I’m hoping some of you working in the tech and IT sectors here in Japan can give me some direction on moving out of teaching English and into tech. I know tech is a huge field so I’m a bit overwhelmed and not sure which path to go down. I’m in my mid-thirties with no previous experience or education in computer science, etc, but I’m pretty tech savvy (cliched, I know…). I’m willing to put in the time to build some skills or get certified. I also have previous experience as a project manager, but in a different field. I’m also on a spousal visa, so no restrictions there.
My Japanese is not great… N4 working towards N3. I wish I could speed up my Japanese, but it’s hard with family obligations and just my natural ability (or non-ability) to pick up foreign languages. I feel like it’ll take me another 5 years to be proficient enough to use Japanese professionally. I know, it definitely holds me back, but I’m working on it. I just don’t want to be too old to be employable by that point.
So now for my questions:
What kind of programming and IT jobs are in demand in Japan right now?
I don’t live near Tokyo. I could maybe get to Nagoya. But remote work would be preferred. What kind of in-demand positions are suitable for remote work?
What kind of positions don’t require much, if any, Japanese?
What kind of positions are realistic to work towards? Is anything programming realistic? Maybe something that requires 5 years of studying, practicing, building a portfolio, etc, before I can be employed wouldn’t work for someone in my position. I’m open to any course or cert recommendations as well.
Thanks for your time!
10 comments
1. I think there are openings in all fields, so it’s a question of which subset you want to go deeper into. Front end back end, app dev etc. While each one of those would require the same basic fundamentals of programming, they do have their own specific platforms and languages that you need to familiarize yourself with.
2. I would think Nagoya should have open positions.
3. I have seen some positions without Japanese but that will handicap your career prospects somewhat. You might just become the programmer that works in his own corner and does what is asked without needing to talk to anyone.
4. Are you looking for entry level? Daijob and Arigato work are two IT engineer job sites that keep popping up in my feed and they do kind of appear to cater to entry level jobs. Japan dev is another site but that doesn’t look entry level to me.
You can try for programming. Take some online free courses to learn the basics of programming logic, networking, administration, etc. to give yourself a foundation. Getting an AWS certificate (there are multiple kinds, depending on what you want to do) couldn’t hurt. Basically, do some study, build up a portfolio, start looking for entry level positions that will accept you and train you up.
In my experience, most entry level positions are in-person, poorly paid, or both. They’d want you in person because you’re still learning. It’s going to be hard to find an entry level position that’ll let you be fully remote without any experience or skills.
My partner’s job is fully remote, but he has 12 years’ experience. Mine is entry level, and remote is only permitted temporarily, and under special circumstances (illness, need to care for children, etc.)
Just a friendly reminder: Japanese companies do have the ability to hire fresh graduates from its Asian neighbors. You’re competing with native Japanese programmers who are pretty good and Asian imports who are exceptionally good at what they do (simply because they’re enamored by the chance to work in Japan). It will be a tough transition for you, mate. Please reconsider.
I’m an ALT who’s also looking to transition into IT. I’m learning web development with The Odin Project, and studying computer science at the University of the People. The former is free of charge and the latter is very inexpensive. Perhaps research both or those and see if they appeal to you.
Just a reminder that I’m still an ALT and have yet to make the transition into IT!
>What kind of positions don’t require much, if any, Japanese?
Just aim for an international company. You’ll stress yourself out entering a new field where 99% of your coworkers are Japanese and there’s always this tension in the air.
There are generally three types of programmers: front-end (visual aspects of the website/web app), back-end(functions and the invisible structure behind) and full-stack (proficient with both front-end and back-end). You should start with knowing which path you want to traverse.
I suggest going with front-end path as the skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript or Ruby) you learn would still be highly relevant should you want to transition to back-end. Knowing HTML, CSS as a back-end developer would help you communicate with your team and make things easier for everyone. And of course, JavaScript is the base language of Node.js, something that you will likely learn as a back-end developer.
There are many great resources online out there for Front End Developers like:
* [The Odin Projec](https://theodinproject.com)t – heavily documentation-based with projects where you can apply your newly acquired skills. I highly suggest this one because you will find yourself reading a lot of documentations, researching on google, etc. as a developer.
