Updated May 26, 2025
A Japanese Company with Foreign Leadership? How Colorkrew Built a Global Engineering Team
※ 本記事の日本語版はこちら
Colorkrew started out as a typical Japanese tech company.
Established in 1999, the company began as a joint venture between CSK and SEGA to launch an internet service provider business. From there, they expanded into the gaming industry — they offered solutions for cloud integration, security and contract-based software development.
But starting in 2015, the company underwent a transformation: It became one of the best examples of a truly global tech company in Japan.
In this article: 📝
- Turning Work into an Exciting Challenge
- Why Hire Foreign Software Engineers?
- Hiring Challenges: The Key to Success Was to Keep Trying
- Evolution of Colorkrew’s Hiring Strategy: Shifting to a “No Japanese Required” Approach
- Colorkrew’s Global Hiring Strategy
- Ensuring Long-Term Success for Foreign Engineers
- An Open and Flat Organization
- Comprehensive Onboarding Support for Foreign Engineers
- Coaching & Mentorship Program
- Career Paths: Specialization vs. Leadership
- 360-Degree Engineer Evaluation System
- Supporting Engineer Growth Through Learning
- Building Stronger Connections at Colorkrew
- A Flexible Workstyle for Employee Lifestyle
- Leadership Roles for International Members
- What Colorkrew Looks for in New Engineers
- Global Business Expansion
- Global Development Structure
- Support for Japanese Engineers
- Language Support During Meetings
- Practical English Training and Cross-Cultural Communication
- Goal-Setting for Language Development
- Financial Support for Language Learning
- Establishing English as the Norm
- Colorkrew’s Vision for Globalization
- How Does Colorkrew Plan to Further Globalize?
- Lessons from Building a Global Engineering Organization
- International Engineers as Core Members — Not Just “Labor”
- Persistence is the Key to Success
- Join the Colorkrew Team!
Colorkrew didn’t just hire international software engineers. Today, nearly all the engineers working on their in-house services are international, and every engineering team leader is a non-Japanese national. Naturally, these engineering teams work in English.
How does a company go from primarily Japanese-speaking to a fully global engineering team where foreign engineers can take on leadership roles? We sat down with three leaders at Colorkrew to find out: CEO Keiji Nakamura, CTO Li “Spike” Ning and Recruitment Lead Kiyo Koshiba.
In this article, we’ll explore the key strategies that helped Colorkrew succeed in building a diverse and international engineering team in Japan — it’s a fascinating story.

We spoke with Keiji Nakamura, CEO of Colorkrew (left), Li Ning, CTO (center), and Kiyo Koshiba, Recruitment Lead (right), to learn more about their approach to building a global engineering team.
Turning Work into an Exciting Challenge
First off, let’s take a look at Colorkrew’s business today. They have several product lines designed to make their vision — “Color Your Work with Excitement” — a reality.
Nowadays, Colorkrew is a leading SaaS provider in Japan, specializing in office management, security solutions and HR Tech. Their flagship products include:
Colorkrew Biz – Japan’s No.1 in-office seat management and scheduling service
Colorkrew Intra – An internal company organization portal
Goalous – A social media-style goal management tool
In addition to developing its own products, Colorkrew also provides Digital Transformation (DX) consulting services to help businesses streamline their operations.
At its core, Colorkrew is an IT company that strives to make work more enjoyable, more efficient, and more engaging.
Why Hire Foreign Software Engineers?
Driven by both market conditions and their vision for global expansion, Colorkrew began recruiting foreign engineers in 2015.
At the time, Japan’s domestic tech talent market was becoming increasingly competitive, making it harder to hire engineers. Meanwhile, Colorkrew was continuing to develop its own products and expand internationally, and they soon realized the limitations of an all-Japanese team.
Colorkrew wanted to improve their product development by bringing in engineers with global perspectives, in order to introduce new ideas and technical skills. They believed that a multinational team would be key to building more competitive and innovative solutions. That’s when they made the decision to start hiring foreign engineers.
Hiring Challenges: The Key to Success Was to Keep Trying
When Colorkrew first started hiring foreign engineers, they focused on candidates who could speak at least some Japanese. However, they also hired engineers who had no Japanese proficiency at all, which they were OK with as long as the engineers were highly skilled.
This led to an immediate challenge — Japanese was still the main language being used within the company, making it difficult for non-Japanese-speaking engineers to integrate. As a result, some felt isolated and left the company early on
To address this, Colorkrew took action to create a more inclusive environment. This included encouraging English communication within the company and making adjustments to ensure that even engineers who didn’t speak Japanese could feel seen and supported.
