Price Planning at Coupang Eats Services (CES) analyzes delivery demand and supply by region and designs the optimal price structure. We met Jino and Zia, who successfully began their careers as new hires in a strategy function where specialized expertise is essential, and manager Woody, who helped turn their potential into performance. Here, we share their intense considerations and on-the-ground stories as they move the market with data.
Hi! First, please introduce yourself.
Woody: Hello, my name is Woody. I started my career about 10 years ago, and I joined Coupang Eats Services (CES) around May 2024. Currently I am leading the Non-Seoul Price Planning team. Our job is to draw up ideas and make plans to achieve each region’s KPIs (key performance indicators) and communicate with various stakeholders.
Jino: Hello, I am Jino from the Non-Seoul Price Planning team. I’ve been working with CES for about a year now. Before I was in charge of the Gangwon/Chungcheong area, but now I’m with Incheon. As the demands and supplies vary by region, our work is to design and advance price strategies that can give our customers consistent delivery experience.
Please tell us about Price Planning and what your team is currently working on.
Woody: Price Planning is a strategic team that designs and manages one of our most important metrics the “price”. Our mission is to design the prices meticulously to build a logistics environment where our customers can get their products at the right time in prime quality. We design structures for the commission paid for our Eats Delivery Partners (EDP) to do so, and work on finding “the optimum balance between profit and efficiency” that avoids unnecessary losses but does not affect the quality of our customer experience (CX).
One of the most important elements in our work is the data that differs by region. For regions with very distinct characteristics of their own, we establish customized strategies that can match that. Also, there are regions that can provide massive amounts of data while data is less plentiful in others. We are building optimized strategies for each region based on such differences too.
How did you first hear about Price Planning at Coupang Eats Service, and what made you decide to apply?
Woody: Previously, I worked at an airline for and was responsible for flight fare optimization and price adjustments. I wanted to expand my career at the time, and I thought this was the best place to push my “Pricing Management” capabilities further. It was a natural decision for me, as I was certain that the expertise the job required was exactly what my experience had given me.
Jino: I experienced internships and start-ups and always wanted to begin my career more solidly in an environment where data is the key to business. When I found this position in Price Planning while I was looking for a job, I was intrigued by how dynamic the delivery services are, as they are at the center of changing our everyday lives. I was especially fascinated by Coupang’s unique way of fast-decision making based on massive amounts of data as I felt that this was how I wanted to develop myself. People I knew who were already in the field had told me a lot about Coupang’s fair and efficient corporate culture, which was also one of the big reasons behind my decision.
Zia: I got my work experience as the only data analyst in the supermarket operations center of a retail business. While I was working independently, I had a growing desire to join an organization that could let me more systematically learn and discuss data expertise to help improve each other. Coupang Eats Services was no doubt a company with the best data-based decision-making culture in the industry established, and where I could prove myself with my results and abilities regardless of my rank. The Price Planning team had both the stability of a big company and the flexibility of a start-up, which was exactly what I was looking for to push myself further.
Before joining Coupang Eats Service, what kind of roles did you work in? And how has that experience drive you to adjust to your current work?
Jino: I worked as the Project Manager (PM) in a start-up company before, and led service planning and overall improvement. As I contemplated the directions a service should take as the person making the plans, I was naturally led to data analysis, and became in charge of the process of extracting user data and verifying hypothesis using SQL. I wasn’t merely monitoring the metrics, but trained myself in driving the next actions for a given problem from the data. This hypothesis-driven approach/thinking, which involved designing user behavior–based A/B tests and refining the product based on the results, has become a core capability in my current role, where I am required to set up new hypotheses daily and derive optimal prices.
Zia: I worked on both operation management and data analysis as I was in mobility and logistics domains. Specifically, I led various projects building operation systems based on real-time data such as dashboards that visualized the flow of the field with numbers. My experience with “real-time metrics monitoring and operation optimization” is very similar to what I am doing in the Price Planning team now. The job does not end at analyzing on a desk, and having seen firsthand how data impacts the on-site logistics operations and business processes has been a valuable asset for me in designing and managing the complex cost structures.
