I’m thinking of moving to Japan in the somewhat distant future. I’m already studying Japanese with WaniKani and etc. so no need to worry about that.
I’m majoring in Computer Science, and from what I’ve heard the IT education in Japan isn’t so great. With a US CS degree, how good would would that leverage me into getting citizenship? How good are the job opportunities for programmers in Japan, in terms of pay and availability? If there aren’t any then I was thinking of perhaps working remotely with a job in the US, but I suspect that probably won’t work out, at least not for citizenship, might for residency. To be honest though, permanent residency is far more important to me than citizenship.
Maybe now that I think about it CS would almost definitely count as a highly-skilled professional given it’s a science/engineering job so the title may have been unnecessary lol. Still, I’m interested to see what other professions count and how each are valued over another.
5 comments
Do you mean the HSP visa?
There are 3 categories, Researcher, Engineer and Business manager. You’d have to get a job offer from a medium/large company in one of those categories who will then help sponsor your visa.
There is a point system based on whether you have an advanced degree from an accredited university in the top 200 global rankings, how large the salary you are being offered and other things here and there. If you have the required points, you should be able to get an HSP, and if you can maintain the same number of points or accumulate more, your wait to PR will be reduced.
>If there aren’t any then I was thinking of perhaps working remotely with a job in the US
You can’t do that in Japan. There is no visa for “digital nomads”. You could live in the Barbados, however.
>How good are the job opportunities for programmers in Japan, in terms of pay and availability?
There’s lots of jobs for programmers in Japan, and it’s a relatively easy way to get visa sponsorship. Many companies also focus on hiring foreigners, and use English internally, so you don’t have to learn the language to business level to function and work there. The pay is not great, however, compared to US companies. If you want US pay, move to the US. There’s plusses and minuses to this of course. It does seem like salaries are getting more competitive, slowly, but I’m not sure about this.
But programming jobs without a degree are probably not that easy to find. Maybe if you have lots of applicable experience and can convince the company you’re worth hiring despite the lack of degree, but if you get a CS degree from an accredited institution (check the Japanese government site for their list of acceptable institutions, which is generally any decent American university, but not degree mills), then you’ll have an easy time getting in.
> how good would would that leverage me into getting citizenship?
Lol what?
Mate, it’s not rocket science. The requirements to naturalize are very straightforward. The main thing they care about is you did your time, and paid your taxes in full, and can speak Japanese.
> How good are the job opportunities for programmers in Japan, in terms of pay and availability?
Seriously, a cursory search in this sub (which is part of the sub rules) would tell you that programmer opportunities are pretty plentiful if you have the experience. Pay are decent for Japanese standards, and significantly lower compared to abroad.
> working remotely with a job in the US, but I suspect that probably won’t work out, at least not for citizenship, might for residency
This wouldn’t work out in any way shape or form. To get a visa to come work in Japan, you need a company *in* Japan to sponsor it. You can self-sponsor visas in very specific cases. To do remote work for a US company is not one of those cases.
> To be honest though, permanent residency is far more important to me than citizenship.
You’re putting the cart so far ahead of the horses that the horses can barely see the cart.
> Maybe now that I think about it CS would almost definitely count as a highly-skilled professional
Sigh. ***You’re making things too complicated***. HSP visa requirements are very straightforward. Go obey rules 2, 3 and 4. If you have the points, you can get it. You’ll still need a company to sponsor you anyway, so you’ll first have to find a job.
Don’t think about getting citizenship. There’s very little benefit, and giving up your American citizenship is just silly. Get a visa, renew it until you have ten years under your belt, go for the PR visa.
(If you’re not American and instead are from a developing country, then the reasoning behind getting citizenship might make more sense.)
Here’s some useful links (see below). Note Japan tends to favor academic credentials, professional experience (length) and awarded patents as major points in the HSP visa consideration.
If you’re a data scientist with a few patents under your name or a mid-career manager/exec with a 10 years experience and decent pay (10M+ yen/yr), you’ll easily qualify. Going to a top 400 university (or getting a Masters/PhD) definitely helps.
Coming from Silicon Valley, you’ll almost never match comp here — easily 20-50% less. Go check out the Blind app for more details.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/long/visa16.html
Handy Guide PDF: https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/long/visa16.html
More info: https://visaguide.world/asia/japan-visa/highly-skilled-professional/