About SmartNews
News can change the world, save lives, and bring us all closer together through empathy and understanding—but not if no one reads it. Out of the hundreds of millions of articles and posts published, how do we deliver the information that matters the most?
Founded in 2012 in Tokyo, SmartNews is a leading global information and news discovery company dedicated to delivering quality information to the people who need it. We provide news that matters to millions of users thanks to our unique machine learning technology and relationships with over 3,000 global publisher partners. Our SmartNews app, available on iOS and Android, is currently used in over 150 countries worldwide.
But we’re only just getting started, and that’s why we need someone like you.
If you’re looking for a company that’s small enough so that your contributions have a visible impact on the company and product but large enough to have you tackling exciting and challenging problems, then SmartNews is the place for you. Join us and wake up every day energized, knowing that you’re delivering the news people need.
Responsibilities
- Create techniques and tools for the automated detection of malicious activities
- Work with engineering stakeholders to securely design systems and fix security issues
- Create workflows and processes to intake, triage, and resolve security issues
- Execute proactive threat modeling and implement measures to strengthen the preventative controls of our cloud infrastructure
- Coordinate our response procedures during active security incidents
- Empower engineers by conducting regular security incident response trainings creating an environment of security awareness
- Support vulnerability scanning and remediation
- Desire to work at a fast-paced startup
Requirements
Minimum Qualifications
- Practical knowledge of AWS cloud services and structure
- Networking fundamentals at both WAN and LAN
- Microservice architecture fundamentals, including K8 and Docker
- Experience in vulnerability management, risk quantification, and remediation
- Ability to perform root cause analysis on past security incidents to recommend improvements, or prior SOC and incident response
- Skills in at least one programming or scripting language, such as Go, Java, Python, JavaScript, or Ruby
- High English Fluency
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Japanese or Mandarin fluency
- Program Management or Data Science experience
- Network detection experience at various TCP/IP layers
- Strong knowledge of the AWS suite of security-related services with a certification as an AWS Security Specialist
- Experience with the operation of cloud-based infrastructure and API security using services such as AWS EC2 security groups, AWS Web Application Firewall, or AWS Shield
- Past work experience with cloud-based security services like AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, Amazon Detective, or AWS Config
- Skills in infrastructure-as-code technologies, such as Terraform or CloudFormation
- Blue Team or exploit development experience
Benefits
Perks and Benefits at the SmartNews Tokyo Office
- Support program for employees’ self-development and well-being
- Healthy lunches are prepared on-site daily in our SmartKitchen, located in our West Office building. You can even see the cooks at work!
- Need a pick-me-up? Stop by ChikyuCoffee, our in-house coffee shop located in both the East and West Office buildings, and get a cup of gourmet coffee, espresso-based beverage, or other seasonal drink!
- SmartNews provides all healthcare and social insurance benefits required by Japanese labor law
Visa Sponsorship and Relocation Support
SmartNews can sponsor visas for candidates who meet eligibility requirements.
To support a smooth transition for candidates who are moving to Japan from overseas, SmartNews partners with a travel service provider.
About SmartNews
Recently crowned Japan's latest tech unicorn, this company runs a wildly successful news service that’s powered by machine learning. It's an engineering-focused company (One of co-founders is an engineer) and they have offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Shanghai, Beijing that are apparently doing quite well too.
The mission of SmartNews is to discover and deliver quality stories to the world. Since its inception in 2012, the SmartNews app has been downloaded over 50 million downloads and maintained a monthly active user count of over 20 million.
In addition to being one of the most popular smartphone apps in Japan, SmartNews has worked hard on building their business in the US. They now have partnerships with over 300 major news publications in the US like CBS, Entertainment Weekly, Business Insider, National Geographic and more. They’ve had a great deal of success due to their ML-based sorting and recommendation systems.
SmartNews has a highly diverse development team with many world-class engineers and others working from their offices in Japan,China and the US. They maintain a very strict hiring bar for technical hires and an engineering-driven culture that makes them one of the strongest tech companies in Japan when it comes to technical skill level.
SmartNews is looking to hire the best people regardless of background, so they’re willing to hire people that don’t speak Japanese and (under normal circumstances) bring them to Japan from overseas if necessary. Everyone works together as one team regardless of location, and SmartNews provides everything their employees need to do their best work and maintains a Silicon Valley-inspired culture for engineers in Tokyo.
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