Moving back to Japan, how much experience should I aim to have?

2 comments

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

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   **Moving back to Japan, how much experience should I aim to have?**

   ## Context:

   I’m an 18 year old with dual UK-Japan citizenship. I lived in Japan for 8 years until last summer when I moved back to the UK to live with the British side of my family due to personal reasons. I’m fluent in Japanese and used it daily with family and at school during my time in Japan.

   I’m about to start my second year of A-Levels (CS, Maths, Physics), after which my current plan is to enter an apprenticeship at a software development company locally, and move back to Japan for work a few years later.

   I’ve been programming for 4 years and am fully self-taught. I’ve mainly developed games (using Godot) and Android apps (using Kotlin), and I’ve done smaller projects with Python, C#, C++, JS/HTML, and Lua.

   ## My main question

   I’m reconsidering my plan to enter an apprenticeship in the UK. How much experience/education would it even be worth getting here before I move back to Japan? I have confidence in my programming skill and ability to learn new technology quickly, but I have no work experience at the moment.

   Continuing my education in Japan would be significantly more difficult than in the UK, as my UK family is unlikely to support me financially if I were to move back and my Japanese family wouldn’t be capable. That being said, I am open to going to Uni or otherwise in Japan if it’s an option.

   Ideally I would want to change course and move back for work or education after I finish my A-Levels, but I’m ready to stay for longer if that looks like the better option. Do you think this is viable, or should I stay for more experience and/or credentials? How can I look for for Japanese jobs while I’m still in the UK?

   ## Another question

   What technologies/skills are the most desirable in Japan’s software development industry at the moment? From what I gather it seems to be mainly C++ and web, with a bit of Java and C#.

   At the moment my strongest field is app development with Jetpack Compose, but that can easily change depending on what I work on over the next year. What do software employers in Japan want to see on my CV? Are there any courses that I can do from home over the next year that would be worth looking into?

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2. If you had the requisite residence time to go to uni in the UK on student finance is that an option you’d take? If you’ve been a resident since last summer, you’d only have to take a gap year of 1 year to be eligible for student finance.

   UK unis are better than Japanese unis. I think you’d find it hard to get a well paying job without a degree/experience. Although you’ll hear that degrees don’t get you a job, it’s really not the case. A good degree puts you miles ahead of self-taught. Most people I graduated with went straight to £40k-50k jobs with their degrees (London) and there’s just no way you’re getting that through 3 years experience from the bottom in the current market.

   If you’re an A* A A or higher, I’d heavily suggest taking a gap year doing a CS degree at a place like Imperial/UCL/Oxbridge and working here for 2 to 3 years. You’d be able to move to Japan by 25 with double the salary you’d have as opposed to rushing back now with essentially 0 marketable skills to compete with people with degrees for low paying jobs.

   But if you desire to move back sooner than that I’d suggest tempering your expectations for a good salary.