I’m a US Citizen with a B.S. in Computer Science, and am coming up on 4 years of work experience as a Software Engineer. After vacationing in Japan a couple of times, I am in love with Tokyo and very interested in living in Japan for longer than just a couple months (and maybe even long-term if a 1 year stay goes well). I took two quarters of Japanese in university, but that was almost 10 years ago so my Japanese is basically nothing, but it’s at least a little bit of a foundation once I try to pick it back up.
My initial thought was to go to a Japanese Language school on a 1 year student visa. The main problem with this is the money of course. I should be able to afford it with another year or so of saving money, but it is still a big expense living a year with no income.
I’ve thought about going the work visa route and trying for a dev job that would be accepting of English speakers. I know there are such jobs in Japan, but does anyone have any experience on how hard it is to get such a job while not yet having a visa? My other issue with this is I do actually want to learn the language and become proficient in it, especially since that would be the key to making the most out of living in Japan. I’m not sure how possible or realistic it would be try to get some of the language down before going, and then try to learn and become proficient while working a full time job. Maybe night or weekend classes?
Any advice or anecdotes from experience would be much appreciated! Especially in regards to trying to learn the language while working full time.
1 comment
So this comes up a lot here, but a quick rundown of things.
1. You will likely take a huge pay cut coming from the US, make sure youre ok with that.
2. 1 year language school is generally not advised as it puts a gap on your resume of not doing work, and in tech that can make getting a job harder.
3. Jobs that sponsor visas will generally list that they sponsor visas, and will also list language requirements, many places work in English in the tech world so finding jobs isnt that hard, then its just the usual application / interview process.
4. Some companies have specific assistance to help with language learning, not all do though – HR may have resources / advice on places to learn the language etc. Night classes / private tuition is possible for sure.