On Wednesday, May 21st, 2025, our Meguro office came alive for the first-ever ZEALS DevTalk — an evening of open conversations, AI insights, and casual networking over drinks and (yes, plenty of) pizza.

This wasn’t just any meetup, it became TokyoDev’s largest event to date, drawing an incredible turnout. For the first time, ZEALS opened its doors to the wider tech community, inviting curious minds to see what’s happening behind the scenes of one of Japan’s fastest-growing AI startups.

Interest was high going into the event. With AI taking center stage across industries, and ZEALS recognized as a leading force in next-generation AI Agents in Japan, many were curious to see what we’re building and how we’re building it. The event offered a rare inside look at our approach to engineering, leadership, and innovation in a fast-moving startup.

The Human Side of Hypergrowth

Lessons They Don’t Teach You in Engineering School

“I was one of those engineers who always said I’d never be a manager,” admitted Martin Di Domenico, our SVP of Engineering, kicking off with refreshing honesty. His talk, “0 to 1, or 1 to 100”, was less about metrics and more about messy realities.

He spoke about inheriting his first-ever team earlier in his career, a group he described as “in the worst shape possible,” delayed, fractured, and drowning in process. His approach? Strip back the bureaucracy, work alongside them, and focus on one thing: shipping something, anything, fast.

“The team needs a goal. They need to score to believe again,” he said, describing how a tiny MVP shifted the entire team dynamic.

But the real impact came when he opened up about the emotional toll of leadership. On career pivots, Martin shared: “Sometimes the growth you need is on the other side of giving something a shot, even if you weren’t sure it was for you.” The room paused. Everyone could relate.

He wrapped it with a reminder that scaling isn’t just about systems or speed, it’s about people. “Think carefully about the kind of culture and team you want to build,” he said, emphasizing the importance of being intentional and adaptable. As organizations grow, the ability to shift mindsets and evolve how you lead becomes just as critical as any technical decision.

Making AI Stop Lying to Us

Because hallucinating models are only fun in research papers

After a quick pizza-and-beer break, Chin Weihong, Senior AI Engineer at ZEALS took the mic to unveil VERified. “We often hear this from clients: ‘How can we be sure our AI gives the right info?’” Chin said. His talk, “Beyond RAG”, tackled the issue head-on: LLMs often sound right, but get facts wrong.

His solution? A hybrid framework combining symbolic logic, semantic parsing, and knowledge graphs to verify outputs in real time. The goal isn’t fluency, it’s trust.

He walked through real examples, like a chatbot falsely confirming high-risk investments in a NISA account. The response wasn’t just wrong, it was dangerous. “Partially correct answers are the riskiest,” he explained, “because they’re believable, but misleading.”

A question on token cost came up. Chin clarified: “Symbolic logic doesn’t use tokens. Only the initial policy extraction does, and that’s minimal.”

His closing line summed it up: “We’re not building chatbots to sound smart. We’re building systems people can count on.”

Where Innovation Meets Pizza

The magic happens after the slides

When the presentations wrapped, the energy didn’t fade, it shifted. The ZEALS’ lounge quickly became a hive of spontaneous conversations. 

It wasn’t just networking, it was a real connection. This is the kind of atmosphere we aim for at ZEALS, where innovation isn’t scheduled, it just happens. All it takes is the right people, a shared curiosity, and maybe a little bit of pizza of course.

What This Says About ZEALS

Spoiler: We’re kind of obsessed with growth

TokyoDev Talks Vol. 4 wasn’t just an event, it was a genuine reflection of who we are. “It’s the first time we organized anything like this,” Martin had mentioned at the start, “so we’re happy to see the amount of people.”

At ZEALS, we believe the best innovations come from collision, not isolation. We’re building the future of conversational AI, but we’re doing it together, with radical transparency and a healthy dose of fun.

The Plot Twist: We’re Hiring

Because every good story needs a cliffhanger

Here’s the beautiful irony: while we were talking about scaling teams, we realized we need to scale ours. We’re looking for engineers who think building reliable AI is a worthy challenge. Product folks who believe conversational interfaces are the future. Leaders who can navigate ambiguity with empathy.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “I want in,” we’d love to hear from you.
Just make sure to reach out to the TA Team on Linkedin! We’re your best starting point. 

Next time, we want you in the room. Or better yet, on stage.

Thanks to everyone who made TokyoDev Talks Vol. 4 unforgettable. Special shoutout to Paul McMahon and the TokyoDev community for making this our biggest turnout yet. And to our incredible ZEALS team—thank you for your support, your spirit, and for bringing true omotenashi to every guest who walked through our doors.

Ready to join the conversation? Check our openings here

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