Hello Everyone, I am a 32 y/o Senior Cybersecurity Engineer looking at the possibility of immigrating to Japan. I have my wife, 2 kids, and my elderly Mother-in-Law that I support. I have put out a few applications and have a pretty good understanding of the different Visas. Specifically, I was considering a Highly Skilled Visa due to the benefits. A rough glance tells me I have more than enough points to qualify (\~95 points). Job-wise, I was looking on Gaijinpot (didn’t see anything related to my work), LinkedIn, and large Recruiting Agencies (great resource due to pay bands) for a role and simply wanted to know if you guys had any additional places to consider…or advice on how to effectively search! I probably wouldn’t make the move for anything less than 14M…but would be hoping for 16M-17M…please let me know if that is unreasonable. The pay bands on the recruiting site showed several roles in the ball park.
I also was considering maybe studying and going for my Doctorate…prefer to just work as the paycut would be massive and I already have industry experience…but I love education and wouldn’t mind doing it if that is easier! The support and my wife WFH job would still be able to earn us a decent living as well. Thanks ahead of time!
4 comments
>I probably wouldn’t make the move for anything less than 14M
Are you aware that that would be way more than most doctors make here?
Have you tried Japan Dev and Robert Walters?
>and my elderly Mother-in-Law that I support
You should be aware that it is *very* hard, bordering on nearly impossible, to get a dependent visa for a parent. Even with the HSFP. The “parent/caregiver” part of the HSFP is specifically for pregnancy care and/or *early* childcare.
>I probably wouldn’t make the move for anything less than 14M
That’s a somewhat unreasonable number unless you snag a managerial-level position at a FAANG. Positions like that exist, but they’re not common.
>The support and my wife WFH job would still be able to earn us a decent living as well.
If you’re on a student visa your wife would only be allowed to work 28 hours a week. Yes, even with a remote job. Don’t count on her WFH supporting you through a student visa.
Also: On a student visa you’re going to have a tough time getting dependent visas for a full family. It’s certainly *possible*, if you have enough savings, but it’s going to be difficult. You ***cannot*** get a dependent visa for a parent on a student visa.
Apart from FANG you might be able to get comp near that level (some of the examples will skew lower than the others and will also depend on your skill and position in the team) at:
– Woven planet
– Smart News
– Mercari
– Indeed
– cyber reason
though I did not check their current listings for IR stuff
Also mandiant and crowdstrike both have offices, but since you don’t specify language level I am assuming consulting and non English environments are not possible for you ATM.
Edit: note with the level I mean closer to the 14m than the 18m for any position that’s not managing your own team at least
Be wary of compensation info especially from recruit sites as they can be inflated due to stock benefits, bonuses, housing allowances etc.
A compensation of 16M per year base salary would put you well above the 99.7% percentile which from what I have seen would only be senior manager or director level. A senior engineer with 5 to 7 years experience would more likely land around 7-8M in this field.
The only other workaround is to see if your company has a branch in Japan that you can transfer to.