2025 was a year of milestones for TokyoDev: the most developers hired through the site, the most events we’ve ever hosted, and the highest number of survey responses to date. In this article, I look back on the year and reflect on what it revealed about our community and our direction.
93 developers got a job via TokyoDev
In 2025, we tracked 93 developers who were successfully hired after applying for a position on TokyoDev. This number was up from last year’s 63 developers, and beats our previous record of 74 developers in 2023.
Because we count successful hires based on when we receive a fee—and that can take 3–6 months from when a job is posted—it can be tricky to attribute exactly what made us especially successful this year. On top of that, fluctuations in the hiring market itself can be a huge factor beyond anything we’re doing. That said, in conversations I’ve had with recruiters, many have commented that it’s getting harder to place people, so our growth despite that is a sign we’re doing something right.
Personally, I think we’re seeing payoffs of the community building and continuous investment we’ve been making in the site since 2022, when I grew the team beyond myself. Others’ involvement has allowed us to accomplish far more than I would have otherwise been able to accomplish myself.
Looking at the data we do have, one striking thing is that compared to last year, successful companies hired more people through us than ever. Last year, 52% of successful companies made two or more hires. This year, that number jumped to 70%.
While some of these companies were new to TokyoDev, the majority had already seen success with us in previous years. That’s one of the things I really like about running this site: we help companies grow by hiring talented people, and as they grow, they come back to us—helping us grow in turn.
11 events hosted
In 2025, we held a record number of events, including six developer-focused TokyoDev Talks, four recruiter focused Engineer Hiring Tokyo events, a Women and Non-binary Dinner & DrinkUp at RubyKaigi, and an AI workshop in collaboration with Cloudinary.
While we also ran TokyoDev Talks last year, this year I focused on improving event quality. For example, I started holding rehearsal sessions with presenters ahead of time, which has worked out really well. We also began publishing event videos on our YouTube channel, so even if you couldn’t attend live, you can still check them out.
While we didn’t officially organize it, we were also a partner for Tokyo Tech Jobs Night, where I ran a resume review booth. I wasn’t sure how much demand there would be going in, but I ended up spending the full four hours reviewing resumes for 50+ people—my only break being a quick trip to grab a ginger ale.
9 organizations sponsored
TokyoDev owes its origins to the developer community in Japan, so it’s important to me that we use our success to give back to it. We have continued to do this through supporting the following organizations:
- Google Developer Groups on Campus Waseda University: A student-led organization hosting talks, workshops, and hackathons
- Kaigi on Rails: Japan’s largest Ruby on Rails conference.
- Rails Girls Japan: Holds free workshops to help women pick up Ruby on Rails.
- Tokyo Rubyist Meetup: Japan’s first and longest running international Ruby community
- Tokyo Test Fest: An international software quality conference in Japan.
- Waffle: Works to close the gender gap in technology, with a focus on high school and university students.
- Women in Agile Japan: A two-day conference focused on developing agile leaders.
- Women In Science Japan: Helps women scientists reach their full potential.
- Women In Technology Japan: A community that bridges the gender gap in tech and promotes diversity and inclusion in Japan.
Many of these communities are dedicated to supporting women. This is part of an initiative we’ve started in 2023.
On a personal level, I had the opportunity this year to see what a difference this kind of support can make. A colleague learned about Waffle’s Technovation Girls program through our sponsorship and suggested it to her daughter. It had never occurred to her daughter that she could do something in technology, but she decided to join the program, forming one of 88 teams that participated.
Her daughter’s team made it to the final round, and I was really impressed by the pitch they delivered. I wasn’t the only one: the judges selected her team for the grand prize.
989 developers answered our survey
Since 2019, TokyoDev has conducted an annual survey of international software developers living in Japan. The 2025 edition was the biggest yet, with 989 developers sharing details on their salaries, working conditions, and the technologies they use.
I’ve had people tell me how useful our survey is—some companies even use it to set their ranges—so I’m glad it has continued to grow and add to the community.
36 articles written by 7 authors
While we saw a decrease in the number of external contributors this year, Rebecca Callahan helped us bring in a wide range of perspectives through her interviews with many people working in the software industry in Japan. The top five articles by number of visitors were:
- Why Do Japanese Companies Hire International Developers? by Rebecca Callahan
- Buying a House in Karuizawa, Japan by Paul McMahon
- How to Pass the Resume Screening Stage in Japan by Rebecca Callahan
- Getting a Job in Japan as a New Grad by Rebecca Callahan
- Is There a Japanese Equivalent of Glassdoor? by Rebecca Callahan
While the Karuizawa series of articles I’ve been writing has no direct business impact for us, it has led to a number of meaningful connections—both with people already living here, and with those considering a move. It’s also been fun to get back to my blogging roots while writing them.
7 developer stories published
We publish developer stories to highlight the experiences of employees at our client companies, giving candidates a clearer picture of what it’s actually like to work there. In 2025, we released seven developer stories. The top three by number of visitors were:
- Zeals Pushed Him Out of His Comfort Zone—and He’s Glad
- KOMOJU’s Customer Engineering Team seeks business-minded, flexible devs who can use both Japanese and English
- How Spike Went from Developer to CTO at Colorkrew
2,900+ people joined our Discord server
In 2025, over 2,900 people joined TokyoDev’s Discord server. Not only has our community helped people get their lives up and running in Japan, but it also has been a great source of inspiration for article topics, and a way to find potential contributors to the site.
7 people contributed to our team
Besides the contributors who wrote articles for the site or made illustrations for them, we have a number of people doing work for us on an ongoing basis.
- Daniel López Prat improved the infrastructure that runs the TokyoDev site, and was especially helpful in resolving a security issue discovered earlier this year.
- Mathieu Mayer redid our company listing to better organize the ever growing number of companies advertising with us.
- Michelle Tan helped with full stack development by building things like our new profile database, conducted developer story interviews, and helped out at events (including running this event singled-handedly) .
- Rebecca Callahan interviewed contributors, wrote articles for us, and led our editorial team and process.
- Sacha Greif continued to refine the software that runs our survey, and helped with creating this year’s survey.
- Sayana Takagi acted as our client representative and led our engineer hiring events.
- Scott Rothrock moderated our Discord community and contributed to our editorial team and process.
Looking ahead to 2026
2026 should be more of what’s made us successful this year. We already have the first TokyoDev Talks of the year lined up, and we’ll continue to sponsor communities. We also have a whole slew of articles queued up, and we’re working on new features for the site, including our very much work-in-progress Japanese version.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us this year. I’m looking forward to continuing to grow together through the next!
