Hey everyone,
My husband (29M, dual US/UK citizen) and I (29F, US citizen) are interested in trying to move to Japan at some point in the next couple of years. We are **not** looking to naturalize as citizens or get permanent residency, or for this to be a long-term move—we are looking at this as a short or medium term stint as expats to get to live in one of our favorite countries.
**Qualifications**
* We both have bachelor’s degrees.
* My husband only has basic conversational Japanese, but I am at an upper intermediate level and aiming to pass the JLPT N2 in December. I attempted the N2 5 years ago without studying and just barely missed a passing grade—I am hoping that since my Japanese has improved significantly since then and since I am actually putting a lot of effort into studying that I can actually pass it this time.
* My husband is a software developer with a lot of experience (I’m hoping this can make up for his lack of language skills, as I understand this field actually is relatively receptive to foreign talent).
* I work in data science (not sure how in demand this field is) but I’m a bit more flexible on the type of job I would have, and I’m hoping that passing the N2 will open more doors to me. At this point in my career, I have to say that I am not open to English teaching. I would prefer as lateral a move as possible (I am certainly expecting a pay cut–fully aware of and accepting of that).
* We both have experience living abroad.
* We have both been to Japan several times and spent several months long stints there, so we would not be moving blind about what Japan is actually like (of course, living there full time is a different beast, as it would be anywhere).
* We have foreign friends who have jobs/homes/lives in Japan and have achieved permanent residency, so we have somewhat of a support system there and they would have advice about logistical information about moving and living there that would be handy to know as foreign expats. We also have several native Japanese friends there.
Do we have a decent shot at making this work? Please please please let me know if I’m being delusional about anything here—I would appreciate the straight talk/reality check. Thank you all!
6 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**US to Japan as expats — feasible?**
Hey everyone,
My husband (29M, dual US/UK citizen) and I (29F, US citizen) are interested in trying to move to Japan at some point in the next couple of years. We are **not** looking to naturalize as citizens or get permanent residency, or for this to be a long-term move—we are looking at this as a short or medium term stint as expats to get to live in one of our favorite countries.
Here is why:
**Reasons**
* I have been learning Japanese for many years now and would like more opportunities to actually use it.
* I have never lived in a vibrant, functional, interesting city with fucking public transport and would like to try that at some point. I really love trains and urbanism and Japan’s is some of the best in the world, better than anything we could find here.
* I grew up abroad as a third culture kid and I really miss the expat lifestyle that I had as a child and adolescent.
* We live in an American suburb and are tired of the depressing suburban, car dependent lifestyle. You can live in cities like DC, NYC, possibly Philly without a vehicle but those cities are all either too bleak or too grimy for me. I’m a fan of Los Angeles but the car dependency is something I would like to move away from. We are still in our 20s but already feel like we’re retired old people due to our boring and depressing lifestyle, and we’d like to do something like this while we are still relatively young.
**Qualifications**
* We both have bachelor’s degrees.
* My husband only has basic conversational Japanese, but I am at an upper intermediate level and aiming to pass the JLPT N2 in December. I attempted the N2 5 years ago without studying and just barely missed a passing grade—I am hoping that since my Japanese has improved since then and since I am actually putting a lot of effort into studying that I can actually pass it this time.
* My husband is a software developer with a lot of experience (I’m hoping this can make up for his lack of language skills, as I understand this field actually is relatively receptive to foreign talent).
* I work in data science (not sure how in demand this field is) but I’m a bit more flexible on the type of job I would have, and I’m hoping that passing the N2 will open more doors to me. At this point in my career, I have to say that I am not open to English teaching. I would prefer as lateral a move as possible (I am certainly expecting a pay cut–fully aware of and accepting of that).
* We both have experience living abroad.
* We have both been to Japan several times and spent several months long stints there, so we would not be moving blind about what Japan is actually like (of course, living there full time is a different beast, as it would be anywhere).
* We have foreign friends who have jobs/homes/lives in Japan and have achieved permanent residency, so we have somewhat of a support system there and they would have advice about logistical information about moving and living there that would be handy to know as foreign expats. We also have several native Japanese friends there.
Do we have a decent shot at making this work? Please please please let me know if I’m being delusional about anything here—I would appreciate the straight talk/reality check. Thank you all!
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There’s nothing you’ve mentioned here that would make you stand out to where companies would want to go through the trouble of bringing you in as an expat. Perhaps leverage your connections or apply to companies that have Japan presence in hope of an internal transfer.
Yes, feasible. That being said, there is a bit of a slowdown in hiring, but both of you meet minimum immigration req’s and also come from technical fields which is a bonus. Recommend connecting with a hiring agency in Japan to get a better idea of current demand for your skills.
Software dev and data science are both very in demand right now. Devs can easily come over with 0 Japanese, and if you pass N2 with experience in data science you shouldn’t have any issues finding a job.
You shouldn’t have much trouble when you’re ready to go for it. Keep an eye on job boards like tokyo-dev and japan-dev to see what skill sets and languages are most in-demand for non-residents (you can filter by jobs hiring overseas). As others have said, hiring has slowed down recently in many fields, but if you’re not in a rush, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Yeah sounds feasible. Lots of jobs here in the tech sector just be prepared for the wage shock as you will make much less here than in the west and pay more in taxes/welfare. This could be see as an issue for you if you don’t plan on staying long term as it may effect your nest egg.