My History
The name “Monocrea” is a blend of the Japanese word monodukuri (craftsmanship or making things) and the Italian word crea (to create). While we’re a system development firm, we see ourselves as a team of engineers committed to contributing to society through technology. Some may think that “making things” has nothing to do with software—but I see it differently.
We build systems because they don’t yet exist. Every case is different, and more often than not, we’re starting from scratch. If we simply built the same thing as everyone else, we’d lose our competitive edge. That’s why we need to create something better—something original. But there’s no clear-cut “right answer.” And to me, that’s what true craftsmanship is all about.
I came to this perspective after working as an engineer at three companies. Back then, I was always eager to improve—I spent weekends studying programming and constantly felt there had to be a better way to build things. Over time, I realized that unless I went independent, I wouldn’t be able to fully pursue the kind of craftsmanship I believed in. That’s what led me to found Monocrea in 2010.
It’s been nearly 15 years since, and we've had the privilege of developing systems for a broad range of clients—both public and private—including government agencies, telecom giants, and megabanks. We don’t actively market our services. Most of our new projects come from existing clients who were happy with our work and ask us to take on new challenges.
That said, we’ve had our share of tough times. At one point, a major project was suddenly canceled. We had been gearing up to launch a new business and had already reached the testing phase, having invested significant resources. Just as things were starting to come together, one of our existing projects was unexpectedly shut down—leading to a 20% drop in overall revenue.
We had no choice but to pause the new venture. I had to personally visit clients to explain the situation, reassign staff to other projects, and continue managing my own engineering work. It was the most challenging time since founding the company.
What got us through was the support of our clients. When I explained our situation, several of them entrusted us with new work. In the end, we were able to recover through existing projects alone. I believe that resilience came from the trust we had built over the years and from staying true to our commitment to craftsmanship.
The Present
One of our defining strengths is our focus on prototyping-driven system development.
Prototyping involves creating a working model before building the full system—iterating through testing, feedback, and refinement. We deliberately limit prototype features to only what’s essential, and keep teams small to reduce communication overhead. This approach allows us to quickly reflect client and market needs in the system. It also helps identify technical risks early and avoid costly rework.
That said, effective prototyping demands highly capable engineers. Smaller teams mean broader responsibilities for each member. And because prototyping starts from a hypothesis, engineers need to make frequent technical and logical decisions—like determining the best way to build a program or how to validate an assumption. This requires a wide range of expertise and sound judgment.
Because we rely on talented engineers, we’ve built an engineer-first work environment. Our organizational structure is intentionally flat—there are no titles. Aside from myself as the founder, everyone is simply a team member. In Japan’s IT industry, there’s often an unspoken idea that “you shouldn't still be writing code after a certain age.” Even if someone improves as an engineer, the typical career path often pushes them into management. That creates uncertainty for those who want to remain hands-on. At Monocrea, there’s no concept of climbing a corporate ladder—our engineers can focus entirely on getting better at what they do.
We also don’t use standardized salary bands. Instead, engineers pitch their desired annual salary to management. If their performance supports it, the raise is approved—some have received increases of over one million yen in a single review. Salaries are fully transparent across the company. This gives junior engineers visibility into how veteran engineers are rewarded and motivates them to grow.
The quality of our work is something we take great pride in. We tackle technically demanding projects—ranging from processing hundreds of millions of data records to building complex system architectures. These challenging environments naturally accelerate growth. For engineers who are serious about honing their skills, we believe this is the ideal place to be.
For the Future
In 2024, we launched an open-source software initiative called Project Au Lait. Its concept is simple: “to make the bitterness of system development a little smoother.” Just like a café au lait softens the sharpness of espresso, we set out to build tools that ease the everyday struggles of engineers.
Anyone who’s been in software development knows the feeling: “If only I had the right tool, I could automate this tedious task.” But when deadlines are tight, building that tool from scratch often isn’t an option. That’s where Project Au Lait comes in. It’s a collection of software tools designed to help developers streamline their workflows and automate repetitive tasks.
We’ve released assets for web application development and embedded into the project the deep expertise we’ve gained from years of working on complex, high-stakes systems. We also drew on lessons from projects we’ve supported at other companies—including the mistakes and missteps we witnessed in real development environments.
Before Project Au Lait, we maintained OSS projects mostly for our internal use, documented only in Japanese. But with this project, we rebranded everything in English with a clear goal: to gather feedback from the global engineering community, not just from Japan.
We’ve already seen some early traction from international developers. Not long ago, we were preparing to co-develop a system with another company and interviewed several engineers—both Japanese and non-Japanese. We introduced Project Au Lait to all of them. Interestingly, only the non-Japanese engineers actually tried it and shared their feedback.
That experience left a strong impression on me. On one hand, I was encouraged by the enthusiasm and insights from engineers overseas. On the other hand, I felt a sense of concern for the mindset of some Japanese engineers. For those hoping to build a successful future in tech, I hope to see more hunger for growth and learning.Today, technology evolves faster than people. With the rapid rise of generative AI, we’ll inevitably see some engineers left behind.
But I have no such concerns about the engineers on our team. We’re building systems that don’t yet exist—truly original products developed from scratch. Because of this, our engineers are in a position to assess the quality of AI-generated results through real-world knowledge and hands-on experience. They are not being used by AI—they are the ones using it. And together, we’ll continue building systems that make real-world impact and improve people’s lives.