Hello,
I’ve been lurking on this subreddit on another account and have been noticing that even with a Bachelor’s degree, one would typically still require a few years of work experience first. I graduated from a Singaporean university a year ago and joined a quant trading firm as a software engineer, with annual compensation of around 200k SGD total, roughly (20 million yen). Would it be feasible for me to make the move to Tokyo within the next few months? If so, would I be able to find employment affording the same standard of living? Unfortunately, the company I work for does not have branches in Japan.
Thanks for your inputs.
5 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Moving as junior SWE**
Hello,
I’ve been lurking on this subreddit on another account and have been noticing that even with a Bachelor’s degree, one would typically still require a few years of work experience first. I graduated from a Singaporean university a year ago and joined a quant trading firm as a software engineer, with annual compensation of around 200k SGD total, roughly (20 million yen). Would it be feasible for me to make the move to Tokyo within the next few months? If so, would I be able to find employment affording the same standard of living? Unfortunately, the company I work for does not have branches in Japan.
Thanks for your inputs.
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>Would it be feasible for me to make the move to Tokyo within the next few months?
No. Even if you got a job offer ***today*** it will take longer than that to process your visa.
It will be very difficult to find any company that pays you that amount in Japan. The salary in Japan isn’t that high.
Given your lack of connections to the industry in Japan, lack of Japanese ability (presumably), pay scales in Japan, and difference in tax rates between Singapore and Japan, you will see a significant drop in standard of living.
Quant positions even in the US pay a lot higher than other engineer roles. Unless you can find the same role in Japan I would expect to earn maybe half of that as your starting base salary if you come as a mid senior and work at one of the well paying western style companies (eg indeed). But housing here will be cheaper than you’re used to in Singapore to make up for it somewhat.
I took roughly that same pay cut (20m to 10m base) to move here from SF and my quality of life is much better FWIW.
Years of experience, it’ll depend on the company more than anything. You can also calculate how many points you have for the highly skilled professional visa, qualifying for that will make it a lot easier to immigrate. You get bonus points for high salary, being young, etc. So you may be ok with a few years of experience there.