The Global Team in Data Hub
Hi, I'm the leader Masanori Ikeda and one of the founders of the Data Hub’s first Global Team.
As of September 1, 2025, our team has eight members, with two more planning to join later this year. I believe we are one of the most influential teams in the Data Hub group.
In this blog, I’ll share our journey through a timeline, and I hope it inspires others to take on new challenges.
May 2024: Declaring My Challenge to Leaders
Summarized Translation
In this leader's meeting, I plan to talk about the following:
- I would like to try hiring engineers from the Cebu branch.
Hiring talented engineers is essential for growing the Data Hub business.
However, hiring only in Japan had its limits — only one person was hired during the one-year period from April 2023 to May 2024.
Sansan has a Global Development Branch called Sansan Global Development Center (hereinafter referred to as the “SGDC”) in Cebu, but there were no members from the Data Hub group there.
At that time, the Data Hub group wasn’t fully ready to support global talent, making it difficult to hire from overseas.
I believed that expanding globally would allow us to attract stronger talent.
So, in May 2024, I announced the launch of a global team to our leaders, including a executive.
I remember when that executive's reaction looked good, which gave me the confidence to move forward.
July 2024: Gathering Opinions About the Global Team Launch
Summarized Translation
I believe we all want to hire excellent engineers and further improve Data Hub.
At the same time, it’s true that we are struggling with recruitment.
That’s why I would like to promote hiring engineers from Cebu.I haven’t decided on a specific number yet, but it seems like the number of Cebu engineers at Sansan is rapidly increasing.
Also, I briefly spoke with Nishiba-san, and it seems there are many engineers in Cebu who can write C#.
Naturally, increasing the pool of hiring regions should raise our chances of finding talented engineers.So, I believe that opening up recruitment in Cebu could greatly contribute to the progress of Data Hub.
Of course, I can’t deny there are various concerns—such as communication in English or handling production data.
Therefore, I would like to conduct a survey with the Data Hub development team.
It’s completely understandable to have worries, so please feel free to share any concerns or negative thoughts.
Big decisions like this can have negative effects on the group.
Honestly, most members in the Data Hub group cannot speak English.
I thought some might worry that launching a global team would create a language barrier.
So I collected feedback from our group.
Summarized Translation
First, honestly, how much do you agree on a scale of 1 to 10?
(10 means strongly agree, 1 means strongly disagree)
The above is part of the results.
Based on the survey, I found some negative opinions.
However, I believed I could overcome those concerns.
Summarized Translation
Nice to meet you. My name is Ikeda, and I’m the team leader of the Data Hub Group.
Currently, I’m working on launching the SGDC team within our group.Since it’s an overseas team, I feel there are still many things that need to be clarified and organized.
Kunii introduced you to me, saying that you might be facing similar challenges, as you worked with the SGDC team in the Digi Department and were involved in its launch from the receiving side.I understand you’re from a different department, so I truly appreciate it if you could give your time.
I would be very grateful if I could consult with you about our launch process.I’ve scheduled a meeting as follows:
- Topic: Consultation on launching the SGDC team in the Data Hub Group
- Date: Wednesday, July 3
- Time: 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
I’ll explain the details during the meeting.
Thank you in advance for your support.
I also talked with people from other departments that had already launched global teams.
I understood the challenges, but still felt confident we could succeed.
July 2024: Officially Announced the Global Team Launch
Summarized Translation
It's been a while since we started the survey about hiring Cebu engineers, so I’d like to share the results (only the statistics).
Here’s a summary of the findings:
- Overall, many people are generally in favor.
- However, there are some concerns about not being able to access the production environment.
- Surprisingly, many people are relatively positive about writing Design Docs in English.
- On the other hand, when it comes to speaking English, many still feel anxious.
I also had a conversation with Aikawa-san, who helped launch the Cebu team in the Digi department, and I'd like to share what I learned from that talk (some of you may have already heard parts of this).
### About English
- This seems to be the biggest challenge.
- As expected, communication is difficult.
- But if there’s at least one person who can speak English and handle design, it works out surprisingly well.
*(I believe I can play that role by keeping up with the core development.)*
- Still, there are times when it would help if others could speak at least a little English.
- For documentation, they write in Japanese and use automatic translation to English, which actually works reasonably well.
### About production data
- Currently, Cebu members cannot access production data (though there are efforts to change that).
- Because of this, there have been cases where bugs introduced by Cebu members had to be investigated and fixed by Japan members.
- However, it doesn’t seem like this has negatively affected the Japan members’ motivation.
### Development workflow with Cebu
- Japanese members define the requirements and hand over tasks to Cebu after the design is fairly solid.
- They’re hoping Cebu members can also get involved in organizing requirements, so they’re trying various approaches (such as hiring high-level engineers).
