Tomohiro Furusawa

Tomohiro Furusawa

Product Manager

A product manager who was born in library and information science and raised in data science, and is a software engineer. Enjoys search, recommendation, and organizational theory.

About

I have been involved in product development related to search and recommendation systems since my university days, with a background in library and information science. After graduating from graduate school, I joined Recruit Co., Ltd. as a data scientist, where I worked on tasks ranging from implementing machine learning in existing services to developing new businesses. Since 2019, I have been working at Mercari, Inc. as a data scientist, focusing on improving search systems. Later on, I transitioned to the role of a software engineer at the same company, where I worked on developing large-scale recommendation systems. In parallel, I promoted team development as a Scrum Master and have been driving product development as a Product Manager.

Experience

Mercari, Inc.

May 2019 - Present

Career Summary

After joining as a Data Scientist, I have experienced various roles including Engineer, Product Manager, and Director, gaining broad experience from development of search and recommendation systems to product strategy planning and team leadership.

Director

July 2024 - Present · 1 year 3 months

Product Team

  • • Strategic planning and execution for product strategy related to improvement of buyer experience including recommendation and search features

Product Manager

April 2022 - June 2024 · 2 years 3 months

Product Team

  • • Strategic planning and execution for discovery experience products
  • • Strategic planning and promotion of home screen direction and recommendation features

Scrum Master / Software Engineer

May 2020 - June 2022 · 2 years 2 months

AI/Personalization Team

  • • Introduction of Scrum to product teams in remote work environment and improvement of team development structure
  • • Development, operation, and improvement of large-scale recommendation systems

Data Scientist

May 2019 - April 2020 · 1 year

Data science Team

  • • Strategic planning for search improvement and experimental design for effect measurement
  • • Establishment of evaluation and release flow for search and recommendation
  • • Proof of concept for recommendation features
  • • Launch of recommendation team

Recruit Co., Ltd.

April 2017 - April 2019

Data Scientist

April 2017 - April 2019 · 2 years 1 month

Data Management Department

  • • System construction using machine learning for improving search navigation of existing websites
  • • Maintenance and operation of advertising operation systems using machine learning

Internships & Part-time Jobs

2014 - 2016

Pixiv Corporation (pixiv 2016 SPRING BOOT CAMP)

March 2016

Planned and implemented email strategies to prevent user churn.

So-net Media Networks Corporation

March 2016

Conducted data analysis on DSP logs and created a prototype of a machine learning-based violation detection system.

Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. (Internship)

February 2016

Participated in the data analyst course. Conducted data analysis on user behavior logs of website visitors using Python and other tools.

DMM.com Lab

August-September 2015

Worked as a server-side engineer to create APIs for smartphone applications using PHP.

University of Tsukuba, College of Knowledge and Library Sciences Programming Exercise TA

June 2015 - February 2016

Teaching Assistant for programming classes (Language: Ruby)

Ibaraki Prefectural Tsukuba Nursing School Library

April 2014 - January 2016

Handled librarian duties while creating and providing a book search system.

Education

University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Library, Information and Media Studies — Master of Information Science

April 2015 - March 2017

Conducted research on people's expectations for Q&A services by comparing reference services, which are Q&A services in libraries, with Q&A sites such as Yahoo! Chiebukuro. The research results were recognized and published at an international conference.

University of Tsukuba, College of Knowledge and Library Sciences — Bachelor of Library and Information Science

April 2011 - March 2015

Studied "Library and Information Science," a discipline that challenges the systematization of technologies and knowledge on how to collect, organize, preserve, and provide information and knowledge that overflow in the world, while conducting research on social media and Q&A services.

Publications, Articles & Awards

Books & Papers

Interview Articles

Presentations & Lectures

Awards