【Dev】Software Engineer / Lead Engineer

[About the Company]

The company's mission is "to advance humanity by reinventing the mechanisms of value creation" and aims to create an environment where people can focus on creating new value through the use of natural language processing and AI technologies.

AI delivers information directly related to business operations, thereby enhancing the information sensitivity of the organization. In addition, the company offers two SaaS products: "Anews," which encourages the conception of business ideas and their development within the organization, and "Astrategy," a market research service that provides suggestions by structuring necessary information according to the organization and its operations.

Currently, its main target is major manufacturing R&D in Japan, and more than 30% of the Nikkei 225 companies have already adopted the system. In the future, starting with manufacturing R&D, the company plans to expand to domestic enterprise companies, then to Japanese companies as a whole, and even to global companies.

The company completed a Series C financing of 1.1 billion in August 2022.
In February 2024, they were selected for the "GENIAC (Generative AI Accelerator Challenge) Project" promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and NEDO, and have begun to develop their own LLM with 100 billion parameters!
The company has grown to 100 employees and is looking for more personnel to achieve further growth!

【Job Description】 

【Company Overview】
The company's mission is “to advance humanity by reinventing the mechanism of value creation,” and it supports the corporate transformation of many companies by utilizing the most advanced generative AI technology.

The company operates “Anews,” a one-stop search engine for internal and external information, and “SAT (Stockmark A Technology),” a system for structuring all types of data and turning them into corporate assets. We also support the development of company-specific generative AI and the construction of proprietary systems.

Currently, the main target is major manufacturing R&D in Japan, which already accounts for 30% of the Nikkei 225 and has been introduced in over 250 companies. In the future, starting with manufacturing R&D, the company plans to expand to domestic enterprise companies, then to Japanese companies as a whole, and even to global companies.

The company is also focusing on research and development of a purely domestic LLM that is strong in the Japanese language and business domain, and in May 2024, the company released its own LLM with 100 billion parameters!

In October 2024, it completed a Series D fundraising of 4.5 billion yen, for a total of 8.8 billion yen.
With over 100 employees, the company is recruiting personnel to achieve further growth!

【Current Issues】
・The company has recently completed a Series D procurement of 4.5 billion yen, and in order to take the product to the next level, it is essential to promote the implementation of new functions by working with product managers and designers to rapidly verify the value of the product.
・In addition to the development of new functions as described above, the company urgently needs to strengthen its development system to rapidly advance requests for improvement from customers, stable operation of the product, and improvement of the development environment in a two-wheeled manner.

【Responsibilities】
You will be responsible for the development of web and mobile applications for “Anews”. In the future, you will be expected to work on a full stack of development projects, starting with your area of expertise.

In addition to basic development, you may also take on the challenge of architecting, development planning, research, and planning and promotion in cooperation with BizDev for large-scale and highly complex development, depending on your intentions and desires.

Examples of planned large-scale, high-complexity development
・Study, design, and development of functions to summarize information accumulated by users using LLM and connect it to insights.
・Development and performance improvement of functions to recommend information of higher quality to each user
・Study, design, and develop a function to visualize insights from information shared by the organization

■Specifically
[Front-end Domain]
・Planning and design of new features, SPA development and performance improvement using Vue.js
・Mobile app development using Flutter
・Improve the development experience by improving the development infrastructure and refactoring
・Design and implementation of common product components

[Back-end area]
・API design and development using Ruby on Rails/Python
・Database design and development
・Design and development of architecture using AWS environment
・Design and development of batch processing using Python
・Design, development, and improvement of functions using natural language processing technology
・Scope of change: development-related work

【Team Structure】
Product Engineering Unit (27 members)
Breakdown: 1 VPoE, 3 lead engineers, 24 engineers

【Development Environment】
[Organization]
Feature structure by function: 1 PdM, 1-2 product designers, 5-7 engineers
If necessary, you will also collaborate with BizDev and researchers of natural language processing to promote development.

▼Anews
[Language Used/Framework]
Vue.js , TypeScript , Flutter, Ruby on Rails , Python, Terraform

[Database]
RDB(Amazon Aurora MySQL), Elasticsearch(AWS OpenSearch)

[Infrastructure]
Docker, AWS(ECS, Cognito, SQS, SES, Step Functions, IAM, CodeBuild, CodePipeline, CodeDeploy etc.)
Datadog, SendGrid etc.

▼Astrategy (FYI)
[Language Used/Framework]
Vue.js, TypeScript, Python, Golang, Terraform

[Database]
DynamoDB, Elasticsearch(AWS OpenSearch)

[Infrastructure/Cloud Infrastructure]
Docker, AWS(ECS, Cognito, Lambda etc.), Datadog, CircleCI etc.

【Attractiveness of this position】
■Involved in advanced search/recommendation technology in the development of LLM x SaaS products
Although Anews is a toB x SaaS product, the nature of the news application requires advanced recommendation and search technology, and the company is able to take on the challenge of developing a highly challenging product.

■Team development in collaboration with PdM, Designer, BizDev, and Research
The company employs feature-based development in which engineers mutually collaborate with PdM, designers, BizDev, and Research. This is an environment where you can work on products together with many different professions while always thinking about customer issues.

■Flexible work environment
You can work in a way that suits your lifestyle. The company has a high percentage of engineers and understands the importance of engineering as a company. The average age of the members is 36.7 years old, and many of them have experience in enterprise, allowing them to develop in a relaxed atmosphere.

【Working conditions & treatment】

■Salary increase (twice a year / May and November)

【About remote work】
■Basically, fully remote work
　Residence must be in Japan (no full remote work while residing overseas)
■Flexible remote/working options (no restrictions on the number of times you can come to the office)
　Each employee works while using the system according to his/her own circumstances.

There are people who work full remotely from Sendai, Kyoto, Osaka, etc., people who enjoy working while on vacation, foreign nationals who return to their home countries for a few weeks to work, and people who mainly come to work, making for a diverse work style.

【Welfare】
■Customer facing allowance (flat monthly amount of 20,000 yen *included in monthly salary)
　Free use for self-improvement and customer value improvement
　(purchase of books/attendance at seminars/equipment, etc.)
■Lump-sum allowance for preparation for remote work (flat rate of 50,000 yen in the first paycheck)
　Provided as an expense for preparation for remote work

【Others】
■Periodic health checkups (all paid by company)
■Influenza vaccination
■PC of your choice provided
■Free drinks such as water/coffee/carbonated drinks/alcohol provided at the office
■Office Glico installed

【Education and Skill Development】
■Onboarding for 5 days after employment is available
■Monthly study day system (for own skill improvement and learning purpose)

【Internal Communication】
■Weekly company-wide online meeting
■Monthly social gathering (offline, some online)
■Semi-annual kick-off (hybrid of online and offline meetings)

【Holidays and Vacations】
■123 days off per year
■Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays (2 days off per week)
■Year-end and New Year vacations
■Paid leave (granted at the time of employment *Number of days granted depends on the month of employment)
■Prenatal leave
■Childcare leave

【Required】
*Meet all of the following
・3+ years total of practical experience in development and operation (development other than practical work may be taken into consideration depending on the content)

*Experience in development using any of the following
[Front-end area]
・Experience in web front development using SPA frameworks (Vue.js, React, Angular, etc.) + TypeScript
[Back-end domain]
・Experience in web API (Rails, Django, Laravel, Go, etc.) development + Experience in batch processing development

【Preferred】
・Experience leading development as a tech lead or lead engineer
・Experience participating in technical communities and enthusiasm for output, such as speaking engagements, presentations, and blog writing
・Experience working with PdMs and designers to build and improve products
・Experience developing mobile apps