Senior Product Manager (LLM API Platform)

Job Description:

Situated in the heart of Singapore's CBD, Rakuten Asia Pte. Ltd. is the regional headquarters for Rakuten’s global expansion. We comprise various businesses providing essential value-added services to the Rakuten ecosystem. Through product strategy and data management, Rakuten Asia strengthens the Group’s core competencies to lead in an increasingly digitalized world.
 

The GPU Optimization Department (GPUOD) is the engine room of Rakuten’s AI & Data Division (AIDD). We are responsible for the entire ecosystem. Our mission is to ensure that LLM deployment across the Rakuten Group is cost-effective, high-performing, and seamlessly integrated. We transform raw GPU compute into a sophisticated, scalable LLM API Platform that powers "AI-nization" for Rakuten’s global engineering teams.

We are seeking a Senior Product Manager to own the vision, strategy, and end-to-end productization of Rakuten’s Internal LLM API Platform. Your mission is to position our internal models and API infrastructure as the premier choice for Rakuten’s production systems and the primary engine for our internal developer workflows.
 

By leveraging our highly optimized GPU clusters, you will prove that our in-house API solutions offer greater cost efficiency and superior performance than generic third-party providers. You will be the bridge between deep-tier GPU engineering and the practical needs of global developers, ensuring they have the APIs and the tooling required to build faster and smarter.

Key Responsibilities

• API & Tooling Roadmap: Lead the strategic vision for the LLM API Platform, evolving them into high-availability, developer-centric services.

• Strategic Internal Migration: Partner closely with the LLM Development and Adoption teams to advocate for our in-house platform across Rakuten’s global business units. Build the business case for migrating from external LLM providers and third-party coding assistants to our internal solutions by demonstrating superior TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and driving widespread organizational adoption.

• Feature Productization: Define the API feature set and tool requirements, ensuring they meet rigorous production standards including latency SLAs, security/compliance, token-based usage monitoring, and multi-region scalability.

• Unit Economics & Pricing: Develop data-driven pricing models for internal and external API usage, ensuring our platform remains the most economical choice for the organization.

• Developer Experience (DX): Collaborate with engineering to ensure a frictionless experience, providing world-class documentation, SDKs, and IDE integrations that make internal tools the "default" for Rakuten engineers.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of Technical PM experience with a focus on API Products, Developer Tools, or AI/ML Platforms.

• LLM & SDLC Literacy: Strong understanding of the LLM inference lifecycle and how AI can be integrated into the modern software development workflow.

• Enterprise API Expertise: Proven track record building or managing enterprise-grade API products with a focus on reliability, versioning, and developer adoption.

• Financial & Analytical Rigor: Ability to build cost-benefit models to justify the ROI of in-house API infrastructure and internal tools versus third-party LLM API providers.

• Technical Fluency: Comfortable collaborating with GPU engineers on topics such as model serving frameworks (e.g., vLLM, SGLang), API gateways, and IDE extension architecture.

• Influence & Communication: Exceptional ability to drive alignment across global teams and present data-backed visions to senior leadership.

Preferred Skills

• Experience in API-as-a-Product management or managing Internal Developer Platforms (IDP).

• Experience "Productizing" internal infrastructure for external B2B enterprise clients.