Solution Architect (Manager Candidate)

This role leads and expands the engineering organization within PLAID ALPHA, a professional-services business supporting client business growth and customer-experience transformation through the KARTE SaaS product. The position is responsible for rebuilding the delivery organization and using technology and AI-related tools to establish development standards and operating structures that improve productivity. Management experience at an SIer or digital agency is identified as a relevant background.

Responsibilities include managing the unit’s billable rate and project gross margin, allocating internal staff and external partners, planning resources, and designing and monitoring engineering KPIs against the business plan. The role also manages the portfolio and utilization of engineering resources, including partner members, while balancing cost control with delivery capacity.

Partner and vendor responsibilities cover identifying and selecting development partners, concluding contracts, building relationships, monitoring delivery progress and quality, defining acceptance inspection standards, negotiating costs, and maintaining PLAID’s quality standards across teams that include partner members.

The role sets goals, evaluates, and supports the careers of Solution Architect employees. It also leads the definition of hiring requirements, recruitment activities, development plans, and improvements to evaluation and training systems suited to commissioned and SI businesses. Longer-term organizational roles are to be defined around keeping core functions in-house and using partners for scalable work.

Additional responsibilities include defining and revising the Solution Architect organization’s roles and responsibilities, establishing operating guidelines, clarifying responsibilities with consultants, designers, and internal product-development teams, standardizing collaboration processes, and managing stakeholders to prevent gaps between organizations and support smooth project delivery.

The main product context is the KARTE series, including Web, App, Datahub, Signals, Blocks, and Craft. The expected technology environment includes JavaScript, modern frontend frameworks, HTML/CSS, SQL with Google BigQuery, Node.js, AWS and GCP public-cloud environments, and integration with iOS and Android SDKs. AI-related tools include Vertex AI and Claude Code. Collaboration tools are Slack, GitHub, Figma, and Notion, and the stated development method is DocDD.

The position is based at the Tokyo headquarters in Ginza. The working style is hybrid, combining office and remote work. The posting states that the business side currently has a general expectation of three office days per week, with office attendance potentially requested for a certain number of days depending on company and team circumstances.