Additionally, during job interviews, the Colorkrew hiring team was upfront about the fact that many of their Japanese team members were not fluent in English. This transparency helped them attract engineers who genuinely resonated with Colorkrew’s mission and were willing to take on the challenges that came with working in such a culturally diverse environment.
Kiyo Koshiba, Colorkrew’s recruitment lead, noted that the company didn’t focus solely on technical skills during the hiring process. They placed equal emphasis on the overall cultural fit — seeking engineers who could adapt well, communicate openly, and work collaboratively within a diverse team.
Through much trial and error, Colorkrew continued to hire foreign engineers. Their persistence paid off as they managed to slowly bring on international team members who would go on to lead the company’s globalization efforts.
Many of these key hires were bilingual and played a huge role in creating a better work environment for engineers who didn’t speak any Japanese. Among them was Li Ning (Spike), who joined during the early stages of this company-wide transformation. Over time, he became a driving force behind Colorkrew’s global expansion, and today, he leads the company’s engineering team as CTO!
Colorkrew also made an effort to listen to the needs of their foreign engineers, including those who had very little experience with Japanese culture and language. As a result, the company saw a steady increase in the number of international engineers.

Kiyo Koshiba, Colorkrew’s Global Hiring Manager
Evolution of Colorkrew’s Hiring Strategy: Shifting to a “No Japanese Required” Approach
From the beginning, Keiji Nakamura, Colorkrew CEO, had a vision to build a world-class team. So Colorkrew had been preparing for this shift since 2011, four years before fully committing to hiring international engineers.
Part of the preparation done to ensure a smooth transition was providing English learning support for Japanese engineers, in hopes that this would help them adapt to a more globalized team environment.
In the early stages of hiring, Colorkrew primarily relied on recruitment agencies and focused on candidates who could speak Japanese. When the organization gradually became more capable of accepting more foreign engineers, Colorkrew removed the Japanese language requirement and began recruiting talent regardless of language proficiency.
During this transitional phase, the company explored different hiring methods and discovered Japan Dev through word-of-mouth. They used Japan Dev’s company profile feature to showcase their unique and international engineering culture. This strategy paid off — within two months of posting their first job listing, they successfully hired a senior full-stack engineer.
Following this success, Colorkrew continued using Japan Dev, eventually hiring over 10 foreign engineers and designers through the platform. After experiencing the effectiveness of this approach, they transitioned from using recruitment agencies to relying completely on job boards for hiring, making Japan Dev a key part of their global recruitment strategy.
Colorkrew’s Global Hiring Strategy
When Japanese companies begin globalizing their engineering teams, they often face two major challenges: A lack of English-speaking team members, and limited hiring resources.
To handle these issues, Colorkrew used the following strategies:
1. Introducing a Coding Test
To streamline the hiring process, Colorkrew introduced a coding test that allowed them to assess a candidate’s engineering skills first. This helped them focus more on interviewing the most qualified candidates, saving time and resources.
2. Shifting to an Engineer-Led Hiring Process
Colorkrew put foreign engineers in charge of interviews, while HR and leadership took on a supporting role. This shift not only made the hiring process more efficient but also helped reduce the possibility of hiring a candidate who was a mismatch.
Having the foreign engineers act as interviewers had major benefits. Candidates could get a clear and direct picture of what it’s like to work at Colorkrew, leading to better hiring decisions on both ends. The entire interview process could also be conducted entirely in English, allowing them to hire more engineers who didn’t speak Japanese despite limited HR resources.
By rethinking their hiring structure, Colorkrew successfully set up a recruitment process that could attract talent from around the world.
Ensuring Long-Term Success for Foreign Engineers
At Colorkrew, fostering a welcoming and supportive environment is a top priority. To ensure that their foreign engineers are able to thrive in the workplace, the company has built an open culture and implemented support systems tailored to their needs.
An Open and Flat Organization
Colorkrew operates with a flat organizational structure, where roles exist but the traditional hierarchies do not. Unlike most companies, Colorkrew has no “Engineering Manager” positions below the CTO. Instead, each team has an Engineering Leader — a hands-on role where leaders actively contribute to projects rather than just managing people.
In addition, salary, performance evaluations, and company expenses are fully transparent. This commitment to openness prevents power from concentrating in specific roles and allows everyone to contribute based on their skills and value, rather than title or seniority.
