Senior Data/Software Engineer Looking to Relocate to Japan: What Should I Know?

5 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Senior Data/Software Engineer Looking to Relocate to Japan: What Should I Know?**

   Hello all,

   I’m Senior/Lead Data Engineer in a tech company, I have 14 years of exp in tech and I plan to move to Japan in between 2 and 5 years.

   I’m French and Canadian, and I have a master’s degree In computer science. I’m also content creator and coach (I help people to learn and master tech skills related to data). I live in Canada. My spouse works in tech/video games industry as manager. I don’t speak Japanese, but I plan to learn it from 2024.

   Like plenty of people, I’m really love Japanese culture. I have been to Japan 3 times and I plan to go back in 2025 when my daughter will be born (my partner is pregnant and my baby is coming soon).

   ​

   * **A brief summary of my experience:**

   I have extensive experience in building data infrastructure to serve analytics and machine learning.

   So my skill is all about Python, SQL, Spark, Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, Airflow, Hadoop, git/gitlab/gitlab, and so on.

   I’m a lead/senior data engineer with a strong software engineering background. I want to maximize the chances of success of this project, and I have several paths to achieve my goal :

   ​

   * **Though Sr/Lead Data Engineer path :**

   About the visa, I know there are 2 types : **Engineering Visa** and **Highly-Skilled Professional visa**

   I think I’m going to focus my energy to try to have the Engineering Visa. I know with this visa, there is a “Family stay”. This status includes permission to work part-time up to 28 hours per week.

   – For my wife, is it hard to remove this working hour limit by requesting permission?

   – How is the state of Data Science and Data Engineering in Japan? I know that in America (Canada and US), those 2 domains are quite established, but What about in Japan?

   – I know that the Japanese immigration going to verify my professional experience, how is it necessary to prove my experience? (my contract? Reference letter? Other proof?).

   – I’m aware that salary are lower in Japan compared to US/Canada but which companies should target to have a salary above 10MY ? (I know my data structures and algo, so I’m ready to pass interviews and suffer 🤣)

   ​

   * **As an Entrepreneur :**

   I have a company in Canada where I’m selling Online Data Engineering courses, so the other way to live in Japan is by creating my company is Japan and still operate my company in Canada.

   – Is it common to find an accountant who speaks either English or French, capable of assisting me in filling out the documents for setting up a business in Japan?  

   Knowing that the goal is still to sell online courses and live only from that.

   – The entrepreneur work permit allows me to come with my partner (we are not married) and my child?

   Thanks in advance!

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2. If you are not married then your “wife” can’t come with you no matter what. There’s a dependent visa and for spouses it requires marriage so that will need to happen for your plan to work.

   She’ll not be able to do more than part time work and there’s no permission to work more hours iirc. She’ll need to find a job in Japan to sponsor her visa to work full time (and this is also the only way for her to come with you if you’re not married).

   In order to make over 10M you should target international companies (Google etc) and maybe the more well known Japanese brands. Presumably it should be possible with 10+ years of experience.

   Data science and engineering jobs should be just as available over there, but may or may not require Japanese knowledge. For software engineering you often don’t need to know Japanese at all.

   Lastly I don’t think the startup/business idea is gonna work out in Japan. You need a business plan and to explain why your company needs to be in Japan or how it’ll benefit Japan. Saying you offer online courses (and not even in Japanese…) is unlikely to convince anyone to give you a visa.

3. The only thing I can tell you is just be prepared for a 40-60 percent pay cut as a matter of fact.

   Even with that great experience you may still get lowballed on your first job until you have “Japanese Experience” which is just as dumb as it sounds.

   Japan is not a friendly place for experienced IT workers and that’s why they have very little.

4. If you get a job here to sponsor your visa, you just need to show you have a related degree in tech.

   For your partner, since you want her to come even though you’re not married and she wants to work more than 28 hours a week, it’s better for her to just get her own work visa via a company in Japan. She can’t get a dependent visa through you since you’re not married, but your child can.

5. Yes you can earn over 10m with that kind of experience but you need to target international or large corporations. I have similar experience to you and am earning over that. Most likely the company will support an engineering visa but once you get to japan you can apply for the hsp-b visa and then your “wife” will be allowed to work full time.

   However, your “wife” will not be allowed to come with you unless you are actually married OR she can get visa sponsorship on her own. No it’s ands or buts”.