Localization Project Manager

6-12 month contract

Must be fluent in Japanese

Trans Perfect provides managed localization services to global technology companies. This contractor role supports Trans Perfect-led Japanese localization initiatives across multilingual digital products, ensuring linguistic quality and cultural accuracy within established localization workflows.

• Support the Localization Project Manager throughout all production phases of incoming translation requests, coordinating translation and localization for Japan and other established locales.
• Coordinate all localization activities, including translation, editing, proofreading, and quality assurance.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for all localization-related inquiries and issues, internally and externally.
• Collaborate with internal teams and external vendors to establish project timelines and deliverables.
• Manage localization resources, including translators, editors, and company engineers, to optimize efficiency and quality.
• Communicate regularly with stakeholders to provide updates on project status, address concerns, and gather feedback.
• Identify and mitigate potential risks and challenges that may impact the localization process or timeline.
• Monitor project progress and performance metrics to ensure adherence to established goals and standards.
• Implement continuous improvement initiatives to streamline processes and enhance localization efficiency and quality.
• Manage incoming translation requests in Jira, collect reference materials and visual context, and assign work to translators.
• Ensure strings maintain internationalization best practices and flag potential issues to the engineering team.
• Upload requests into the Smartling platform, set due dates for vendors, and deliver completed extracted translations to engineering teams.
• Research and answer translators’ queries about source content to ensure accuracy.
• Ensure adherence to established terminology and style guides.

• Relevant university degree, certifications, or professional experience.
• Familiarity or past experience in payments, banking, POS systems, and merchant apps is a plus.
• Experience with terminology management and project management.
• Fluency in Japanese; knowledge of additional languages is a plus.
• Proven experience managing localization projects for software products, preferably for the Japanese locale.
• Strong knowledge of localization tools (Smartling) and technologies, translation management systems, version control systems, Jira, and Confluence.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross‑functional teams and external partners.
• Exceptional organizational and time‑management abilities, with keen attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Cultural sensitivity and awareness, with a deep understanding of the target market’s preferences, norms, and cultural nuances.
• Strong problem‑solving skills and the ability to think strategically to overcome challenges and drive project success.
• Project management certification (e.g., PMP) is a plus.
• Experience working in Agile or Scrum environments is desirable.

• 3–5 years of related experience.
• Experience working with Android and macOS environments.
• Familiarity with Google shared documents and spreadsheets.
• Experience with PDFs.
• Familiarity with JIRA or other bug‑tracking systems.
• Understanding of software release cycles and Agile development.
• Attention to detail, flexible mindset, independent learner.
• Ability to work with multiple product teams around the globe to deliver overall language quality and consistency while maintaining a strong user experience.