Part 1: Overview of the Quality Assurance Business Today

Introducing Kiyoshi Matsukawa 

Earlier in his career, Matsukawa worked for an independent SIer and managed system development projects for financial services and railway companies.

He also led the system management department at that company for five years before joining SHIFT in 2016.  

At SHIFT, he has worked in a wide range of fields, including finance, industrial distribution, and telecommunications.

Matsukawa also held leadership roles in our Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka offices, before becoming General Manager of the Quality Service Department. About SHIFT  

Matsukawa began by giving a brief overview of SHIFT: 

Source:  Business Results for Q2 of FY2024 Ended in February 29, 2024 P.49 

SHIFT has approximately 6,000 employees on a non-consolidated basis (as of May 2023) and 38 group companies (as of July 2023), bringing the number of consolidated employees to over 10,000.

We have grown around software testing, which is a 5.5 trillion yen blue ocean market, and one of the major characteristics behind this growth is that we have created a system that allows “non-engineers” to play an active role. 

Based on this, we have gathered excellent human resources and, with quality assurance as our strength, we are now able to provide comprehensive IT services from upstream to infrastructure security. 

When I joined the company, there were still about 1,000 employees.

At that time, most of the projects were related to web services and gaming, but it was also around this time that we started recruiting people from major system integrators and developing the enterprise domain. 

Source:  Business Results for Q2 of FY2024 Ended in February 29, 2024 P.50 

Since then, SHIFT has been growing steadily, with a sales target of 87 billion yen for FY2023, and the number of employees in the company is increasing rapidly.

So what kind of company is SHIFT aiming to be in the future? 

We want to be a company that goes beyond the testing business to solve social issues.

For example, our CEO, Masaru Tange, has a strong desire to break through the multiple subcontracting structure that plagues engineers.  

Source:  Business Results for Q2 of FY2024 Ended in February 29, 2024 P.47 

The culture at SHIFT is based on the idea of appropriately evaluating engineers based on their abilities.

To address increasing regional disparity in career opportunities, we are hiring not only in areas where we have offices, such as Sendai, Hiroshima, and Niigata but all over Japan –– offering remote work arrangements with Tokyo-level salaries. 

About the Quality Service Department 

To provide a more concrete image of our business, Matsukawa also introduced the Quality Service Department and the role of the PMO.  

SHIFT is a matrix organization, where the vertical organization (the red part in the figure) identifies customer issues in their industry, and the horizontal organization ( Solution Services  in the figure) solves those issues through specialized services.  

Source:  Business Results for Q4 of FY2023 Ended in August 31,2023 P.8 

The Quality Service Department is part of the horizontal organization and is the very foundation of SHIFT, accounting for a large percentage of the company’s sales.  

We have expanded into almost all industries, and our business is growing due to high demand in all of them.

In recent years, system development has become increasingly multi-vendor, and the quality of each vendor’s work often varies.

Therefore, we are receiving more and more orders directly from end-user companies, called “prime” projects, and we are participating in the upstream process as the PMO.  

The following diagram illustrates the specific workflow of the PMO as shown in section ① of the above diagram. 

Our PMO service is involved in downstream test design and other activities while working across the organization to support the definition of requirements and manage overall progress, including sub-teams. Ultimately, the PMO is responsible for the overall condition of the project and provides testing resources accordingly, seeing the project through to post-release operation.  

“I think the distinguishing feature of SHIFT’s PMO service is that we place importance on the balance of QCD (quality, cost, delivery) and provide our clients with a clear basis for decision-making,” said Matsukawa. 

Examples of Successful Mid-career Hires and Their Path to Career Advancement

From there, we looked at some examples of people who joined SHIFT to take the next step in their careers. 

This graphic shows the case of a SIer with over twenty years of experience in system development whose sense for resolving quality issues was cultivated at SHIFT.

He continues to utilize his previous industry experience, and his annual salary has increased.  

This example is someone who worked as an in-house SE at a packaged software company, playing a role similar to QA engineer.

After joining SHIFT, she has been active in customer projects and has earned a lot of trust due to her excellent communication skills, making her a high-potential candidate for promotion to manager. 

As a company that employs many people, SHIFT offers a variety of career advancement paths.

Our company policy is to motivate people and increase their productivity by following their wishes, so there are many opportunities to change jobs.

Even if you don’t fit in one position, you can challenge yourself in another area, which is one of the great things about SHIFT.  

