Senior Technical Support Engineer, Japan

Monotype Imaging (MTI) is a leading global provider of text imaging solutions. Our technologies and fonts enable the display and printing of high-quality content. MTI’s software technologies have been widely deployed and embedded within a range of consumer electronics devices, including laser printers, digital copiers, mobile phones, digital televisions, set-top boxes, navigation devices and digital cameras, as well as in numerous software applications and operating systems.

MTI combines these proprietary technologies with access to more than 10,000 typefaces that includes some of the most widely used designs in the world including popular names like Helvetica and Times New Roman. We also license our typefaces to creative and business professionals through custom font design services, direct sales and our e-commerce Web sites: fonts.com, itcfonts.com, linotype.com and faces.co.uk.

Our software is integrated into applications and embedded in electronics ranging from mobile phones to laser printers, manages compression, scaling, color and layout. Allowing customers access to thousands of typefaces, the Company generates most of its revenues from OEM sales, though it also licenses its fonts to creative and business professionals.

Monotype Imaging’s customers include:

Eight of the top ten laser printer manufacturers based on the volume of units shipped worldwide.

Mobile phone makers Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

Digital television and set-box manufacturers TTE Technology, Toshiba and JVC.

Multinational corporations Agilent, British Airways and Barclays.

Competitive Strengths:

Technological and intellectual property leadership – MTI has become a leading global provider of text imaging solutions for laser printers by combining our proprietary technologies with an extensive font library. We are leveraging our intellectual property and experience in this market to secure a leading position in other high volume consumer electronic device categories.

Established relationships with market leaders – MTI benefits from established relationships with our OEM customers, many of them date back seventeen years or more. Because our technologies and fonts are embedded in the hardware of our customers’ devices, it would be costly and time consuming to replace them.

International presence and technologies designed to serve the global market – MTI supports all of the world’s major languages and has specifically designed scalable font rendering technologies for displaying rich content in Asian and other non-Latin languages.

Strong web presence and Font design services – MTI’s e-commerce websites provide us with a substantial web presence. We also serve creative and business professionals by providing custom font design and branding services.

Attractive business model – MTI has a large, recurring base of licensing revenue. In addition, our revenue is highly visible, we have a relatively low cash tax rate and low capital requirements.

Mission and History:
The Company’s mission is to serve as the world’s foremost supplier of fonts and text imaging solutions that enable our customers to enhance communication globally.

We work to exceed the expectations of customers and to improve upon the exacting standards we set for ourselves. Our strong customer commitment is rooted in our history, dating back more than 100 years with the Monotype® and Linotype brands of fonts.

Today, MTI seeks opportunities to extend partnerships and to integrate and advance our technologies into new areas. The Company’s core values guide our actions, and we place a high value on contributing to worthy causes within our local communities.

The Opportunity:

MTI is a dominant player in the text imaging space on a global basis and has experienced consistent growth through many business cycles.

We have a blue chip customer base including Canon, Fuji Xerox, Lexmark, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony.

We have a world class Board and financial partner, TA Associates (www.ta.com). TA currently owns approx. 30% of Monotype Imaging and has a strong track record of growing companies.

It is an exciting time for the Company. We went public in July 2007 and have made six acquisitions in the past ten years.

MTI is a global company –our operating subsidiaries in Japan, Germany, China and the UK account for 60% of total revenues.

We have a highly experienced and knowledgeable management team with an average of fifteen years of experience in the text imaging solutions business.

We describe our culture as “intensely laid back” – employees have an intensity and passion for our jobs yet are friendly, relaxed and highly relationship-oriented.

We are growing and we are searching for a Senior Technical Support Engineer in our Japan office location. In this newly created role, the Senior Technical Support Engineer will be responsible for resolving technical support issues for customers that are evaluating and integrating Monotype Imaging SDKs and fonts. This person also works with the Monotype Imaging Product Development Team, assisting with product design, modification, enhancements, integration, and testing. This position also includes Sales support responsibilities such as traveling to customer sites with sales to give technical product presentations and demonstrations. The ideal candidate has a strong background in software development on embedded systems, with a desire to help customers rather than develop code full-time. Must be a good communicator and collaborator with strong technical problem solving skills to troubleshoot complex problems on multiple computer platforms.

Responsibilities:

Work closely with customers during evaluation and development phases to ensure that the MTI code is ported successfully, and that all issues are resolved in a satisfactory manner.

Perform deep debugging and analysis of code to resolve customer issues when integrating with MTI code (but also knows when to pass the issue on to the Development team or the Font team), often times under pressure of mission critical situations.

Perform product training and porting activities at customer sites. Porting can include MTI code integration assistance, performance tuning, memory management tuning, character blitting, and overall quality tuning.

Work with the Monotype Imaging Product Development Team, assisting with product design, modification, enhancements, integration and testing.

Create test utilities and custom code changes to explore customer issues.

Identify customer needs and suggestions that would add value to our future product offerings, and communicate that information to Marketing.

Accompany Sales personnel on customer visits, new product tours, and trade shows.

Requirements:

BS in Computer Science or Engineering, 4-7 years related experience.

Basic knowledge of object-oriented programming, compiler or interpreter technologies, embedded systems, Linux systems and new/advanced programming languages.

Fluency in C, C++ required, Python a plus.

Experience porting code to diverse embedded platforms (eg ARM, MIPS) and operating systems (eg, Linux, WinCE, Symbian).

Strong debugging and problem solving skills.

Native Japanese speaker and fluent in English (written and spoken).

Ability to clearly and precisely communicate technical information; strong presentation skills.

General knowledge of fonts, font rendering and text layout preferable.

If you have the right skills and feel this would be a good cultural fit for you as well, please send your resume to jobs@monotypeimaging.com.