Scaling autonomous driving technology across borders
Our series TIER IV PEOPLE shines a light on the people and teams whose unique experiences, backgrounds, and stories bring our mission to life.
Offering the privacy of personal cars and the freedom of public transit to browse your phone or play games on the go, autonomous vehicles combine the best of both modes of transport. Autonomous driving technology has the power to reshape society, and it's on track to become essential infrastructure in everyday life.
TIER IV is the pioneering force behind Autoware, open-source software for autonomous driving. The company launched Web.Auto to support every stage of autonomous system deployment, from design and development to full-scale operation. Available as a SaaS platform, Web.Auto was created to accelerate the rollout of autonomous vehicles, serving a wide range of users, including automotive engineers, software developers, fleet operators and passengers.
In May 2022, as TIER IV entered a new phase of expansion in Japan and overseas, the company welcomed Yoshihito Takashima, who brought software engineering experience from Microsoft and Amazon. In this installment of TIER IV People, we hear from Yoshihito and software architect Eiji Sekiya about upcoming initiatives, their vision for the future, and what makes working at TIER IV so exciting.
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— What is the current status of Web.Auto and what lies ahead?
Eiji: As things stand now, our autonomous vehicle fleet management system is already well established in internal projects and is also being used by several customers. Among the companies taking advantage of the platform is eve autonomy – a joint venture between Yamaha Motor and TIER IV that provides autonomous cargo transport services.
Eiji Sekiya | Software architect
We’re also receiving inquiries from overseas, including North America, Europe, and China. The number of business discussions and demonstrations with international customers is steadily increasing.
With the core features now in place, our focus going forward is on enhancing functionality and refining the service to expand our customer base. A key mission for us now is global expansion, and Yoshihito was brought on board to lead the effort.
— Yoshihito, could you tell us about your background and what led you to TIER IV?
Yoshihito: I enrolled at a university in the United States from my second year of undergraduate studies, majoring in mathematics and computer science. I also completed my graduate studies in the States. I then joined Microsoft, working as a software engineer for about 13 years in Seattle and Vancouver, Canada. After that, I moved to Amazon, spending two years in Seattle as an engineer before joining Amazon Japan.
I first met TIER IV founder Shinpei Kato when I was a student working part-time as a programmer. Even after I moved to the U.S., we stayed connected through social media. When I saw what he was up to on Facebook, I thought it looked really interesting.
Yoshihito Takashima | VP of Software
After returning to Japan, I met up with Shinpei and heard about Web.Auto and his vision for global expansion. I felt there was something I could contribute, so when I was invited aboard, I accepted.
I already had faith in Shinpei’s technical expertise and acumen, but beyond that, I saw TIER IV as a truly unique startup in Japan. Established in 2015 with just a handful of people at the beginning, the company has already raised tens of billions of yen and grown to around 300 employees. At the same time, there were still areas where the business plan wasn’t fully set. The idea of harnessing our resources to build things from the ground up excited me.
Japan was once highly regarded globally for consumer electronics, but apart from the gaming sector, there are hardly any domestic software products that are established overseas. We can’t compete with the likes of GAFA [Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon]. As a Japanese software engineer working overseas, that was something I found frustrating.
But with TIER IV, there’s a real possibility to change that. We have the chance to launch a service from Japan that can make a global impact, and I saw that as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
In Japan, great services often stay confined to the domestic market and struggle to gain recognition abroad. That’s why I want to draw on my experience overseas to help connect TIER IV with the rest of the world.
— Tell us about the culture and work environment at TIER IV?
Yoshihito: This is my first time working for a Japanese company. I had this image that employees might be reluctant to speak up or hold back their opinions. But even with me just having joined, people share their opinions openly. It’s been pretty easy to get into the swing of things.
Eiji: There’s always been a culture of active discussion across the company.
Yoshihito: Plus, the distance between the CTO and the developers actually writing the code is very small. While that kind of flat organization can pose challenges in management, I see it as one of our strengths.
Having worked at two companies across three countries, I’ve seen a range of approaches. My aim is to improve our structure and operations by combining the positives of each, based on TIER IV’s strengths and things learned from previous employers. As we continue to grow, I want to help the company move even faster.
Eiji: Whether it’s in meetings or online communications, Yoshihito is quick to drive conversations toward decision-making. It’s been a valuable learning experience.
— What kind of vision do you have for the medium to long term?
Eiji: Autonomous driving technology is becoming increasingly software-driven, and its commoditization will only accelerate. In this time of major change, our goal is to expand globally and become a leading force in the sector. Ultimately, I want to create a world where using Web.Auto feels completely natural for anyone in the automotive industry.
Yoshihito: We’ll continue collaborating with various companies, and in 10 or 20 years from now, I want TIER IV to be a household name. We want to reach a position where people think of TIER IV whenever they see driverless cars running in the city.
— What makes working at TIER IV so appealing for software engineers?
Eiji: From a technical standpoint, there are lots of challenges to tackle. TIER IV is a great environment for people with a background in computer science who want to work at the forefront of technology, take initiative, and drive their own ideas forward. If you're excited by the challenge of building something from the ground up, you'll feel right at home here.
Yoshihito: We’ve even had people come from major tech firms, eager to experience the start-up phase.
Eiji: A lot of companies work on IoT-related R&D and proof-of-concept projects, but few are truly focused on turning those ideas into actual products. We’ve had people join us because they wanted to move beyond PoC and get hands-on with real product development, especially when it involves cloud technologies.
Yoshihito: As we push forward with global expansion, new recruits will experience an unparalleled sense of scale. The conceptualization of processes and their design has to be on a whole new level when developing services for North America, Europe, China, and other regions.
Eiji: A global open-source community has already formed around the autonomous driving software championed by TIER IV. By linking Web.Auto to the Autoware ecosystem, we can create products that make meaningful use of the community’s strengths. It’s the kind of environment you rarely find in Japan.
One of the reasons I decided to join TIER IV about four years ago was because, as an engineer, it gave me the chance to work across a wide range of technologies – from embedded systems to the cloud. One of the unique appeals of working at a startup like TIER IV is that you can be close to hardware and the cloud.
— What do you find most rewarding about the work you’re doing at TIER IV?
Eiji: The widespread adoption of autonomous driving will give people more free time, improve productivity, and make life easier for those in areas with limited access to transportation. It’s a way to help solve real social challenges. As an engineer, it’s exciting to be creating products and services that bring that kind of value – and have the potential to reach people around the world. It’s great to be involved during such an exciting phase.
Yoshihito: I completely agree. Autonomous driving is still a new field without any clear winners. Being right in the middle of this paradigm shift – creating new fields and possibilities – is both fascinating and exciting. Just recently, Shinpei gave a keynote at the AWS Japan Summit. It’s quite rare for a startup to be invited to deliver a keynote, which suggests our presence in the industry is growing.
TIER IV has been selected by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) for a research and development initiative under the Green Innovation Fund (GI Fund) focused on autonomous driving software. The GI Fund is planned as a 25.4 billion yen project over nine years, running through fiscal 2030.
We also raised 12.1 billion yen in a Series B round through a third-party allotment of shares to existing shareholders SOMPO Holdings and Yamaha Motor, along with new investor Bridgestone. This brings TIER IV’s total funding since its founding to 29.6 billion yen.
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TIER IV is always on the lookout for passionate individuals to join our journey. If you share our vision of making autonomous driving accessible to all, get in touch.
Visit our careers page to view all job openings.
If you’re uncertain about which roles align best with your experience, or if the current job openings don’t quite match your preferences, register your interest here. We’ll get in touch if a role that matches your experience becomes available and schedule an informal interview.
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