Tech Meetups in Tokyo: A Developer's Guide

Tech Meetups in Tokyo

Looking for tech meetups in Tokyo?

Well, you've come to the right place. I'm a software developer in Tokyo and I'm sharing my list of favorite tech meetups.

These meetups are great places to network or meet cool people. If you're looking for a job, you can attend meetups to connect the resume to a real human being. But networking is like refactoring code - it's always better to do it _before_ you're looking for a job. The meetups I go to are all in English.

I can recommend every tech meetup on this list.

Tokyo Tech Meetup

Best for: Developers, founders, product managers, and everyone in tech.
Vibe: casual tech meetup with lightning talks.
Review: You’ll find a good mix of engineers and startup folks. All of the announcements are in English and Japanese. The main language is English. The organizers are very nice (Shane Reustle and Shoin Wolfe). The last time I was there, Shane and Shoin bought the name cards and stickers out of pocket to put on the event.
Cost: Free.
Location: Shibuya Parco/Shibuya QWS
Best way to get notified: join the Tokyo Tech meetup. Follow Shoin Wolfe, Shane Reustle, or Tokyo Tech on Twitter.

HN Tokyo

Best for: Developers, founders, product managers, and everyone in tech.
Vibe: casual tech meetup with community announcements.
Review: You’ll find a mix of engineers and startup folks. This is a great meetup for developers. People will share what they're working on. During the announcements, you'll be notified which of the attendees are there to recruit engineers. If you're looking for a job, the announcements will help you find the people who are hiring. This event is organized by MakeLeaps.
Cost: 1000 yen. HN Tokyo rents the location and speakers. The entrance fee covers their cost.
Location: Shibuya Parco
Best way to get notified: join the HN Tokyo Slack channel or HN Tokyo Doorkeeper group.

Tokyo Tech Leads Circle

Best for: Developers, Engineering Managers.
Vibe: Lightning Talks, food, and Engineering Managers.
Review: I couldn't make the last one, but I heard a lot of good things from Engineering Managers. I'll be at the next one though!
Cost: Free
Location: Code Chrysalis
Best way to get notified: Follow Tokyo Tech Leads Circle on LinkedIn.

Code Chrysalis

Best for: Developers, everyone in tech.
Vibe: tech meetup with demos and workshops.
Review: I went to Code Chrysalis so I like to pop in and see what the students, founders, and alumni are doing.
Cost: Free.
Location: Code Chrysalis Office - Minato City, Motoazabu, 3-chōme−1− ３５ VORT 元麻布 B2F · Tokyo
Best way to get notified: join the Code Chrysalis Meetup.

Shibuya Startup Support

Best for: Founders and startup folks.
Vibe: A little more business-like with great food.
Review: Shibuya Startup Support hosts events every week. They attract founders, startup folks, and a few developers. The events at night (after 6pm) attract more people. I would prioritize those events. The events during the day get lots of founders, travelers, or sales people (people whose job is to network). Most developers are working during the day so they won’t be at these events if it's held on a workday in the morning. FYI. But they have events with bigger companies such as Deel/Stripe. Also, their brunch food is fantastic.
Cost: Free.
Location: usually Portal Point Shibuya 7F.
Best way to get notified: Follow Shibuya Startup Support on Twitter or Shibuya Startup Support on LinkedIn.

ProductTank

Best for: Product Managers.
Vibe: Casual tech meetup. Hang out over drinks.
Review: Really fun mix of product managers from startups and large tech companies. Relaxed, casual vibes.
Cost: Free.
Location: Shibuya Hobgoblin Pub.
Best way to get notified: Join the ProductTank Slack or ProductTank Meetup Group

Tech Slack/Discord in Japan

The English-speaking developer community in Tokyo hangs out in a few active Slack channels.

If you want to check out the conversation, here are a few Slack and Discord channels for English-speaking software engineers.

I'm always looking for cool slack groups. If you know of a slack group with good vibes, can you let me know? 🙏

Co-Creation Slack

Best for: VCs, founders, and startup folks.
Members: ~300
Awesome people, relevant articles, and good vibes. I'm most active here.
Organized by Kenneth Jeng, Schyler Cole, and Haruka Takamori.

HN Tokyo Slack

Best for: Developers and startup folks.
Members: ~3000
There's a channel for hiring that you should look into.
Run by MakeLeaps founders. Contact pauloswald@gmail.com for an invite to the HN Tokyo Slack.

TokyoDev Discord

Best for: Developers
Run by Paul McMahon of TokyoDev.

ProductTank Slack

Best for: Product Managers
Members: ~700
Run by Jason Everaert and Ashyrgeldi Atayev

Creative Tokyo Slack

Best for: designers and creatives in Tokyo
Members: ~1300
Run by Creative Tokyo

Event Platforms in Tokyo

Tech events in Tokyo are spread across many event platforms.

If you’re actively looking for a job, you can join the event platforms that I list below and join the groups catered to specific programming languages or niches.

If you’re not actively looking for a job, I recommend you join the developer slack channels to get notified of tech events. Slack members will let you know of most upcoming tech events.

Meetup

Good UI and categorization. Easiest to use as an English speaker.
There are meetups for Python, Rust, Javascript, Product Managers etc.

Doorkeeper

Good UI and categorization. Easy to use as an English speaker.

Tokyo Tech

This website aggregates events for developers in Tokyo. It is written in English. Separate from the Tokyo Tech Meetup.
Has events from Meetup, Doorkeeper, Peatix, Connpass.

Peatix

Good event platform for english speakers. A lot of events in Japanese but some tech companies use Peatix to distribute their english events. I can recommend the events from Moon Creative Lab!

Connpass

Japanese heavy with events geared towards Japanese speakers.
There are some diamonds in the rough for programming language communities. English speakers may prefer other event platforms.

Tech Meetups in Tokyo: A Developer's Guide