Hey folks, I've been doing a lot of reading on this subreddit and other resources about the feasibility of moving to Japan for someone in my situation but I haven't quite been able to find someone in my shoes who's asked for advice here.
My spouse is moving soon to Japan and they're talking to several companies but will likely settle on a job based in Tokyo and less likely in Osaka or Kyoto.
I'd really like to go with them and am willing to pivot to different fields from my current career path to do so! They'd be hosting me on a dependent visa too for as long as we can afford to if being in the country would help my job search too.
As far as Comp Sci grads / software developers, most threads I've read are for new grads or engineers who are already pretty experienced (5+ years) which are pretty clearly very different situations. I, however, am kind of in the middle of that spectrum.
Here's a quick rundown about me:
- US Citizen (spouse is also US Citizen)
- Bachelor's in Computer Science at a major public school in the northeast US.
- Took a couple semesters of Japanese but would not call myself fluent or at a conversational level.
- Partner and I are both in our mid 20s, recent college grads.
- I have about 1.5-2 years experience as a Software Engineer at a VC-funded startup in b2b SaaS (Backed by Innovation Endeavors, Spark Capital, and other big funds). First job out of college, but laid off late last year along with most of my team (Product engineering). Long story short we lost an existentially important contract due to factors outside of our control and the company had to slash engineering headcount.
To dig a bit deeper into my work background, I was brought on as a Mobile (iOS) engineer to work on the company's frontend/user client but like most startups I ended up doing a bit of everything. In fact I'd say I only worked on our iOS client about half the time I spent doing technical work, with the other half being spread between the backend services that we consumed and fixing bugs just about all over the place.
I have (limited) experience working with a TypeScript/Node backend and a lot of experience diagnosing and chasing down faulty data. Typically, mis-managed data would be surfaced to my team (iOS) because users would be sending bug reports to us about weird entries in their workflow. I'm also accustomed to working with Sentry, DataDog, and CircleCI for various DevEx purposes, monitoring, and alerting.
As an aside I also have experience with some more entry-level IT-esque tasks like building and maintaining PCs. I have experience with basic networking too as I took a class during college meant for one to prep for the CompTia certs, but for fun and to fill an elective requirement.
Now, with all that context out of the way I'm eager to ask about anyone who's been in shoes similar to mine about what my options are to move to Japan. As I mentioned in the title, I'm more than willing to make a career transition and work any job regardless of the pay cut (to a reasonable degree) from no longer working as a software engineer.
My previous job paid me in the neighborhood of 120-150k USD annually but I'd be fine with a salary of 3m-4m yen. I really only want enough money to be able to make my student loan payments and pitch in for bills & rent for a modest apartment with my partner.
We've been thinking about doing this for the better part of a decade before either of us was even in college and there's a lot of reasons why we want to go to Japan, enough that it definitively outweighs the pay disparity. If anyone's especially curious why we'd be willing to go to such lengths to move I can elaborate in the comments, as I'm struggling to keep this main post as succinct as possible.
I feel as if I'm more than capable of doing well in any sort of tech-adjacent role whether that be continuing as a software engineer, working in a hands-on IT role in an office, doing data-center technician work, product management even, anything of the sort really! I'd like to know what my options are feasibly at this stage in my career.
I've been loosely keeping tabs on the environment in Japan for someone in my field and I've consistently heard that there's a demand for IT/Software Devs/CS grads in general but I'm curious what the situation is like at this particular moment and what are the most feasible paths to get a foothold in Japan for someone like myself.
I've been reading that entry level IT and data-center work might be the best direction to point myself in but I'm really curious to know specifics and for this sub's opinion on my situation.
by Turbo_Saxophonic