Forward Deployed Engineer, Japan (AI)

Location: Tokyo, Japan; hybrid role with travel across Japan and the broader APAC region. Based in Tokyo or willing to relocate.

Company

hirify.global builds global connectivity infrastructure, including a private multi-cloud IP network, edge connectivity, communications APIs, wireless services, and AI capabilities.

What you will do

• Work directly with enterprise customers to understand communications workflows, AI use cases, and integration challenges.
• Design and deploy production solutions using voice, messaging, wireless, WebRTC, hirify.global APIs, and AI voice assistants.
• Deploy and operate LLM gateways, hosted and self-hosted open-weight models, model routing, fallbacks, rate limits, virtual keys, and usage governance.
• Build observability with metrics, logs, traces, dashboards, alerting, cost tracking, caching, and evaluation pipelines.
• Lead technical discovery, POCs, pilots, production launches, troubleshooting, and customer handoffs.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to shape the roadmap based on Japan and APAC customer needs.

Requirements

• Computer science degree or equivalent experience and 3+ years of building and shipping production software.
• Proficiency in multiple languages, including Python, Node.js/TypeScript, and Go.
• Experience with production LLM systems, provider limits, retries, streaming, token accounting, concurrency, and cost attribution.
• Experience deploying containerized services on Kubernetes and working with observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Graylog, or ELK.
• Experience with high-concurrency event-driven systems, APIs, cloud-native architecture, and preferably SIP, WebRTC, or real-time voice and messaging.
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English and Japanese, legal authorization to work in Japan or eligibility for sponsorship, and willingness to work on customer sites.

Nice to have

• Experience with AI voice assistants, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, LLM conversational systems, or domain evaluation sets.
• Production experience with LiteLLM, Portkey, Kong AI Gateway, or another OpenAI-compatible LLM gateway.
• Experience with vLLM, SGLang, TGI, Ollama, GPU sizing, Japanese-language models, or sovereign AI initiatives.
• Experience with SQL, ETL, CI/CD, telecom, CPaaS, SaaS, on-premises deployments, security, or Japan/APAC regulatory frameworks.

Culture & Benefits

• Work in a customer-embedded pod with an Enterprise AE, owning the technical path from discovery through production.
• Operate in a self-sufficient environment with direct responsibility for customer outcomes and production stability.
• Contribute to a financially stable and profitable connectivity company investing in new technologies and continuous learning.
• Travel across Japan and the broader APAC region as part of customer-facing work.