As Matsukawa explained, while SHIFT works earnestly to address customer issues, it also places great importance on the career advancement of its employees.

Twice a year, we encourage personal growth by clearly setting roles, missions, and KPIs in line with each member’s desired career path. 

SHIFT is a service provider, so people are our value. Therefore, we remain firmly committed to returning profits to employees who create value.

The belief that a good manager can give credit to his or her subordinates is also widespread in our management team.  

Part 2: Employee Discussion about Joining SHIFT

After Matsukawa’s presentation, we welcomed Masashi Saito to answer some questions about his experience at SHIFT. 

Saito, who built a consulting-oriented career as a system engineer at a SIer, worked with the real estate and building materials industries for a long time.

He was also responsible for planning and developing ERP packages. When he joined SHIFT in April 2021, he worked with customers in the vertical organization described above and in his second year, became Assistant Manager of the Industrial Distribution & Telecommunication Service Department.  

───Please tell us more about your previous work. 

Immediately before joining SHIFT, I was involved in line management for a specific business unit.

I think there are many companies where unprofitable projects or projects that are in flames are a management issue, and I was also involved in dealing with such projects. Basically, I started out in a technical role and progressed to a consulting-oriented career where I supported customers. 

───What made you think about changing jobs and why did you choose SHIFT?  

In the IT industry, there is a lot of headhunting or hiring of consultants by customers, but it was difficult to find a place that satisfied my requirements for both job requirements and benefits, so I did not change jobs until now.  

Over the years, quality issues have always been a challenge. When I learned about SHIFT and applied, I was surprised by the theoretical approach and high level of the tests.

The deciding factors were the company’s strong commitment to quality and attitude of valuing the will of the employees. 

───What have been some of your most rewarding moments at SHIFT?  

I’m happy when customers come to me when they have a problem, and I can offer a wide range of suggestions to make them happy.

At the proposal stage, we are often asked, “Can you do this much?” I think the key to exceeding expectations at SHIFT is that we visualize quality as PM support and work closely with customers until improvements are achieved.  

This portion of the panel discussion concluded with the following message from Matsukawa: 

The Quality Service Department is highly diverse, including young people and foreign nationals, and we have many (over 350) experienced people over 50 years old who have joined our company.

We aim to create an organization in which everyone can play an active role, so if you are interested, we look forward to hearing from you! 

Part 3: Q&A

Finally, we moved on to the Q&A session. Here are some of the questions that were discussed: 

───Do you hire people without engineering experience? 

Matsukawa: As a company, we are making an effort to hire recent graduates with no engineering experience.

We also hire mid-career employees who know the industry and understand our business.

We want as many people as possible to join our company and play an active role, so we select candidates from the mindset of looking for a place where they can play a positive role within SHIFT.  

───How do you handle test automation?  

Matsukawa: Our DevOps department specializes in this area and handles it according to the client’s needs on a case-by-case basis. 

───How are the project members organized?  

Matsukawa: We often structure our team members in a cross-functional manner depending on the client’s situation and needs.

For example, if the client wants to automate what I mentioned earlier we assign a specialized member from DevOps.

We have a very flat corporate culture, and assignment meetings are often held across departments.  

───Do you often work remotely?  

Matsukawa: Partially due to the recent historical context, we have a lot of remote work, especially for PMs.

However, there are cases where we have to go to the client’s site for test execution.

So, for example, if a client is located in Osaka and a Tokyo-based team member is suitable for the job, we propose remote participation and obtain their consent before starting the project. 

───Are employees in their 50s and older also eligible for training?  

Matsukawa: The Top Gun certification (an internal program for SHIFT Group employees) is open to everyone, regardless of age.

There is also a subsidy system for external certifications, and we frequently hold online study sessions.

Please be assured that SHIFT does not have an age-based culture. 

───Are there any cases where an employee’s evaluation is lowered? 

Matsukawa: Since we are a company, the possibility exists, but these cases are quite rare.

We have people try several times, and if they still struggle to fit the job or make improvements, we may need to lower their evaluation.

That said, managers assess the suitability of the assignment based on each employee’s capability, so there are not many cases where the evaluation goes down.  

After this, we received many more questions, and we hope the event helped participants get to know SHIFT better.  

If you would like to learn more about SHIFT after reading this article, please visit our PM/PMO recruitment homepage. We look forward to hearing from you!  

(Note: The contents of this article and the affiliations of the interviewees are as of the time of the interview.)