TECH-501/EN- Engineering Manager - LegalOn

LegalOn Technologies is a global leader in legal AI solutions, trusted by more than 7,500 companies and law firms worldwide. The company empowers legal teams to review and negotiate contracts faster, with greater accuracy and confidence. Operating across Japan, the United States, and Europe, LegalOn is the first AI company from Japan to surpass ¥10 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and has raised over $200M from leading investors including SoftBank and Goldman Sachs. It also has one of the largest and most global AI teams of any startups in Japan. In 2025, LegalOn achieved its first M&A by welcoming Germany's Fides Technology into the group, further accelerating global expansion. LegalOn combines LLMs, intelligent Agents and intelligent AI-driven workflows. Beyond legal, the company now offers specialized AI solutions including "CorporateOn," "CXOn," and "DealOn" to support diverse business domains requiring high expertise. In partnership with OpenAI, the company is redefining the legal AI landscape and developing innovative solutions for the future of professional work.

For more details about our company, products, and development organization:
https://legalforce-recruit.notion.site/LegalOn-Technologies-Candidate-Handbook-17d82a58637480d2836ae138e5b5ee95

Key Responsibilities
The Engineering Manager for this position will be part of a development team of approximately 10 engineers and will be responsible for the delivery of product feature development. You will have the authority and responsibility to drive projects within the team, including managing development progress, overseeing tasks, and assigning team members as needed.

You will also work closely with the Product Manager to organize and refine product requirements from both a user and an engineering perspective, and to derive the most appropriate solutions. While the role is primarily focused on project management, you are expected to be actively involved in product-related decision-making, system functionality design, and architecture design. This is a critical position that plays a key role in driving the growth of the product.

Relationship with the Product Manager (PdM)
While the Product Manager is primarily responsible for defining what to build, the Engineering Manager is responsible for determining and delivering how to build it. The two roles are expected to work in close collaboration to align on the product development direction and ensure it is clearly communicated and executed within the team.

■ What Mission and Challenges You’ll Take On

• Take ownership of the development team’s feature delivery,
  ensuring customer value is delivered and directly contributing
  to the product’s growth.
• Support and guide the development team and its members as needed, fostering both team growth and individual growth.

■ What You’ll Do

• Put customer perspective first and execute improvement initiatives to increase delivered value, based on multiple objective metrics.
• Lead the development team as the owner of feature delivery, ensuring effective project management through task planning, progress tracking, and team assignment.
• Collaborate with U.S.-based product teams and a wide range of domestic stakeholders, including Product Managers, UX Designers, and Tech Leads, to discuss and evaluate product direction and feasibility.
• Facilitate discussions with engineers to address on-the-ground technical challenges and drive effective problem-solving.
• Define and lead the execution of the development roadmap, balancing feature development, technical debt reduction, and long-term technical investment.
• Remove obstacles for the development team, create an environment where engineers can focus on development, and maximize overall team performance.
• Develop team members through on-the-job training, 1-on-1 meetings, and regular retrospectives.
• Support line management activities, including performance evaluation and hiring, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.

• 5+ years of experience in web service development, including at least 1 year of experience in production operation and maintenance
• Hands-on experience as a software engineer, with development skills in at least one programming language
• 3+ years of team management experience in a product development team
• Japanese language proficiency equivalent to JLPT N1
• Business-level English proficiency, including:
  • Ability to read and write technical documentation in English
  • Ability to communicate and discuss technical topics both in writing and verbally
• Strong communication skills in a global environment, including:
  • Effective asynchronous communication with team members across diverse cultural backgrounds and multiple time zones

• Hands-on experience designing applications with a strong focus on UX (user experience)
• Experience developing and operating B2B web services
• Experience prioritizing feature development, technical debt reduction, and technical investments, as well as creating development plans
• Experience planning, executing, and iterating on initiatives to improve team productivity
• Experience in strategic planning and risk management as a Product Owner or in a similar role
• Experience with software development in a global environment across multiple countries and regions