Hi everyone, so I’m curious as to how this works. Within the next 5 or 6 years, I plan to move to Japan in the hopes of working as a developer there. During these 5 or 6 years, I will not be attending university, but rather a coding bootcamp, internships, and working at a company or companies. I’m mostly self taught, so a university degree did not seem necessary to me.
Is it impossible to live/work in Japan with this kind of experience? Can I not just live in Japan and then apply for a job? Is an engineering Visa absolutely necessary in my case?
10 comments
What other visa do you have in mind?
Basically not much you can do. It’s an immigration requirement to have a bachelor’s or 10 years of documented experience.
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Your post will likely be removed but I did some stalking, your only realistic option is to get a degree, work a couple years in your home country and then move to Japan. You cannot get sponsored for a work visa without a full bachelors or 10 years documented experience there are no exceptions.
It doesn’t matter if you are the next Steve Jobs, it’s not a flexible requirement. Realistically most countries require you to have a degree to move there, you ought to consider university education abroad as that might give you more insight to what you actually want from life.
i think your only other option is a working holiday visa if you’re from an eligible country, but it’s only for a year.
i know of people who have secured their IT jobs after coming on this visa
You’ll need the degree or 10 years of experience to qualify for a work visa.
While it’s not always necessary you’re probably better off getting a degree.
Do you have Japanese citizenship?
If yes, go hog wild
If no, you’re not getting a working visa. You could marry a Japanese person I guess
Further to others’ excellent responses, unless you’re married to a Japanese national, or already living here on a different visa category, you’ve got the process back to front:
1. Find job.
1. Company applies for your COE.
1. Move here.
The degree, or 10 year thing, is an immigration requirement. It’s a type of filter, to exclude unqualified folks. Your own country probably has similar immigration requirements.
In your case, unless you acquire a degree, your best bet would be to get a decade of paid and documented experience under your belt, and have the company you work for transfer you to their Japan branch.
No degree or 10 yrs of experience then no visa.
Unless you have some Japanese blood in your family.
Even if the job doesn’t ask for a degree, the immigration requires you to have at least bachelor’s degree to quality for a visa.
Well if you have money you can go to vocational school in Japan. Technically it is not bachelor degree, but enough to land you a job and visa sponsorship.
I doubt coding bootcamp certificate worth anything. No accredited bootcamp so far as far as I know.
Others have mentioned the 1. university degree track and 2. 120 months of professional experience track (time spent in a bootcamp can count toward the 120 months unless it overlaps with work experience), but there are a couple more paths (not that they are any easier):
3. Get a Japanese accredited vocational diploma in software (minimum 2 years program)
4. Pass a Japanese government approved IT certificate exam. (list of certs [here](https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/laws/nyukan_hourei_h09.html) )
The certs are mostly tests in Japan that are also administered in Japan, so you would need enough Japanese knowledge which would not be particularly easy.
The approved tests outside Japan are all in other Asian countries in the local language, but I believe the Philippines exam has an English version. It is pretty convoluted but there are people who have taken a trip to the Philippines just to sit for this exam so that they can qualify for an Engineer visa for Japan.
(note that sometimes such exams end up restricted to citizens/residents, so just because people did this in the past doesnt mean its necessarily a viable solution)
While these would satisfy qualification requirements for an Engineee visa, I do think you may get more bites for job offers having a university degree rather than one of these.