Once a year, at the end of August, the whole of Japan’s based Tektome team swaps the office for a barbecue by the water in Yokohama. It is the one day the entire company, plus a good number of partners, children, and the occasional dog, is in the same place at the same time.
A fixture at the end of every summer.
The end-of-August barbecue is a tradition now. We return to the same venue in Yokohama each year, right beside the water, to close out the summer together. Part of the appeal is exactly that familiarity: it is a date people look forward to, a known and easy way to mark the season.
It also doubles as a welcome. Every year brings new faces to Tektome, and the barbecue is often the first time they meet the wider team in one go, away from meetings and standups, with a plate of food in hand.
Everyone brings something to the grill.
It is not a catered affair so much as a shared one. Plenty of people bring their own meats and dishes to cook and pass around, and the spread ends up reflecting the team itself: a mix of tastes, backgrounds, and a bit of friendly showing off.
Our CTO is known for turning up with tomahawk steaks that he prepares and cooks himself. Small rituals like that are how a tradition builds character over the years.
Families, partners, and the occasional dog.
What makes the day feel distinctly like Tektome is who comes along. Many colleagues bring their families: children, partners, and yes, sometimes the family dog. With so many nationalities on the team already, the gathering has the easy, global feel of a large extended household.
That changes the conversations. Talking freely outside an office setting, and getting to meet the people our colleagues go home to, makes everyone feel a little closer.
For one afternoon, you meet your colleagues as people, not as the role sitting next to their name.
Bridging the two sides of a fast-growing company.
There is a practical reason a day like this matters more than it might at another company. Tektome has grown quickly, quickly enough that the office can no longer hold everyone at once. So the teams split the week: the business side comes in on Mondays and Thursdays, and engineering on Wednesdays and Fridays.
It keeps things running, but it means the two halves of the company rarely share a room. The barbecue is one of the few times they do.
Why it matters
When a company grows faster than its office, shared moments do real work. A single afternoon by the water is where people who never overlap during the week finally get to connect.
You end up in conversation with colleagues you would otherwise only see as a name in a channel, and by all accounts the feeling is mutual. That distance now runs 9,000 kilometres to London, which is a good problem to have, and getting both ends of it around one grill would make a fine day even better.
Why a barbecue matters.
It is easy to file an event like this under perks, but it does something quieter and more useful. Learning what matters to your colleagues outside of work, what they care about, who they are away from their desk, leaves you feeling more supported when you are back at it.
The proof shows up afterwards. Get-togethers like this have led to colleagues meeting up outside office hours to do things together, friendships that started over a grill and carried on well past it. That, more than the steaks, is the point.
Join the team
We’re a global team growing fast, and we like the people we work with. If that sounds like your kind of place, take a look at where you might fit.