Paul Dargan

Experience

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  Japan Exchange and Teaching Program(me) (JET)

  Aug 2013 - Aug 2017

  Assistant Language Teacher

  Worked as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT), home tutor, adult English-speaking class instructor, translator, and interpreter for the Nyuzen Town Hall Board of Education.

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  Interbooks Co., Ltd.

  Aug 2017 - Jun 2019

  Translator

  Served as an in-house translator and proofreader for Japanese to English, covering a wide spread of content categories including financial (earnings reports, shareholder meetings), commercial (department store announcements, travel posters, merchandise catalogs), and corporate (company brochures, product manuals).Provided text-to-speech data via Amazon Polly for a high-end department store's in-store announcements in English.Pioneered an evening English conversation class for office staff to improve their speaking and listening comprehension skills.Key achievements:- Became the primary provider of English translation of commercial travel posters produced by JR and printed by Toppan Printing for use in train stations around Japan.- Developed a lasting relationship with Mitsukoshi Isetan for providing English textual translation and text-to-speech data for in-store announcements. Show less

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  The Japan Times

  Jan 2018 - Apr 2020

  Freelance Copywriter

  Wrote English copy for events hosted at local hotels by paraphrasing the original Japanese press releases to meet word count and tailor the content to a western audience.Occasionally pitched and authored original articles on translation, academic elements of Japanese kanji, and bilingual culture.Key achievements:- Had 4 articles published with byline, including one article on the history of ghost kanji that made "trending" on the Japan Times' homepage during the halloween season. Show less

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  Gumi Inc.

  Jul 2019 - Apr 2020

  English Language Lead

  Led the English translation of War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile game under the IP ownership of Square Enix.Translated a wide array of content from Japanese to English for the game, including functional UI, flavor text (items, characters, backstory elements), and meta data (campaign text, player guides, social media).Allocated translation volume to a lean team of translation specialists and coordinated with the leads of other languages to ensure smooth pivot operations of Japanese to English, Korean, and Chinese, and subsequently English to French, German, and Spanish.Key achievements:- Successfully prepared all English contents required to celebrate a timely launch of the game on iOS and Android for English markets.- Ensured a smooth transition from Excel-based operations to CAT tool-assisted operations mid-project, heigtening translation accuracy and consistency.- Established the first communication pathway between the Japan head office and Singapore subsidiary (which managed the game's server data, translation data, and customer support operations) despite initial language/cultural barriers. Show less

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  Rakuten Travel

  May 2020 - now

  Oversee the career development of Localization Group's members, guiding them through their six-month objectives and giving timely feedback via weekly 1on1 meetings.Provide opportunities for members to lead initiatives, engage in cross-functional projects with other departments, and take on increasingly challenging tasks beyond their primary roles as translators.Actively participate in hiring protocols for the group, screening CVs and interviewing prospective candidates to determine their eligibility.Key achievements:- Standardized the performance objective-setting framework for both probationary and regular-term employees, improving the group's collaborative mindset. Show less Manage the end-to-end operations of all translation and proofreading tasks covering 9 total languages, including the pivot operations of Japanese to English and subsequently English to Languages other than English (LotE).Enact compliance-focused task intake practices through JIRA-based ticketing systems for internal stakeholders while utilizing Tableau visualizations to track in-house translation resource capacity.Conduct quarterly analyses of translation volume and overall operational efficiencies so as to uncover bottlenecks and drive the growth of the group.Manage the group's fiscal budget and contractual obligations for outsourcing operations when in-house availability is limited, ensuring stakeholders' needs can be met even when languages are unavailable.Key achievements:- Set a standard for JIRA-based ticketing now adopted by 3 other groups within the company.- Obtained Data Saber qualification for Tableau and evangelized the use of data-driven approaches to translation operations.- Automated Tableau reports on LotE resource capacity, outsourcing budget spend, and LotE translation coverage of high-priority hotels.- Maintained 90-100% BvA on monthly budget spend to date, stabilizing the group's financial impact on the organization. Show less Translate from Japanese and proofread all English textual content on Rakuten Travel's Japan inbound hotel booking platform, covering a wide range of content categories including UIUX (app, web, supplier-side extranet), legal (T&C, Privacy Policies), commercial (campaigns, feature articles, social media, hotel information), and geographical (municipalities, transit hubs, points of interest).Establish and maintain bedrock assets for improving the quality and consistency of the English product, including style guides, glossaries, pre-translation tools, and translation memory databases.Ensure a high-quality, localized user journey from start to finish, maintaining A-grade Quality Control (QC) scores through LQA operations.Assess the quality of machine translations and generative AI output, engineering prompts to boost the overall quality of AI-generated translations and systemize MTPE processes.Key achievements:- Covered 2.5 MM words' worth of content to date.- Formalized internal and vendor-facing style guides to standardize the tone of the English product across all departments.- Guaranteed consistent quarterly QC scores of 95+ for the English product over the last 5 years.- Developed in-house pre-translation tools via VBA & SQL scripting to boost translation speed by as much as 90% for specific content categories. Show less

  • Vice Manager

    Jul 2024 - now

  • Localization Operations Lead

    Apr 2022 - now

  • English Language Lead

    May 2020 - now