanding of backend system design, software architecture, and microservices.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with ability to collaborate effectively with product managers, designers, and leaders.
• Comfortable facilitating Agile ceremonies and balancing delivery accountability with technical execution.
• Strong sense of ownership, self-direction, and reliability in fast-moving environments.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with distributed systems, message queues (e.g., Kafka), or event-driven architectures.
• Familiarity with Domain-Driven Design (DDD), clean architecture, or design patterns for scalable backend development.
• Exposure to infrastructure as code, containerized environments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes), or cloud platforms (especially AWS).
• Experience working in a multi-national, cross-timezone team environment.
• Scrum Master certification (CSM, PSM) or similar is a plus.

Language Skills

• Business level English proficiency (TOEIC score of 700 or above equivalent).
• Japanese proficiency is not required but nice to have.

Those Who Fit

• A shared belief in Money Forward's Mission/Vision/Values/Culture.
• Passionate about leveraging technology to improve lives and drive impact in financial services.
• Strong sense of responsibility and autonomy—drives progress rather than waiting for direction.
• Thrives in a collaborative, diverse, and globally distributed environment.

Technology Stack

• Language: Go, Java
• Database: MySQL, DynamoDB, Redis
• Infrastructure/Middleware: Terraform, Kubernetes, AWS (EKS, ECR, RDS, S3, SQS, SNS, etc…), GCP, Docker, Kafka, NginX, Consul

Tools Used

• Communication: Slack, Kibela, Zoom
• Monitoring: Datadog, Rollbar, Sentry
• Repository Management: GitHub
• CI/CD: Argo CD, Circle CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions
• Ticket Management: Jira
• Security: Dependabot, Sonarqube