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Sakana AI is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to work with Japan's Ministry of Defense and Self-Defense Forces, leveraging AI technology, LLMs, and AI agents to solve critical defense and intelligence challenges.
In this role, you will be embedded with customers to deeply understand their operations. You will visit defense ministry headquarters, military bases, and garrison locations to conduct business process interviews with Self-Defense Force personnel and operational staff. Your responsibilities include:
**Core Responsibilities:**
Business Process Analysis & Solution Design
- Conduct on-site business process interviews at ministry and military facilities
- Observe and document operational workflows, existing systems, decision-making processes, and documentation
- Identify true bottlenecks and decompose problems into AI-solvable units
- Feed field insights back to internal product and research teams
Solution Implementation
- Design and implement AI applications based on customer requirements
- Architect integrations with existing business systems and data sources
- Implement fact-checking and hallucination mitigation strategies
- Design user interfaces and operational workflows
- Build prototypes and incorporate customer feedback
Quality Assurance & Continuous Improvement
- Develop and evaluate domain-specific benchmarks
- Monitor and continuously improve accuracy and quality
- Identify edge cases and failure patterns; develop mitigations
- Drive ongoing improvements based on customer feedback
Stakeholder Collaboration
- Maintain close communication with customer operational and subject-matter experts
- Collaborate with the ARE (AI Research & Engineering) team to bring cutting-edge technology to the field
- Communicate deployment and operational requirements to the SWE team
- Manage project progress and stakeholder reporting
This is a full-time position based in Japan requiring native-level Japanese for business negotiations with customers. Interviews will be conducted in Japanese. You will be part of the Applied Team, which focuses on real-world AI deployment.
**Requirements:**
Must Have:
- Hands-on experience with data science and machine learning projects
- Application development experience with LLMs and generative AI
- Python development experience (data processing, API building, etc.)
- Experience with requirements definition and problem discovery interviews
- Track record of solving business problems with technical solutions
- Native-level Japanese (customer-facing business negotiations required)
Nice to Have:
- Client-facing data science and solution development experience
- Work experience at Japan's Ministry of Defense or Self-Defense Forces, or project experience with defense-related manufacturers, trading companies, or government SI firms
- Experience building AI agents and multi-agent systems
- Business-level English (advantageous for collaboration with Research team)
- Project management or team leadership experience