To help team members from diverse cultural backgrounds communicate smoothly, Colorkrew ensures that its mission, vision, and values are clearly articulated in English. This approach helps focus alignment and brings a sense of belonging across the organization.
CEO Keiji Nakamura explains the philosophy behind this structure: “Our goal wasn’t to create a flat organization. We simply pursued an efficient and comfortable work environment, and a flat structure was the natural result.”
This open and transparent culture has played a key role in making Colorkrew a company where engineers of any nationality or background can continue to develop their skills with peace of mind.

Comprehensive Onboarding Support for Foreign Engineers
To help foreign engineers settle into life in Japan smoothly, Colorkrew provides extensive support, including help with opening a bank account, finding housing, and relocation support upon joining the company.
In addition, international hires receive English-language guidance on essential processes such as expense reimbursements and attendance management. Colorkrew’s internal systems are fully bilingual in English and Japanese to make sure that all engineers can navigate the basic company operations.
Coaching & Mentorship Program
At Colorkrew, each team’s Engineering Leader acts as a mentor. They work on guiding new hires through a 1-2 month onboarding program tailored to their individual skills and strengths. This personalized approach helps new engineers adapt quickly and start contributing to the team early on.
As a result, some outstanding new hires receive salary raises within just 2-4 months of joining!
To ensure continuous growth throughout their careers, engineers are regularly given challenging opportunities. In some cases, they are rotated to new projects every 3-6 months. Since Colorkrew’s tech stack is standardized on React and Golang, engineers can smoothly transition between projects.
Additionally, team leaders actively support each member’s career path, encouraging them to explore new technologies and projects. This ongoing mentorship ensures that engineers can keep learning and advancing their personal and professional skills.
Career Paths: Specialization vs. Leadership
At Colorkrew, career progression is defined by roles rather than job titles. Instead of traditional manager positions, the company offers two main career paths for engineers while still allowing involvement in hands-on roles: the specialization path and the leadership path.
Specialization Path
This track is for engineers who want to master their technical expertise and stay at the forefront of technology. By honing their skills and taking on key responsibilities within projects, they maximize their value as engineers.
Leadership Path
Engineers on this path remain hands-on but also take on team leadership and project management responsibilities. They support their team’s growth while actively contributing to decision-making that aligns with the company’s vision.
How Leaders Are Chosen
Colorkrew fosters a culture where failure from genuine effort is seen as a learning opportunity. This encourages self-driven challenges, naturally leading to the emergence of new leaders.
Rather than assigning leadership roles arbitrarily, Colorkrew uses 360-degree evaluations, allowing the engineering management team to identify and promote engineers who demonstrate leadership qualities. Many engineers at Colorkrew become leaders organically by earning recognition through their contributions to projects.
Unlimited Growth Opportunities!
At Colorkrew, promotions are performance-based rather than tenure-based, allowing even junior employees or fresh graduates to rapidly advance if they demonstrate strong contributions to their team.
Many of the current executives joined the company in their 20s or early 30s and were promoted to leadership positions within just a few years. For example, Spike initially joined Colorkrew as an engineer in his early 30s and quickly became the CTO within four years.
With effort and proven results, anyone has the opportunity to reach an executive position — the sky's the limit when it comes to career growth at Colorkrew!
360-Degree Engineer Evaluation System
At Colorkrew, transparency is a core value, and this also applies to the process for ensuring a fair and well-balanced evaluation process. Each engineer is reviewed by up to seven team members, providing multi-faceted feedback for a well-rounded assessment.
Multi-Dimensional Evaluation Approach
Evaluations are not limited to the engineer team alone — product managers, designers, and business-side members also participate in the process. This is possible because, instead of a typical hierarchical structure, Colorkrew operates as if there are multiple small startups within the company. This means that engineers, PMs, designers, and business teams all collaborate closely. Because of this cross-functional teamwork, the evaluations come from diverse perspectives and fields of expertise.
Assessments are conducted based on clear guidelines, including technical skills, leadership ability, and other key competencies, ensuring that feedback remains accurate and fair.
Commitment to Full Transparency
Evaluation results and feedback are shared with all employees, reinforcing a culture of openness.
Additionally, Colorkrew utilizes its in-house SNS-style goal management tool, Goalous, to visualize individual roles, goals, and activities. By making evaluation guidelines accessible, the company provides clear career paths for both engineers focusing on technical expertise and those aiming for leadership roles, ensuring a truly fair assessment process.
