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System Architect (Archive)

Country: Japan
City: Tokyo
Relocation: Required
Employment Type: Full-Time
Company description:

The company develops a system capable of semantic processing of programming code, e.g., code analysis, transformation, and synthesis, as well as operating a computational environment. The approach combines explicit knowledge representation in discrete structures with ML-assisted algorithms to manipulate those structures.

What we need help with:

- Defining Technical Requirements: identify and define the technical requirements of a project, including hardware and software components, performance goals, and security requirements.

- Designing System Architecture: based on the technical requirements, design the overall system architecture, including the system's structure, components, and interfaces. Also developing strategies for scalability, reliability, and maintainability.

- Evaluating Technology Options / Feasibility Study: research and evaluate different technology options and make recommendations on which tools, frameworks, and platforms are best suited for the project's needs.

- Collaborating with Research Scientists and ML Engineers: work closely with colleagues to ensure that the system is implemented correctly and that it meets the design specifications. Also provide guidance on coding standards, architecture patterns, and best practices.

- Managing Technical Debt and Risks: identify and manage technical risks that could impact the project's success, develop contingency plans, perform risk assessments, and monitor the project's progress to ensure that risks are mitigated.

- Project Management: form project vision and Definition of Done for proof of concept and MVP.

Responsibilities:

Strategy & Planning:

- Design and implement long-term strategic goals and short-term tactical plans for managing and maintaining software.

- Provide architectural expertise, direction, and assistance to Research Scientists, ML Engineers and Full Stack Engineers.

- Foresee possible problems or bottle-necks at the design stage, before implementation.

Acquisition & Deployment:

- Where applicable, design, develop, and oversee implementation of end-to-end integrated systems.

- Review new and existing systems design projects and procurement or outsourcing plans for compliance with standards and architectural plans.

- Negotiate and administer vendor, outsourcer, and consultant contracts and service agreements.

Operational Management:

- Develop and execute test plans to check infrastructure and systems technical performance.

- Report on findings and make recommendations for improvement.

- Develop, document, communicate, and enforce a policy for standardizing systems and software as necessary.

- Manage engineers, including recruitment, supervision, scheduling, development, evaluation, and disciplinary actions.

Aligning Architecture with Business Priorities:

- Define enablers and architectural runway;

- Ensure capacity allocation for enablement work;

- Define system nonfunctional requirements and ensure that the architecture will support them;

- Participate in solution definition in close connection with the reality of the technological and implementation capabilities of the project.

Requirements:

- 10+ year experience as a Software Engineer or Architect.

- Computer Science/Math/Physics degree.

- Ability to perform comprehensive solution analysis.

- Readiness to communicate with Research Scientists and ML Engineers.

- Good at tracking technical debt.

- Strategic vision of the system’s development direction.

- English C1 or higher.

What soft skills are essential:

- Commitment. Make and fulfil commitments on time and at a high-quality level.

- All-Round. Ability to figure out how to do new tasks from adjacent specialisations.

- Startup Mindset. Focus on the objective, looking for new approaches, fast forwarding orientation.

- Autonomous Work. Ability to work efficiently on the most prioritised tasks without external control.

A strong advantage would be:

- Agile Experience. We use a management approach that is close to Agile. Among others, we use guided continuous improvement, task prioritisation, sprints, value delivery, and focus on commitment.

- Startup Experience. Corporate experience differs from the startup’s one. It is useful to have aligned expectations.

How we are different:

- Not just an ML. People tend to think that AI is solely Machine Learning, like ChatGPT (or DALL-E 2, or Microsoft Bing, or ChatSonic). We are building our solution on an alternative architecture which incorporates ML as a part.

- Going beyond. We put much effort into profound research and development of new underlying technologies rather than reusing existing ones. We like to explore unfairly neglected and non-conventional approaches to AI.

- Safety and Alignment. We want to be responsible in our research and development. We don't turn our noses up at AI safety research and take the issue of alignment seriously.

What we are offering:

- Full-Time Job.

- Hybrid Work is OK.

- Good Salary or Reward. That is, of course, a very basic condition. Depending on the candidate's skill level, the company is ready to offer 22M JPY gross and equity compensation (options).

- Flexible Schedule. Outside scheduled team meetings, teammates are free to work on their tasks whenever convenient.