Among all the options you had, what made you choose Coupang Eats Service as the place to start your career?
Jino: Over the years, I have been broadening my professional spectrum by gaining experience in various fields from the pet industry to real estate. I always wanted to prove myself in a service with more users and traffic rather than settling for a single realm. When I applied to Coupang Eats Services, the company was unrivaled in its speed of growth, and its market share was rising rapidly. My biggest motive was that I wanted a challenge. Instead of settling for the comfort of an established no. 1 company, I wanted to contribute to the team with my data analysis capabilities to bring the company to the very top.
Zia: The potential of the last-mile delivery industry had me interested from the earliest stages of my career. I even tried learning the mechanisms of the market by communicating with the members of the delivery teams in my previous job. When I was looking for a new job, Coupang Eats had been expanding rapidly starting from the Seoul regions and changing the game itself. I was convinced that this was the best place to start my career as a data expert with change and innovation happening the fastest in the industry.
Jino and Zia Checking Data
From an organizational management perspective, what strengths do you think new talents bring to the team?
Woody: I believe there are two aspects that make hiring junior talent especially valuable. The first is “Freshness outside of the conventions”. New employees are not confined by convention or fixed frames of business. When they see a situation, they suggest various new perspectives without prejudice, and the ideas that come from them bring fresh air to the whole team. Also, although some are still reluctant to embrace the openness of the younger generation, I believe their boldness in expressing their own opinions is critical in preventing the organization from becoming stagnant. I remember I was quite passionate about my own opinions in my junior years too, so I need the young new hires to bring fresh energy to the team and help us consistently question ourselves to move forward.
The second is their exceptional abilities to learn and absorb. Newer players absorb new insights and technical revolutions like a sponge. Because they internalize knowledge more rapidly, their execution in the field is also faster. Such velocity becomes a driving force for the whole team, which can ultimately elevate the overall energy of the whole organization.
If someone joins Price Planning at Coupang Eats Service, what kind of career path can they build?
Woody: The biggest advantage of our team is the environment itself that lets us design and process massive amounts of data. In many cases companies use already processed data and dashboards to merely monitor the metrics for “analysis”. However, the work of our Price Planning team begins with structuring and mapping out the raw data ourselves to meet our business needs.
We are not mere observers who simply consume data, but architects who design its flow. The intense deliberation involved in this process will naturally help you develop analytical thinking skills, as well as a technical perspective and skill set essential for a data engineer.
In short, I believe the experience here is not only about becoming a data-based planner or analyst. It is a unique opportunity to advance your career as a next generation data engineer with both strategic business thinking and engineering capabilities. I can say with pride that we are providing stronger career expandability than anywhere else, as you will be able to acquire both domain knowledge and technical expertise here.
For applicants hoping to join Coupang Eats Service, could you share any practical tips that might help them prepare for their interviews?
Jino: The Coupang Eats Services’s interviews are very in-depth and are done in many stages. The most important thing to remember while going through the process is to keep your logic consistent. My recommendation is to try organizing your work experience and the problem-solving procedures you’ve been through into the “situation-definition-solution-result" structure before the interview. Especially, recalling what standard principle you followed when you were making the decision is extremely important. If you have your key experience ready with a clear story of your own, you will be able to deliver your strong points consistently without panicking at repeated questions or unexpected variants.
Zia: You shouldn’t back down even when the job requirements do not match your past career perfectly. What’s more important is reinterpreting your experience with the Price Planning language. When I applied to Coupang Eats, I talked to others who were already in the delivery industry to collect information about the field which I wasn’t familiar with at the time, and focused on finding relations between my experience and the team that could lead to contributions based on what I learned.