Supporting Engineer Growth Through Learning
At Colorkrew, continuous learning is a key point in supporting each engineer’s professional growth. The company provides various learning opportunities to help engineers stay ahead in their field.
One of the programs is a biweekly tech seminar, where engineers gather to share insights on the latest technology trends and exchange ideas. These sessions take place during working hours in the late afternoon. Complete with snacks and a relaxed atmosphere, these sessions allow casual yet meaningful discussions among the team.
In addition to internal learning opportunities, Colorkrew supports engineers in attending tech conferences both domestically and internationally. This helps the team stay updated on cutting-edge technologies and industry trends, continuously expanding their knowledge and skill sets.

A scene from an internal tech seminar held at Colorkrew.
Building Stronger Connections at Colorkrew
At Colorkrew, a huge effort is made to foster strong relationships across teams. To encourage interaction beyond daily work life, several initiatives have been introduced to bring people together.
Lunch and Dinner Subsidy System
Colorkrew offers a lunch and dinner subsidy program called “Go To Lunch” and “Go To Drink”. As long as participants dine with different colleagues each time, there’s no limit on the number of times they can use the subsidy. This initiative encourages employees to interact with members from different teams, strengthening bonds across the company.
Company Party – Friday Gatherings
Every other Friday, Colorkrew hosts a “Company Party” in the office, where members can unwind with drinks and snacks. It’s a casual yet valuable opportunity to relax, socialize, and build friendships beyond work discussions.
Small Talk Sessions – Bridging Language & Cultural Gaps
Understanding and embracing different languages and cultures is essential in a global team, and to support this, Colorkrew organizes Small Talk sessions.
Instructors are invited to these sessions, and employees can learn about languages and discuss cultural differences in an open setting. Sessions are held once a week, with one session per language (English and Japanese), and anyone is welcome to join.
Small Talk sessions encourage mutual understanding between Japanese and international members, creating a welcoming environment for people to share ideas and exchange experiences.
Daily Free Drinks
Colorkrew provides a fully stocked refrigerator with beer, sours, and soft drinks, available not only on Fridays for the Company Party, but every day. Employees can grab a drink any time after work with at least one other colleague.
It’s common to see teams brainstorming product ideas over drinks.
A Flexible Workstyle for Employee Lifestyle
The Colorkrew team believes that flexibility leads to productivity and innovation. That’s why they provide a high degree of freedom in how their engineers work, offering a structure that adapts to different lifestyles.
Hot Desking for an Open Workspace
Colorkrew’s office operates on an unassigned seating system. Since there are no fixed seats, employees can choose where to work based on their tasks, mood, or collaboration needs. This setup enhances focus and allows for smoother communication across teams.
Hybrid Work Model – Balancing Work and Life
Colorkrew offers a hybrid work system that allows employees to combine remote and in-office work based on their preferences.
Even for office work days, there are no strict starting hours. For example, employees can start at home and transition to the office later or adjust their schedule for personal commitments, like picking up the kids on the way home from work.
In addition, required office attendance is adjusted according to career stage. New employees work from the office daily until they are climatized to the work environment. Junior engineers are asked to come to the office three times a week, while senior members work from the office twice a week. In practice, over 80% of employees generally follow this guideline and work in the office 2 times a week.
Generous Leave & International Remote Work
From the first year of employment, Colorkrew provides employees with 20 days of paid leave and special leave. They also allow 10 days of full remote work from overseas per year.
Not only does this help international employees visit their home countries with ease, this policy has created unique opportunities for everyone. Many employees take the chance to hop on the same flight as their coworkers who are visiting home, for a perfect chance to travel abroad. This is one of the unique ways of having fun at Colorkrew, making work-life balance truly rewarding.
Leadership Roles for International Members
As Colorkrew continues to build a global engineering team, they’ve found that promoting foreign nationals to leadership positions has become a natural part of the company culture.
Currently, their product development teams are divided into four groups, and all team leaders are foreign engineers. Moreover, the CTO, Spike, is also an international member, meaning that foreign engineers are at the core of their teams.
This structure allows diverse perspectives that drive growth, making it easier for new engineers to continue experiencing a globally inclusive work environment.
What Colorkrew Looks for in New Engineers
CTO Spike emphasizes the importance of hiring engineers who align with Colorkrew’s open, flat culture and passion for cutting-edge technology. They’re focused on individuals who thrive in dynamic, collaborative environments, and can rise up to take on new challenges.
