One of our top clients, a well-established Japanese company currently undergoing a major digital transformation within one of Japan’s most important and globally influential industries, is looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to help scale its next-generation DX SaaS platform.
This position will play a critical role in leading engineering teams, improving engineering processes, developing organizational capabilities, and fostering a modern AI-assisted engineering culture across the company.
Join a new global team driving innovation and making a large societal impact.
Why Join?
- Work-Life Balance: Full Remote from all Japan + Flex-time
- Career Growth: Opportunities for career advancement
- Bilingual Environment: Diverse, multicultural team
- Pre-IPO Phase
- Global Expansion (The company is aiming to become a global leader and already has offices in India, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam)
About the Company
This company is one of Japan’s most established and respected enterprises, with more than 1,000 employees and a strong reputation in its industry.
The CEO graduated in the United States and is highly committed to innovation—has made a strategic decision to build the company’s first-ever in-house digital and product development organization. To achieve this, he has recruited some of Tokyo’s top technology leaders, including a world-class CTO & CIO.
The company aims to become a global leader in DX solutions and already has offices in:
- India
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Vietnam
Role Overview
As an Engineering Manager, you will lead multiple engineering teams while helping improve engineering quality, development processes, organizational scalability, and team performance.
This role requires both strong people management capabilities and solid technical leadership experience. You will work closely with Product, Design, Business, and Executive stakeholders while supporting the company’s transition toward a modern, AI-driven engineering organization.
The ideal candidate combines engineering leadership, organizational development, technical understanding, and strong communication skills.
Key Responsibilities
Engineering Team Management & Mentorship
- Lead and support multiple engineering teams and/or team leads
- Conduct regular 1-on-1 meetings, performance feedback, and career development planning
- Support engineer growth, promotion planning, and performance improvement
- Foster a psychologically safe and collaborative engineering culture
- Help engineers adapt to AI-assisted development environments and workflows
Engineering Process Improvement & Delivery Quality
- Improve sprint operations, code review culture, incident response processes, and documentation standards
- Introduce and optimize AI-assisted development workflows, including:
- AI code generation
- Automated testing
- AI-supported code reviews
- Agent-based development workflows
- Analyze and improve engineering metrics such as:
- Cycle Time
- Deployment Frequency
- MTTR (Mean Time to Recovery)
- Continuously identify bottlenecks and improve development efficiency and delivery quality
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Business teams
- Communicate engineering capacity, technical constraints, priorities, and risks to stakeholders and leadership
- Identify and resolve blockers and dependencies across teams
- Participate in product planning and executive-level discussions
Technical Leadership & Architecture Review
- Participate in architecture discussions and design reviews
- Conduct technical risk assessments and provide guidance to senior engineers
- Support teams during technically challenging situations with hands-on problem solving when necessary
- Maintain practical understanding of:
- AI technologies
- LLM integrations
- Automation pipelines
- Agent-based systems
Hiring & Organizational Scaling
- Design and manage structured hiring processes from JD creation to offer stage
- Support onboarding strategy including 30/60/90-day onboarding plans
- Participate in headcount planning and organizational scaling initiatives
- Build balanced, high-performing engineering teams
Requirements
- Japanese Language Fluent and English Business Level
- 3+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager
- Experience managing multiple engineering teams and/or team leads
- Strong experience in people management, mentoring, and engineer development
- Proven experience supporting career development, performance improvement, and promotion processes for engineers
Technical Background
- Previous experience as a Senior Engineer, Staff Engineer, or equivalent technical leadership role
- Ability to participate in architecture reviews, design reviews, and technical risk assessments
- Ability to provide technical coaching and guidance to senior engineers
- Strong understanding of modern software development practices, system design, APIs, cloud solutions, and engineering quality
AI-Assisted Development & Engineering Process
- Knowledge of AI-assisted development practices and agent-based workflows
- Understanding of LLM integration, automation pipelines, and AI development tools
- Experience identifying engineering process issues and driving continuous improvement
- Experience using engineering metrics such as Cycle Time, Deployment Frequency, and MTTR to analyze problems and propose improvements
Cross-Functional Communication
- Strong communication skills with Product, Design, Business, and Executive stakeholders
- Ability to understand customer and product challenges deeply and translate them into technical solutions
- Experience in product planning, stakeholder reporting, and executive-level communication
Hiring & Organization Building
- Experience designing and operating hiring processes from JD creation to offer stage
- Experience supporting onboarding and team structure planning
Benefits
- Employment Type: Full-time employee
- Estimated Annual Salary: Up to ¥12M
- Remote Work: Fully remote within Japan
- Flexible Time: Yes (Core Time: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM)
- Holidays: Weekends + National Holidays
- Annual Leave: Approx. 122 days/year
- Additional Leave: Paid leave, seasonal breaks, refresh leave, life support leave
Location
Tokyo, Japan (Head Office in Shinjuku)
Fully remote work available across Japan.