Especially, I want to emphasize the importance of your experience with proactive problem-solving. The memory of hypothesizing, testing with data and arriving at an insight yourself rather than simply doing what you were told to do will become a powerful weapon. You can get help from others if you want to write technical queries, but defining the problem and building your own logic in a complicated business situation is something no one can do for you, and you must prove it yourself.
Woody, Zia, and Jino Having Free Discussions
After joining Coupang Eats Service, was there anything unique or memorable about the culture that stood out to you that you haven’t experienced before?
Woody: What was most surprising to me was how much the leadership was involved with the actual work and the speed of the organizational decision-making. I heard that many other organizations require weeks to get approval because the procedures are complicated, but at Coupang the executives are sharply aware of the hands-on business and are directly involved in the decision-making process. This allows us to go forward immediately without any unnecessary delays, giving us a strong competitive edge. Seeing the leaders and the staff on the same page to arrive at the best results possible is an amazing experience for a manager.
Jino: I remember how thrilled I was when I saw how quickly the data logic I designed was converted to actual service metrics. For example, if I assess why preferences of our delivery partners (EDPs) vary by distance and apply those factors to the price logic, the results are returned to me in readable numbers in a single day. Such a dynamic feedback loop where a hypothesis is made, executed and checked with data within 24 hours to elaborate the logic had me feeling an unparalleled sense of accomplishment.
Zia: The moments I witnessed that Coupang was indeed a global company were fascinating for me. We don’t just use English, but there is a collaboration culture that can completely overcome the language barrier. We were able to communicate with the Japanese team smoothly as simultaneous interpretation was provided. Seeing staff from all over the world connect around a shared goal without language barriers was both thrilling and refreshing, as it made me realize that I was truly part of a global market.
What mid- or long‑term career goals would each of you like to achieve here at Coupang Eats Service (CES)?
Woody: I always strive to climb to the very top of the career path in any area and organization. Ever since I was a student I always enjoyed challenging myself to get the best results possible in my given position. My ultimate goal is the same at CES. I want to acquire my own irreplaceable specialty in my area of Price Planning and achieve my career highlight so that our team’s results become the very standard of the industry.
Jino: I want to become a critical contributor when we make history and become the absolute no. 1 of the delivery market. As AI technology is developing fast at the moment, I plan to try accurately handling vast amounts of data and bringing in the newest AI tools for our business to create a visible impact. I believe that “great input creates great results”, and I strive to produce an equation of success that will bring growth to both me and the company through unceasing learning.
Zia: I’ve only been with the team for 4 months, so currently I’m focusing on learning the team’s process perfectly and making my abilities as a data analyst stronger. However, I don’t plan to settle for anything. I want to become a more critical part of the team that can provide data-based insight and productive impact to not only the Price Planning team, but the whole Engagement organization. Becoming a reliable partner that my teammates can always trust would be my own precious goal.
Lastly, could you share a message for future candidates who want to grow together with Price Planning at Coupang Eats Service?
Woody: At the Price Planning team, we don’t just press calculator buttons, but we draw up the map of the whole business with data. We are looking for people who are willing to go the road not taken rather than take the established “right answer”, and are prepared to prove their own logic and hypothesis. Please don’t hesitate just because you are new to the field or you don’t have much experience. Your fresh ways of thinking and burning passion will become the engine of our team. If you believe in the power of data, come on and join us now.
Jino: I am proud to say that this is where the phrase “data-based decision-making" is realized most actively and dynamically. I want to share the thrill of watching my analysis immediately change the experience of tens of thousands of users and the delivery industry itself. If you are open to learning and see change as an opportunity to move forward, CES is your place to shine as you begin your career. I hope to meet you at the frontlines soon.
Zia: I wondered if I had what it takes when I applied for the job too. However, after joining I realized that it’s not about finding the perfect person, but about improving and perfecting ourselves together. For people looking to establish themselves as data experts by working with outstanding peers in a global environment, this is the job for you. If you enjoy identifying a problem and solving it, you will be able to show your potentials boundlessly at the Price Planning team.
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