Strong Fundamentals, Technical Skill, and Growth Potential
Colorkrew welcomes candidates with a deep understanding of the tech skills required, even if they don’t have much work experience yet. In fact, the company is actively recruiting new graduates who demonstrate a strong desire to grow.
A “Team First” Mindset
Colorkrew looks for individuals who prioritize the success of the team over individual achievement. Collaboration and mutual support are key to their work.
Adaptability and Flexibility
Given that their development environment is constantly evolving, Colorkrew seeks engineers who are able to respond to challenges with a flexible and proactive attitude.
Clear and Open Communication
Effective communication is essential. Colorkrew looks for people who can express their ideas clearly, listen to others with respect, and contribute constructively to team discussions.
The engineers at Colorkrew embody all of these qualities. They’re a team of highly skilled members who collaborate, challenge, and encourage each other to evolve and improve year after year.

Global Business Expansion
Colorkrew is actively expanding its business beyond the Japanese market, with a strong focus on global growth. The company currently operates a sales office in Brazil and is promoting the overseas distribution of its SaaS products. In addition, Colorkrew has begun entering the South Korean market, taking on the challenge of developing new business opportunities abroad.
The decision to establish a sales office in Brazil was inspired by a Brazilian employee who was working as a sales representative at Colorkrew. As he was preparing to return home, he expressed a strong desire to continue working for the company. Seeing this as a great opportunity, Colorkrew supported his remote work arrangement and entrusted him with establishing the Brazil office and building a local sales network.
In this way, Colorkrew actively leverages the networks of its international team members in expanding overseas. By utilizing local knowledge and personal connections, the company is able to formulate market strategies that are deeply informed by local conditions, adopt culturally sensitive approaches, and ensure smooth communication across regions.
Global Development Structure
Colorkrew’s engineering organization is built on the foundation of a global team. While the current development hub is based exclusively in Tokyo, the company envisions the possibility of establishing international development teams in the future. Even in such a case, Colorkrew plans to operate as “one unified team”, where both domestic and international engineers collaborate using English as the common language.
Keiji Nakamura, Colorkrew’s CEO, highlights the benefits of working as a unified team structure: “For example, by collaborating among members in different time zones, we can build a more flexible development process and seamlessly maximize project speed. Plus, having experienced members in local markets allows us to gain fresh insights into our products and features.”
The globalization of Colorkrew’s engineering team opens the door to numerous advantages — positioning the company to better serve a global user base.
Support for Japanese Engineers
As Colorkrew continues to globalize its engineering team, the company has invested in creating an environment where Japanese engineers can collaborate effectively with international colleagues. Several long-term initiatives have been implemented to support this transition.
Language Support During Meetings
To help Japanese members adapt to an English-speaking environment, Colorkrew introduced an “English Supporter” system during meetings. These supporters assist with appropriate English expressions when needed and provide real-time feedback after the meetings. This approach has offered a chance for team members to learn “practical English” within the context of their daily work, contributing to the overall improvement of language proficiency across the team.
Practical English Training and Cross-Cultural Communication
Colorkrew also provided a variety of English training opportunities, including group conversation classes and one-on-one private lessons. To encourage cross-cultural communication while keeping language learning fun, the company hosted “Small Talk” sessions with guest instructors.
In addition, comprehensive listening and speaking lessons were conducted for all employees, including executive members. Each week, employees participated in two-hour sessions in small groups of two, focusing on real-world English skills.
Goal-Setting for Language Development
As part of its learning approach, Colorkrew initially set a TOEIC score of 730 as a benchmark for foundational reading skills. Next, speaking proficiency goals were established using CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). This structured progression helped over half of the team reach a B2 level of proficiency, demonstrating the success of the program.
Financial Support for Language Learning
To further support the language development of their Japanese engineers, Colorkrew offered a range of financial incentives, including:
Reimbursement for TOEIC and speaking test fees
A ¥30,000 reward for achieving TOEIC scores of over 730 or 900 points
A ¥50,000 reward for reaching CEFR C1 level on speaking tests
These incentives helped motivate team members and encouraged continuous language improvement.
Establishing English as the Norm
Thanks to the combination of clear goals using TOEIC and CEFR benchmarks and years of practical training, the English proficiency of Japanese engineers at Colorkrew has significantly improved. While formal training programs other than “Small Talk” have now concluded, a self-study support system remains in place, offering partial subsidies for those who continue their language studies.
