Backend Engineer (Foundation Model), Vision AI Platform

About Woven by ToyotaWoven by Toyota is enabling Toyota’s once-in-a-century transformation into a mobility company. Inspired by a legacy of innovating for the benefit of others, our mission is to challenge the current state of mobility through human-centric innovation — expanding what “mobility” means and how it serves society.
Our work centers on four pillars: AD/ADAS, our autonomous driving and advanced driver assist technologies; Arene, our software development platform for software-defined vehicles; Woven City, a test course for mobility; and Cloud & AI, the digital infrastructure powering our collaborative foundation. Business-critical functions empower these teams to execute, and together, we’re working toward one bold goal: a world with zero accidents and enhanced well-being for all.
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TEAMToyota is redefining what it means to move. We're challenging the current state of mobility by enhancing the movement of people, goods, information and energy. Centered around three core concepts - A Living Laboratory™, Human-Centered, and Ever Evolving City™ - Woven City serves as a test course for mobility to fulfill our purpose of well-being for all.
We do this by bringing together a diverse community of people with a shared passion for the future of mobility to co-create, develop and refine innovative products and services. This cross-section of social infrastructure, mobility, and people provides a unique opportunity for inventors, residents and visitors to interact seamlessly with new technologies throughout daily life in an environment that emulates a real city.
The Vision AI team in Woven City Management is developing innovative products and services using technologies related to computer vision and Artificial Intelligence that enhances and leverages Woven City.
Our missions: 1. Develop services and products for Woven City2. Expand capabilities and competencies through long-term R&D
Toyota Motor Corporation has been involved in a variety of technological development such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and energy technologies, as well as automobile technologies. Toyota is already particularly strong in hardware and we will create additional value by developing new software on top of it.
 As a first party developer, we will not only develop innovative services essential to the city, but also a foundation upon which third party partners can participate. Not only are we developing applications but also more core basic software and capabilities.
 Our team consists of many mid-career members and members with international work experience. We strive to be open minded as we cultivate a new culture. We work closely with Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Research Institute in North America and Toyota Motor Europe to develop technologies and products. Our team consists of many members who originate from outside Japan. We provide a global work environment.
For more information about Woven City, please visit: https://www.woven-city.global/
WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?We are seeking highly self-motivated engineers with expertise in server-side engineering with GPUs both on cloud and on-premise, to join our Tokyo-based team for building next generation Artificial Intelligence technology used in the city. Our projects include the following technologies: multi-modal Large Language Models, 3D understanding of real and virtual worlds, innovative interfaces that combine our physical assets such as Woven City and robots, novel communication systems using event cameras, and MLOps pipelines to accelerate our in-house researchers.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, prototype, develop, and maintain scalable backend services for our in-house foundation models
• Optimize the service usages and costs combining on-premise and cloud-based approaches for  ML inference
• Design and build innovative services that are integrated with different platforms, such as web, mobile devices, robots, glasses, and city infrastructure
• Collaborate with world-class researchers and developers to build ML pipelines

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years experience in developing scalable backend services, with understanding basic software development using git, docker, and CI/CD
• Experience in orchestration tools such as Kubernetes and infra-as-code such as Terraform and Helm, with great understanding of basic AWS or GCP services, such as storage, database, and network configurations
• Experiences in developing, deploying, maintaining, and monitoring microservices in any production environment
• Experiences in managing on-premise–based or Cloud-based approaches. GPU-related experience (e.g., ML pipeline, ETL on large data, etc.) is a plus
• Bachelor degree in computer science, machine learning, electrical engineering, other related areas
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written in English

NICE TO HAVES

• Experience and/or contributions in modern frameworks for serverless ML, such as Kserve, TorchServe, and/or RayServe, etc.
• Experience, knowledge, and/or contributions in inference optimization in terms of latency, workload, and cost, such as DeepStream, NVIDIA triton (Dynamo), vLLM, etc.
• Experiences in developing applications or services using recent deep-learning technologies, such as RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), LLM (Large-Language Models), Generative models, etc.
• Experience in optimizing scalable web services in terms of cost and workload
• Experience in research and/or development in computer vision is a plus
• Curiosity and/or experience in emerging technologies such as Model Context Protocol
• Proficiency in Python, C++, and/or Golang

=========================================================================Important Points・All interviews will be arranged via Google Meet, unless otherwise stated.・The same job descriptions are available in both English and Japanese; therefore, we kindly ask that you apply to only one version.・We kindly request that you submit your resume in English, if possible. However, Japanese resumes are also acceptable. Please note that, depending on the English proficiency requirements of the role, we may request an English version of your resume later in the process.
WHAT WE OFFER・Competitive Salary - Based on experience・Work Hours - Flexible working time・Paid Holiday - 20 days per year (prorated)・Sick Leave - 6 days per year (prorated)・Holiday - Sat & Sun, Japanese National Holidays, and other days defined by our company・Japanese Social Insurance - Health Insurance, Pension, Workers’ Comp, and Unemployment Insurance, Long-term care insurance・Housing Allowance・Retirement Benefits・Rental Cars Support・In-house Training Program (software study/language study)
Our Commitment・We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity.・Any information we receive from you will be used only in the hiring and onboarding process. Please see our privacy notice for more details.