I have been working in the US as a software engineer in a healthcare Org for a year now, and I’ve been thinking of trying to look for a new job. I visited japan recently for about two weeks, and liked Tokyo far more than I expected. So is it reasonable to get hired and move there? Or is it better to work a few more years in the U.S first for experience?
I have a bachelors in computer science, had 2 programming internships, and a year of work as a software engineer as experience. I’ve mostly worked on backend, and automation.
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I’ve been looking into it quite a bit recently and was wondering on how difficult it would be to get hired, and move to japan. From looking into it seems like just mass applying to companies, or moving to japan for a couple months and applying while living there are the most common answers I found. im a little paranoid about doing that second option due to limited funds atm(I have a decent amount saved, but blowing through it with no guarantee of success makes me anxious)
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Figured asking here would give a more concrete answer than just reading more articles and such.
2 comments
>I visited japan recently for about two weeks, and liked Tokyo far more than I expected
A two week trip, and living somewhere are worlds apart. You should really try (if you can afford to) take an extended trip, something that will give you a more realistic feel to living in the location, if that’s not possible though I would advise spending quite a while longer doing some in depth research and weighing up if you really want to move there, or just out of where you are now.
That being said, if you can get a company to make you an offer you would qualify for a visa most likely, but you may want to work a couple more years US side an move over mid-career as finding the job may be easier at that stage.
>moving to japan for a couple months and applying while living there
Generally, dont do this – you get no beneficial treatment as you still need a visa sponsored, and you have to apply for the visa from your home country so have to leave to get it anyways.
Go to japan-dev.com and tokyodev.com and read through their blogs, as well as the job boards to see what’s out there. Don’t move to Japan until you have a job – you’d have to go home to get your work visa anyway. I’d agree with everything u/GibbonDoesStuff said.
A year of experience isn’t much, but it’s enough for some employers in Japan, especially if you can interview well.