Today, working in English is the norm at Colorkrew. In fact, the company’s evaluation system assumes that employees can perform their roles in English. As CEO Keiji Nakamura puts it:
“Your salary won’t decrease if you can’t speak Japanese — but it will if you can’t speak English.”
Colorkrew has thus established a global environment where language proficiency in English is both expected and rewarded.
Colorkrew’s Vision for Globalization
Currently, over a quarter of all employees at Colorkrew are non-Japanese nationals, representing more than 15 different countries. The engineering team comprises around 40 members, with approximately half being foreign nationals. The team responsible for in-house product development is made up almost entirely of international engineers.
However, Colorkrew’s vision of globalization extends beyond simply hiring foreign talent. The company aims to build an organization where individuals from diverse backgrounds also participate in decision-making at the core of the business. While it is common for Japanese companies to hire foreign engineers while maintaining a Japanese leadership structure, Colorkrew takes a different approach where international engineers serve as team leads and play central roles within the organization.
How Does Colorkrew Plan to Further Globalize?
The goal of Colorkrew’s globalization efforts is not to just increase the number of foreign hires. Rather, the company is committed to evolving into a truly global organization — one where diversity is seen on all levels, including the executive leadership team.
Globalizing the Leadership Team
At present, five out of six members of Colorkrew’s executive team are Japanese. Looking ahead, the company intends to increase the number of non-Japanese leaders, aiming to manage the business from a global perspective and become a company that can succeed on the world stage.
Globalizing the Business Side
While more than 90% of the business-side roles are currently held by Japanese speaking members, Colorkrew also plans to actively recruit non-Japanese members in these departments. The belief is that by encouraging globally-minded talent not only within the engineering team but across all divisions, the company can build a team capable of competing on an international scale.
Lessons from Building a Global Engineering Organization
To conclude, here are some key takeaways for Japanese companies looking to build a global engineering team, based on Colorkrew’s approach.
International Engineers as Core Members — Not Just “Labor”
In recent years, many Japanese companies have started hiring international engineers. However, in many cases, these tech professionals are treated merely as “people who can code” and fill in immediate talent gaps, with little opportunity to participate in major decisions or shape the organization. There is also often a one-sided expectation for them to adapt to Japanese corporate culture and business practices.
Colorkrew has made an effort to break away from these traditional frameworks. By creating an environment where international engineers are seen as key drivers of the business, the company has successfully built an authentic global organization.
Colorkrew’s Globalization Initiatives
Total transparency of internal information All personnel-related information — such as salaries, performance evaluations, and business expenses — is fully disclosed within the company.
English as the official company language By adopting English as the common language, Colorkrew decreases language barriers and creates an environment where all members can engage in discussions.
A highly transparent evaluation system The company has established a framework where engineers’ contributions are fairly and accurately assessed.
International engineers in leadership roles Engineers with both technical expertise and leadership skills are entrusted with core leadership positions, regardless of nationality.
Flexible working schedules Colorkrew offers relocation support, flextime options, remote work, and extended leave for members visiting their home country. This helps create an environment where everyone can work comfortably, including the members who come from diverse backgrounds.
Persistence is the Key to Success
Colorkrew’s journey toward globalization has not been an overnight success. There has been a continuous process of trial and error, marked by both challenges and breakthroughs.
Key lessons from Colorkrew’s experience include:
Don’t aim for perfection from the start: Even if the English skills of existing members is limited, it’s important to just start communicating in English and embracing a learning-by-doing mindset.
Hire bilingual engineers in the early stages: Bringing in engineers who are fluent in both Japanese and English can help bridge communication gaps. This will accelerate integration between international and Japanese team members.
Embrace failure and keep going: Don’t give up even after facing a setback. Companies should be prepared to iterate and improve continuously.
Colorkrew has been consistent with this process: start with action, improve through trial and error, and stay committed to globalization. By being transparent and building clear and effective systems, the company has created a workplace where international engineers can feel a strong sense of purpose and fulfillment.
The hope is that if more Japanese companies can follow Colorkrew’s example and position international engineers as core contributors, the opportunities for global success within Japan will expand. These companies will also become highly attractive workplaces for top-tier global talent, creating a community of diversity and excellence.
If more Japanese companies strive to become global organizations where talented engineers want to work, it will certainly lead to more successful stories like Colorkrew’s.
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We hope that this article will serve as a useful reference for Japanese companies who are looking to build English-speaking, globally oriented engineering teams.
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