Our Story
Dev Japan started with a simple ask.
Back in 2014/2015 Caven Cade Mitchell noticed that a lot of tech communities had either shut down or left Japan. This was largely due to the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
Around that time, Caven was working weekends at KDDI Web Communications, often alone in the office on weekends (not because he had to btw, because he wanted to). He asked his manager if he could open up the company's event space on Saturdays and invite other developers to come work alongside him. His manager said yes — and in January 2015, Dev Japan was born. Caven posted the first meetup on meetup.com, and people started showing up.
When KDDI Web Communications moved buildings, the group needed a new home. Some community members worked at Cookpad, who generously opened their Ebisu office to Dev Japan — even bringing in a private chef once a month to cook lunch for the group. In return, Cookpad found some great engineers to hire straight out of the community.
The pandemic put things on pause. Cookpad transitioned from an office to a WeWork coworking space, and when it was safe to gather again, Dev Japan needed a new venue once more.
Today, Dev Japan meets every other month in partnership with Impact Hub Tokyo.
What hasn't changed
The reason people show up: a Saturday spot to get work done, a bit of background noise and company while coding, motivation to push through a project, or a room full of people who might have the answer to whatever you've been stuck on. Whether you're a working engineer, switching careers, or teaching yourself to code from scratch — all skill levels and all corners of development are welcome here.