### About the launch
- In the case of Bill One, they rapidly increased the number of Cebu engineers, which made management difficult for a while.
- It seems they launched before documentation and systems were ready, which added to the challenges.
### Frequency of visiting Cebu
- Aikawa-san visits Cebu about once every two quarters (for about a week).
- The local team apparently hopes for visits about once every quarter.
With all of this in mind, I’ve decided to move forward with launching the Global team.
If there had been strong opposition, I would have reconsidered, but based on what I’ve heard, although there are challenges, the benefits of building the team outweigh the downsides *(as mentioned in the main post)*.There may be some friction as we work with a global team, but I’ll always step in to resolve any issues. I believe this has great potential for Data Hub, so I would really appreciate your support and cooperation.
In July 2024, I officially announced the global team launch to the entire Data Hub group.
I knew we might face some issues, but I believed the benefits would be greater than the drawbacks.
At the same time, I prepared to shift from being a “playing manager” to more of an “engineering manager.”
That meant spending less time coding and more time on management tasks like hiring.
To be honest, I was sad to spend less time coding, but I told myself, “Only you can do this.”
In fact, among the leaders in Data Hub, I am the only one who can speak English, so I felt it was my mission.
August 2024: The Global Team Journey Begins
Summarized Translation
The global hiring for Data Hub is now open.
We’re currently discussing Cebu engineer recruitment for Data Hub in the channel.
(Conversations related to the position opening are mainly in this thread.)Please feel free to join the channel if you're interested!
I first contacted the HR team and started creating a hiring strategy.
I believed defining the ideal type of engineer early on was very important.
While technical skills were part of the requirements, I thought strong leadership was the most important trait, since the initial phase would be chaotic.
On August 16, we officially opened the global team position in Data Hub.
We had two interview options:
- Let engineering managers at SGDC interview candidates and assign them to us.
- Do the interviews ourselves.
Other departments chose the first option, but I chose the second.
I had heard of mismatches in other teams, and I believed only on-site engineers truly understood our needs.
Looking back, interviewing candidates ourselves was one of the best decisions.
All the engineers we hired were able to contribute immediately.
October 2024: First Engineer Hired!
Summarized Translation
Finally, finally, finally!
We’ve successfully hired our first engineer in the Cebu office!We're still finalizing the joining date, but it’s likely he’ll start as early as November 1st.
As for the new team structure — including what to do with the current Salesforce team I’m leading — I’m discussing it with the relevant stakeholders and will share updates with everyone soon.
We successfully hired our first engineer, King.
It was one of the happiest moments for me.
Summarized Translation
Ikeda:
I just had a chat with Oshima-san.
For now, I’ve shared my personal wish that Waku-san joins the Cebu team 100%.Oshima-san’s reaction was like, “Yeah, that sounds totally fine.”
We also agreed that it would be good to hear about Waku-san’s motivation.So… would it be okay if I told him you're feeling some super-hyped, sky-high positive vibes about joining Cebu 100%?
Max:
Let's go!
To build the global team, I also invited a colleague who speaks English as a co-founder.
November 2024: The First Global Team Was Born
The first global team called "Haraya" was officially launched in November 2024.
I think that the four people above were all co-founders of the global team.
The beginning was chaotic — there weren’t many documents in English.
Waku and I often said, “Sorry, please wait while we prepare your tasks.”
But King would always reply, “Don’t worry, I expected this. I’ll look for what I can do on my own.”
After Launching the Global Team
After launching the team, we were able to welcome engineers who speak only English.
As of September 1, 2025, we expect to have 11 members by the end of the year.
From zero to ten members — the team has grown a lot.
I believe we are now one of the most influential teams in the Data Hub group.
At last
In July 2025, we gathered in Cebu and decided on our Mission, Vision, and Values:
Mission
- Change lives — Improve everyone's lives and be a role model as a strong global team in Sansan.
Vision
- Become the most influential team in Sansan
Values
- Everyone is a leader
- Open to the world
- Work efficiently
- Share any ideas
- Be agile
- Respect
- Challenge
- Stay active
- Make changes instead of apologizing
Additionally, we did a design marathon with our team.
If you are interested, please refer to this blog.
Currently, I lead two teams: the Salesforce team and the global team “Haraya.”
Looking back, I’ve been working more as an engineering manager for the past year, with less time spent coding.
Still, I remain the top contributor to our Salesforce package repository.
In the early phase, I focused on EM tasks like interviews and team building.
I’m very happy the team has grown so fast — the launch phase was exciting.
Now that we’ve moved from the “expansion” phase to the “enhancement” phase.
Thanks to another leader Max, my management workload is decreasing.
So, I’ve started to code more again.
As I wrote this blog, we’re working to migrate to a new architecture.
It’s time to change lives with my code.
Also, if you are interested in joining us, please check the link.
Byebye.
