Solutions Architect

Tokyo
Partial Remote
Full-time
March 7, 2024

Our Mission:

Driving technology always feels old. Not by a little bit. We believe vehicles can be a thousand times smarter, safer, and more connected to the world around us, and our mission is to see it happen. In 2019, we joined forces with Honda as their first startup acquisition, and now we’re expanding our vision into building the future of electric vehicles (BEV) for millions of people around the world.

Why Drivemode:

Join Drivemode for an exciting startup environment and a vibrant culture that combines impactful work, competitive compensation, and excellent benefits. By becoming a part of our team, you'll contribute to a crucial mission that revolutionizes the way people engage with vehicles, addressing both business needs and the world's environmental challenges. This presents an exceptional opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and drive Honda's success in the EV market.

About The Role:

The Solutions Architect works closely with stakeholders, including Product Managers, Project Managers, and engineers, to ensure that the proposed solutions are technically sound, scalable, and meet the needs of the business. They bridge the gap between requirements and implementation, considering factors such as security, performance, scalability, and business impact.

What You Will Do

Partner with the Product team to understand and document the solution outcomes and success metrics.
Communicate the solution’s structure, characteristics, behavior, and other aspects to stakeholders of various levels of technical prowess.
Negotiate and persuade stakeholders effectively without dictating or demanding.
Mediate and document architectural decisions, especially those with meaningful impact or affecting multiple system parts.
Raise awareness and foster discussions on relevant requirements that can be noticed only from a broader perspective, such as privacy, availability, performance, operational cost, etc..
Ensure the solution implementation complies with architectural goals, IT Governance, security standards, and sustainable operations, including the agreement and design of SLA, RTO, and RPO targets.
Bring engineering teams together and ensure their respective solution components work together as a whole.

What We Are Looking For

BS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
Extensive experience architecting complex software solutions.
5+ years of experience building user-facing products, including mobile apps and backend services.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Business level English, Business level Japanese.
Strong sense of ownership of product features and quality.

Nice to Have

Experience working in the automotive industry.
Experience with IoT or integration with embedded systems.
Experience with Android development.
Being familiar with Agile practices.
Valid Driving License.

EEOC Statement

Drivemode is proud of a very diverse team with employees coming from 5 continents/11 countries as of today. Diversity in our workplace has played an important part in our success; we recognize each employee’s unique background, knowledge, experiences, ideas, and viewpoints which are all critical in developing a product that has the greatest impacts on drivers all over the world.

Drivemode provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other characteristics that make you unique.

APPLY NOW ➜Japanese Required ⚠️

About Drivemode

Smarter, Safer, Connected driving in any vehicle.

We were founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs from Zipcar and Tesla Motors and acquired by Honda in 2019. In 2020, we released Honda RoadSync with Honda motorcycle team. In 2023, our CEO Yo Koga was named as Global UX Officer and Drivemode is set to expand further to transform Honda and win in the growing Electric Vehicle market with our expertise in software and user experience.

Our Current Work

Honda motorcycles
We are building a modern software platform for Honda's new electric motorcycles. The platform, including mobile app and infotainment system, will be deployed in many countries. Not only working with Honda's motorcycle engineers as one team, we also do our own in-house hardware prototyping to enable us to learn and move quickly. The goal is to provide seamless motorcycle rider experiences with deeply integrated software and hardware.

Honda/Acura vehicles
We are working on a vehicle companion app & platform for Honda's next generation electric vehicles. The app will be a critical part of connected service offering for any future Honda & Acura vehicles globally. We are working closely with Honda's industry-leading hardware and vehicle experts to design the software and hardware as one experience for users.

Our Future Direction: This is just the beginning for us; we expect to expand our scope into other software driven areas for Automotive while continuing to grow and build on more capabilities

Working at Drivemode
We’re a diverse group of Silicon Valley and Tokyo entrepreneurs who want to make driving better. Our approach focuses on speed, learning, flexibility, and data-driven decision-making. We aren’t just “coders” or “designers;” we are problem solvers who understand that why you do something is just as important as what you do. We love challenges: the bigger, the better.

Our organizational structure is flat and everyone has an opportunity to share ideas, regardless of manager or job title. Openness, transparency, and communication are always priorities. We trust our employees’ abilities to make decisions in the best interest of Drivemode and give them the freedom to do what it takes to bring out the best in themselves and others. We provide support, mentorship, and growth across all positions to help employees identify and reach career and developmental goals.

Japanese Language Policy
Although Drivemode's official language is English, Business level + fluency in Japanese may be required depending on a role that needs communication with Japanese-speaking stakeholders.
Visa Sponsorship
Drivemode provides visa and relocation support for certain positions, and for the roles where they have such support in place, they will clearly state that in the job description.
Paid Leave
- Weekends (Saturday and Sunday), Japanese national holidays, New Year’s holiday
- Annual paid leave (10 days for the 1st year)
- Sick Leave (5 days per year)
- Celebratory/bereavement leave
Benefits
🧡 Brand new office just opened in Nov 2020, 5min walk from Ebisu station!

🏥 Health insurance

🚃 Commuting allowance

👩‍🎓 Language study allowance for non-Japanese employees

🍻 Team lunch party (Every Friday)

🍬 Favorite snack allowance

💜 We also have education support for up to 15,000 JPY a month which are to be used to develop skills and acquire knowledge in the job area.
Engineer Interview Process
Interview process at Drivemode varies from position to position.
Here is an example of a process for our Software Engineer:
- 1st step: Resume screening and Screening online test
- 2nd step: 1st Technical interview with a hiring team
- Further step: 2-3 more interviews with the management
Remote Work
Drivemode was already a “remote team” before COVID-19, and they will continue to be with offices in multiple locations. However, due to the nature of work that happens inside Drivemode, there is a need to be at the office together from time to time when developing new products that involve hardware prototypes.
Work style
- Our standard working hours: 9:00 - 18:00
* We currently do not have flex time set up in our company.
* However we value and respect employees' work-life balance, and we provide an environment where employees feel comfortable enough to discuss his/her schedule with a reportline manager to prioritize a personal life, e.g. taking care of families.
* Also, we offer "holiday swap option" for employees to be able to move holidays to their non-busy time.
Tech Stack
Android: Android SDK, Kotlin, Java, Jetpack, Coroutines/Flow, Dagger/Hilt, Gradle, Android Studio

iOS: iOS SDK, Swift, SwiftUI, Combine (Async/Await), SPM, Xcode

Server/Infrastructure: Rust, PostgreSQL, gRPC, Docker, GCP/Firebase (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, etc.), Kafka, Terraform

CI/CD: GitHub Actions, DeployGate, Fastlane

IoT: Raspberry Pi, Arduino board, M5Stack, C++/C

Communication: Slack, Google Meet

Project Management: Jira Software, Notion, Miro

Analytics: BigQuery, Firebase Analytics, Jupyter, Pandas, scikit-learn

Others: Google Workspace
Parents and Family
We offer maternity leave and child care leave.
Also, we offer money gift for childbirth.