Nulab Introduces 'Principal Engineer' System for Technical Leaders

Nulab Inc. (Headquarters: Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture; Representative Director: Masanori Hashimoto; hereinafter 'Nulab') will establish the 'Principal Engineer' system starting in April 2026 as the pinnacle of the specialized career path for engineering professions. This system defines a role that directly contributes to business growth through technical leadership and influence. This will create an environment where engineers who aspire to contribute to the business through technical capabilities can focus on solving management issues and conducting research and development under high discretion and responsibility. Furthermore, by clarifying the 'ideal engineer profile' within the company, it will raise the technical standard of the entire organization and aim to improve technical brand value through enhanced external communication. ■ Role of the 'Principal Engineer' Nulab's Principal Engineers act as technical partners to the management team, responsible for formulating and promoting technical visions and mid-to-long-term technical strategies. Without being bound by specific routine tasks, they will lead the resolution of technical issues across businesses and products, as well as research and development in cutting-edge areas such as AI. In addition to contributing to the organization by nurturing next-generation leaders and fostering a technical culture, they will promote technical branding through external communications such as speaking engagements, writing, and OSS activities. Through these efforts, they will embody innovation driven by technology. ■ Certification of the Inaugural Principal Engineers Upon launching the system, we evaluated contributions to solving technical issues across businesses and products, as well as technical influence on the entire organization, and certified the following three individuals as the inaugural Principal Engineers. [Profile of Certified Individuals] Yuichi Watanabe Joined in 2015. Contributed to improving the reliability of Backlog's Git functionality by revamping its Git infrastructure and realizing a highly available architecture. In addition to completing a fundamental optimization of infrastructure costs, he founded the 'AI Integration Unit,' a cross-company specialized AI organization. He has a strong track record in global technical contributions, such as discovering a vulnerability in a Go language cryptography library (CVE-2025-22869). Yuki Yoshiiwa Joined in 2018. Thoroughly resolves issues through systems, such as improving reliability by integrating monitoring infrastructure and drastically increasing the efficiency of container infrastructure operations. He was quick to lead the promotion of 'Platform Engineering,' which supports the company-wide development infrastructure. He drives the strengthening of the technical foundation for the engineering organization to grow autonomously, including preparing the environment for AI-driven development and visualizing development productivity. Hisatomo Futahashi Joined in 2018. A specialist who holds numerous advanced external certifications, including 'AWS Top Engineer,' and has earned deep trust from outside the company. He exerts influence in building foundational parts requiring product reliability, such as the audit logs for Nulab Pass, and optimizing cloud costs through the practice of FinOps. He has also greatly contributed to enhancing Nulab's technical presence by being featured in official AWS case studies and speaking frequently domestically and internationally. ■ Future Outlook Through the introduction of this system, Nulab aims to establish a technical competitive advantage by improving the quality of technical decision-making required as the scale and complexity of products increase. At the same time, we will present a new career model to domestic and international engineer communities where they can contribute to business and society through the power of technology. As we provide services with higher added value to our customers, Nulab's products are increasing in scale and complexity, entering a phase where technical judgments, such as architecture selection, determine the future of the business. To more systematically and powerfully promote the resolution of cross-organizational technical issues that previously relied on individual spontaneity, we have established the 'Principal Engineer System.' Our Principal Engineers are individuals who 'directly drive business growth through technical leadership.' In addition to outstanding technical skills, we place importance on high EQ (emotional intelligence) to mobilize people through trust rather than authority and to complete transformations. This system is also an expression of our intent to 'highly evaluate talent who contribute to the organization through technology.' We strongly expect the three inaugural members to excel as role models who will elevate Nulab's engineering culture to the next stage.