Is "you can't choose your projects" really a given?
For IT engineers who work on projects at client companies, it has long been taken for granted that "the company decides your next project," that "keeping you billable comes first, so you never get to learn the skills you want," and that "you have no idea what your own rate is."
Stay a full-time employee, and your salary is stable, but you aren't the one steering your career. Go freelance, and you can choose your projects, but the worry about what happens when the work dries up never goes away. Many engineers have agonized over this either-or choice.
Free Employee (jiyu seishain), the system championed by Fuji Tokyo Service, is a way of working that aims to do away with this choice altogether.
What Free Employee means
Free Employee is a style of employment that gives you freelancer-like freedom while keeping the stability of a full-time employee. The name "jiyu seishain" is also a trademark registered with the Japan Patent Office.
| The stability of a full-time employee | The freedom of a freelancer |
|---|---|
| A fixed monthly salary and bonuses | You choose the projects you join |
| 100% of your salary guaranteed while you wait for a project | Contract rates are disclosed, and a high share is paid back to you |
| Social insurance and employee benefits | No mandatory days back at the company office |
| Support from sales staff and the company | Side jobs allowed |
You choose your next project
All project information is disclosed, and it's the engineers themselves who decide which projects to join. Based on wishes such as "I want to earn more," "I'd like less overtime" or "I want to try upstream work, such as requirements and design," the sales representative in charge of you may also go looking for new projects. You'll never simply be handed a project by the company.
Rates and formulas, all made public
The company discloses in full the contract rate agreed with the client and the formula used to calculate your pay from it. Up to 85% of the rate is paid back to you. It's a system that leaves little room for frustration over not knowing how evaluations and pay are decided.
Training people to work with AI as a given
The company actively supports the use of generative AI and gives employees paid ChatGPT accounts. There's also a system for sharing knowledge and helping one another within the company, so even people who have never used AI can learn as they put it into practice.
Systems that let you work with peace of mind
Backing up this freedom is a set of systems that let you keep working with peace of mind.
- 100% salary guarantee between projects: Your full monthly salary is paid during standby periods until your next project is decided. In general, pay during such periods is said to often be limited to around 60%.
- Fully remote, with little overtime: All internal procedures are handled in the cloud, and there are no days you have to report back to the company office. Average monthly overtime in the previous fiscal year was under 7 hours.
- Support for learning and certifications: The company covers the full cost of reference books and also subsidizes fees for external training and certification exams.
- Internal side-job system: You can join in-house projects in areas such as system development and IT education, or launch one from your own idea.
- 120 or more days off a year: Two full days off every week (Saturday and Sunday), plus public holidays, the year-end and New Year holidays, summer holidays and more.
- Consideration for childcare and nursing care: As far as possible, the company introduces projects that allow staggered working hours or remote work.
The company's website also states that its gender ratio is 50:50, and that 100% of the engineers who have joined saw their salary go up compared with their previous jobs.
From a photography company to an IT company
Fuji Tokyo Service started out in 1995 as a photography business. As film gave way to digital, it kept reshaping its business, launched a solutions business in 2023, and from April 2024 turned fully toward IT. Today it works in system development, PMO (project management office) services and technical support provided by IT engineers.
The company's vision is "to become a company that brings happiness to everyone it works with." Precisely because making everyone in the world happy is no easy task, it starts by taking care of the people right in front of it: its clients, its business partners and its employees. That way of thinking led to the Free Employee system, which gives engineers both "freedom" and "peace of mind."
For working people
Choosing a project also means choosing the skills you'll learn next and the direction your career will take. Knowing your own rate also means knowing the value of your work.
"Are you choosing your next project yourself?" Fuji Tokyo Service's question could prompt not only engineers but everyone who works to put their own way of working in order.
Sources
This article was put together by our editors from the following publicly available information (as of October 30, 2026). The details of the system may change, so please check the official website for the latest information. Please note that this publication is run by Fuji Tokyo Service.
