Application Engineer

Who you are

• Professional proficiency in Japanese, and experience working closely with Japanese companies
• 3+ years of experience leading customer-facing technical programs, systems integration, or complex engineering projects
• Strong systems thinking and the ability to weigh engineering trade-offs against customer outcomes and timelines
• A solid technical foundation in software systems, with the ability to dig into technical issues alongside engineers
• A track record of managing stakeholders across functions, organizations, and cultures, in both individual contributor and leadership capacities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presenting to customer leadership and explaining complex technical topics simply
• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments and driving delivery under tight timelines and complex constraints
• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field
• Experience in application engineering, technical program management, technical sales, or consulting in the autonomy or simulation space
• Experience planning or running technical product demonstrations for executives or prospective customers
• Background working with automotive OEMs or Tier 1 suppliers
• Experience designing or running technical training or knowledge transfer programs
• Familiarity with autonomous vehicle or robotics system development, including perception, localization, planning, or vehicle integration
• Baseline knowledge in working with software systems, Linux, Git and cloud
• Willingness to travel to Japan for onsite customer engagement and demos

What the job involves

• We are looking for a technically strong, customer-facing, execution-driven engineer who is highly organized and thrives on bringing structure to complex, multi-stakeholder programs
• In this role, you will help lead a strategic autonomy program with a major automotive OEM customer in Japan,from development through real-world on-road deployment
• You will be a day-to-day point of contact for the customer and the technical bridge to Applied’s engineering teams
• You will build trusted relationships with customer engineers and leadership, keep a fast-moving program on track across many parallel workstreams, and make sure commitments, risks, and decisions are clearly communicated on both sides
• You will drive milestone delivery, build the customer’s in-house capability through a structured knowledge transfer program, and align internal teams across autonomy, systems, hardware, and operations
• You will also support autonomy demonstrations for prospective customers and other OEMs, showcasing Applied’s on-road autonomy capabilities
• You will work at the intersection of software, vehicle integration, and customer operations, helping guide the program from development through real-world on-road deployment
• Drive delivery of quarterly program milestones for the customer in partnership with the program lead, from defining scope and acceptance criteria to tracking progress and reporting status to customer leadership
• Plan and run regular onsite and remote meetings with the customer, including working sessions, technical reviews, and management- and steering-level program meetings
• Lead the knowledge transfer program, designing training content and on-the-job learning paths and directly supporting customer engineers as they build hands-on capability with Applied’s autonomy stack and tools
• Align internal engineering teams toward milestone delivery and drive resolution of cross-functional topics spanning autonomy software, systems engineering, hardware, integration, and operations
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor, translating the customer’s high-level autonomy goals into clear technical requirements and actionable plans
• Investigate on-road issues and technical questions, and communicate findings clearly to both engineering and non-technical customer stakeholders
• Channel insights from hands-on deployment and demos back into Applied’s product and engineering roadmaps
• Plan and execute on-road autonomy demonstrations for prospective trucking autonomy customers and other OEMs, coordinating route preparation, vehicle readiness, technical risk tracking, and on-site logistics with engineering and go-to-market teams