My wife’s company has offered her a great opportunity to help them open and transition to a new office in Tokyo. We are really excited about this as it would be huge for her career, but are unsure of any job opportunities for me while I am there. Does anyone know if it would be possible for me to find work there?
I am an American and my current job is doing UX Design, so in a perfect world, I would be able to find a UX job. I was also an English teacher in Korea for four years, so I’d be happy to teach English again, but I’d also assume that it would be very competitive to find a school in Tokyo. Quite frankly, I am tired of teaching, but if that is the only option, I could make it work. The final option that I think I could do is work for my current company, but remotely. This would be really hard with the time difference and I’d probably be working through the night, but it could be something.
I am not naive enough to expect a ton of opportunities as I don’t speak Japanese and I know how tough it is for native Japanese to find work currently. I’m just trying to gauge what options I might have if we were to make this move.
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I’m assuming that you could probably survive on your wife’s salary alone for at least some time considering you described it as a great opportunity.
Give your company a choice – you either work remote on a flexible schedule that works for you, or you get a new job.
Don’t regress back to teaching after already getting a real career. You’re wrong about one thing – it’s extremely easy to find a job teaching in Tokyo, the trick is you already have to live there. There’s always going to be eikaiwas (hagwons) looking for anyone with a pulse to do the dancing monkey routine. There’s never been a better time to get remote work jobs.
You don’t want to be an English teacher in Japan. The jobs can be some of the lowest in the totem pole. In terms of expat jobs. There are many American or other Western companies there that can use UX engineers, but at the same time you may not have the Japan interactional know-how. But who knows. Go that direction.
It’s hard to plan ahead for something like this. You are going to live in Tokyo as a secondary bread-winner with no leads for employment. The variables are numerous and you will find many opportunities for work after getting the “lay of the land” and meeting people. Native English speakers are always needed and you may find something in this regard and/or UX design. Or, perhaps you will end up as a bartender in an Irish pub…the possibilities are endless….and fun. Enjoy your new life in Japan and good luck!
My husband is in your situation, though not your field.
As her husband, you’ll get a dependent visa, which will only allow you 28 hours of work a week. It doesn’t matter if the company is in Japan or US, so you’re restricted to part time work. Of course, if you get a job in Japan that will get you your own work visa, that situation changes.
With no Japanese my husband’s options are very limited. When we first arrived late last year we didn’t see anything that wasn’t English teaching that didn’t require Japanese.
He decided to take some months to begin learning it— not so much for jobs (though that’s part of it), but also for our kid. We’ll start applying for jobs again this month.
My husband was also in this situation. He is very skilled in a very specialized industry and came with a lot of experience working with a lot of high profile clients. The problem for him, though, is that he never finished his college degree. College isn’t for everyone, and for his industry, it was not really a requirement 10-15 years ago.
This meant that, getting a work visa at the same time I received my work visa would be pretty impossible for him being outside the country and not having a degree. So, for the first few months we were here, my husband was not able to work at the level he was used to. He did some freelance stuff on the side, but that’s never the same.
Eventually, through some connections we had back home and through sheer luck, my husband was able to find a company here that needed someone like him. He started working part time under the 28hr/week restrictions of his visa, and, eventually, due to his significant experience in the field, was eventually able to obtain a work visa. This requires a lot of lawyer work and wrangling on his company‘s end since he has no degree, but long story short it all worked out for us. (In b4 the usual crowd of “I have no degree and want to live in Japan!”: My husband had over 10 years of documented experience in a skilled field with high profile clients on his resume. That’s how it worked out for him visa wise.) It took time. It required a lot of patience. But, if you stay positive, you might be surprised at how things can work out.
I won’t sugarcoat it: it can be really tough. It really depends on your relationship dynamic. If you are both used to contributing equally to the household and you have a lot of your identity tied up in your work, it will definitely be a struggle for you to adapt to relying solely on your wife. Just make sure you guys are prepared and have good coping mechanisms in place. It might be useful for you to find a hobby that gets you outside of the house and allows you to meet people, just so you have other ways to spend your time rather than sitting at home or just wandering around Tokyo.
However, in your line of work, you might be surprised to find that a lot of companies don’t require Japanese. I would start looking at American companies with offices in Japan, like Google, or I would look at companies with a more global focus. Everyone always talks about Rakuten, but I would suggest looking elsewhere first. Just be prepared that the salaries are going to be a lot lower than you’re probably used to.
You could try Rakuten as their company language is English. Not sure how many UX positions they have but as a company with tons of websites and apps I assume there should be some positions
Read up on the dependent visa.
> I was also an English teacher in Korea for four years, so I’d be happy to teach English again, but I’d also assume that it would be very competitive to find a school in Tokyo.
You would be assuming incorrectly. Its very easy to find a teaching job. It’s more difficult to find a good one at a reputable place that will give you full benefits.
You should instead look to find UX work here for an international company. Or just do remote work. But be careful about taxes if working remotely (r/japanfinances is a godsend in learning and asking about this).
You can try looking through these job boards:
https://japan-dev.com/
https://www.tokyodev.com/
I’ve looked into UX in Japan and majority if not all require Japanese proficiency.
If you are lucky you might get into a international without the need for Japanese but from what I’ve seen most foreign UX/UI work remote for a international company which you could try or some had front end knowledge and got those jobs in Japan.
If I were you I’d get onto finding those type of jobs now.