* [FreeCodeCamp](https://www.freecodecamp.org/) – It’s more beginner friendly, and hands-on. I think their new Responsive Web Design(HTML and CSS) is pretty great but other sections like JavaScript seem outdated. Should you start with this one, I suggest that after finishing the Web Design section, you move to other sites to learn JavaScript.
* [Udemy.com](https://Udemy.com) has plenty of relatively cheap courses on Web Development/JavaScript like Jonas Schmedtmann’s complete JavaScript Course or Angela Yu’s Complete Web Development bootcamp. If you find it easier consuming videos to learn then I suggest going with either of these two.
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>What kind of positions don’t require much, if any, Japanese?
Programmers in general have much more leeway when it comes to knowing little to no Japanese. Some bigger companies like PayPay have in-house interpreters, or Rakuten where you generally speak in English with your other coworkers. There are websites like [https://japan-dev.com/](https://japan-dev.com/), and [https://www.tokyodev.com/](https://www.tokyodev.com/) that advertise jobs that require no Japanese skills.
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> Is anything programming realistic? Maybe something that requires 5 years of studying, practicing, building a portfolio, etc, before I can be employed wouldn’t work for someone in my position.
Giving a time range is difficult because it depends entirely on the amount of hours you can put in per day, as well as, your ability to take in new information and apply it to use. Personally, I was laid off during early 2021 and found my first front-end developer job at around Oct 2021. Like you, I had no prior programming knowledge apart from some basic HTML classes during my high school years. I studied around 4-6 hours pretty much every day for the first few months and ramped it up to around 8 hours + a day when I started building personal projects. It will most likely take longer for you considering you have to maintain your job as well as having difficulty to retain information due your age. But I wouldn’t say 5 years, you can most likely get one within 1.5 – 2 years.
My advice is to study, build a solid portfolio, and keep applying. It may take a while, but it’s definitely possible to make the transition. At one of my previous companies, we hired a guy for a back-end development gig (PHP) who had been teaching English for 10+ years and had no professional experience or relevant education. He turned out to be an absolute rockstar.
As for which languages to go for, I would recommend Python and/or mobile languages (Swift, Flutter, etc). It really depends on where your interests lie, however.
Get your foot in the door with a haken company. Some of them may have some semblance of standards, but I’ve run into more than a handful of haken engineers who were seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Many tech related jobs in Japan now don’t require Japanese. Specially start ups. However, start ups usually do not hire fresh engineers.
You also mentioned that you don’t have the technical knowledge yet. So invest time on to that. I would say learning tech is more important than learning Japanese.
Get some basic tech skills and I agree with someone who suggested looking for a QA job. I think that’s probably the best place to start as it doesn’t require much tech skills (unless they want you to write tests, but even then you can refer to the existing test cases), and it’ll have the lowest barrier to enter in dev jobs.
Good luck.
The name of the game is competitiveness.
Hiring managers have a hard time sorting through folks, so they rely on the person’s stated skills, code, and tests to validate them. I hear of all the hiring stuff in my company and it’s really hard to find someone worth their salt, even if they listed good skills. I say this to recommend that if you do get into this for a job, really work at it. Build great projects that are far beyond the basic tutorials you find online, and do amazing things with them to refine your skills and knowledge. If you do this well, people will scramble to get you, even for a junior.
Lacking language will be an issue. Sure, you don’t need N1 and fluency to get a programming job, but you greatly raise your chances if you’re conversational and can show it. English-only jobs are rare and even more flooded with applications. Treat the language as another requirement to you job preparedness.
Remote work is certainly possible and many companies are taking on a flexible approach. But again, flooded with applications.
Then it comes down to market. Web development is where a large chunk of jobs are. /r/webdev The Odin Project is a good start, and then there’s FullStackOpen that expands on it. Webdev can be quick to learn, but still consider at least 1 year if not 2 to get job ready. Certs don’t matter.
The things you have going for you are: In Japan, as many employers don’t want to start visas. Spousal visa, which enables you to work on contract–which some employers use as a “try you out” period before offering you a longer situation or full-time.