DevOps with ~10y experience wanting to move to Tokyo

11 comments

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

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   **DevOps with ~10y experience wanting to move to Tokyo**

   Hi everyone.

   I am in my 30’s, living in France, DevOps with 10 years experience, including roughly 5-6 years of development and 4-5 years of Cloud engineering (AWS, Terraform etc).

   I started working with containers 6 years ago, and have 4 years of experience with Kubernetes. I love this techno and plan to pass the Certified Kubernetes Admin exam soon.

   Also I have been learning japanese for several years. I have JLPT2.

   I have been considering moving to Japan for years. I did a couple of interviews 2 years ago, but got rejected, so I stopped searching to deepen my knowledge.

   I recently applied to a job in a Japanese startup, got through all the rounds of interview and actually got an offer ! Considering how difficult it is to get an offer from abroad, I was surprised myself.

   Positive points: people I talked to are nice, western culture in the engineering team, remote working encouraged
   Negative points: pay is incredibly low (7M¥ !) especially for a senior position + no Kubernetes

   From my experience, posts on job boards are deceiving: salaries are ranges like 7-12M¥, but in the end, it’s just 7M¥. I remember a screening interview I got 2 years ago. When asked about compensation, I answered 8.5M¥, pretty far from the upper end of the range. The interviewer still answered to me: “We dont have the budget. You know, when I moved to Japan I got a pay cut”. Really ? Then why showing big numbers if you can’t afford it ?

   ​

   I don’t really mind pay cut. If I move to Japan, I expect it. I currently earn 65k€ which makes 10.3M¥. We have to consider how weak JPY is at the moment. Two years ago, 65k€ was equal to 8.4M¥ !

   If absolute number is lower, as long as quality of life stays the same, I am okay with it. Depending on JPY weakness, I will probably do less trips abroad.

   ​

   I would be satisfied with a 8.5M¥ to start with. Even 8M¥ if I am really pleased with the job and there are other perks. But 7M seems too low considering my experience and it will lower the starting point for future negotiations. Not too sure about this, but I think I will have to decline the offer.

   I plan to not pursue job hunting for now, and focus on refining my skillset: pass the K8S certif exam, work more on observability (I still feel a bit weak with this), maybe practice more python, try go (would be nice on my CV since it is very popular), maybe do some Linux (Linux is a serious curse for me in interview). There is plenty to do actually. Then I would resume job hunting when I feel ready.

   The thing is, salaries within Japanese companies I see on specialized websites does not seem incredible to me. I don’t know. Maybe I am biased because of my recent interview.

   Do you think I can land a decent offer with this strategy ? Is it worth to put so much effort into it or will I get disapointing offer forever ? What do you think about my current salary expectations ?

   ​

   Any thought would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading me.

   ​

   ​

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2. You can’t compare your salary in europe vs japan. The latter has a lower cost of living.

3. First and foremost, Salaries in Japan are lower then what you may find abroad. This matters if you don’t plan on staying in Japan forever as you would be spending your years making less to eventually bring less back home. I look at my monthly take home vs what it would have been in my home country. At least in my situation my take home is a bit higher here for the same standard of living and so I’m able to put more away into my savings / retirements.

   That being said, The IT industry in Japan is kind of in a weird place right now.

   Over the past year many high profile companies had layoffs and others still aren’t offering contracts to people who aren’t already residents here. There are companies, how many I’m not sure, that do pay well. I always hear people who work for indeed do quite well for themselves. A lot of foreign companies with APAC regional offices here pay pretty decently and have much stronger financial backing than startups.

   For your career level, unless you really want to work in a startup, I would suggest looking at larger companies here. Alternatively if you work for a company that has an office both in France and Japan and you can get transferred here that might also be ideal. Lastly for your situation, talking to a recruiter might actually be worthwhile. I say that because recruiters don’t usually have much to benefit from placing foreign junior level devs. But the tech industry is also rife with mid and senior positions and from what I understand not enough senior level engineers to fill them. Could be a worthwhile thing to explore. Set your salary expectations with them clearly though.

   This is just based on one experience so user discretion is advised

4. If you want a high salary you need to work for a large international corporation, or some kind of financial company. Earning 7m for someone of your skills set and experience isn’t worth it in my opinion as you can definitely be earning more.

5. You can easily get 10M+ salary with your experience. Devops are in big demand. Apply to some decent paying companies like PayPay, Mercari, or even Rakuten. Get multiple offers, make them compete. It’s possible to negotiate offers here, but usually a bit difficult.

6. I’m an IT worker in Japan :

   Most of technical position are low paid in Japanese companies. 7-8M is actually a pretty good in Japan (not for a 10y experienced DevOps though) but you won’t be able to find much better unless you are a manager.

   I would advise you to start there though. The salary is still enough to make a good living and will get you a foot in Japan. After a year just look for an international company.

   Having a solid technical background + speaking English/Japanese (as you have N2) will let you find another better-paid job very easily once in Japan.

   You can DM me if you need some help though, whether is it for looking for a job or planning your life here ! I know the market well and to be honest I’m also currently learning devops !

7. >The thing is, salaries within Japanese companies I see on specialized websites does not seem incredible to me. I don’t know. Maybe I am biased because of my recent interview.

   Tech in Japan doesn’t pay as high like in the US and i guess over there in EU, but you can still have a comfortable life, get a place and support a family on that salary though, but you won’t be rolling in cash though. Someone feel free to correct me, but salaries for senior devs at Japanese companies are generally around 5mil – 8mil based off of what I’ve gathered talking to other devs and from job posts. Those really good salaries you see on TokyoDev and JapanDev and gaishekis are more outliers imo.

   Personally I would take the offer though. Not many get the experience to work in Japan and make that kind of cash (which is still good by Japan standards). Like one of the other comments here said, you can’t really compare the salaries vs EU or US or other countries because the costs of living in Japan are different.

8. Salut!

   You will get a pay cut and more important (for me) probably a cut on your paid leave(5 weeks + 10 RTT I believe if you are “cadre” in France vs the standard 10-15days in Japan)

   As others said, your best luck is on startups or international company(your best bet!) . Stay away from Rakuten and so on UNLESS you really want a contract here

   ​

   With this in mind, if you really wanna come in Japan. 7mil is okayish Salary. Not super great, probably underpaif a bit yeah but I would probably take it, move to Japan and build some working experiences here and then try to land on another job

9. Hello.

   Have you tried to negotiate after receiving the offer?

   I was in the similar situation. The job I applied had a range from XX to YY million Yen. When I received the offer, I was in the lowest salary band (XX). I asked them whether they can consider me with 10% higher salary than their original proposal, based on my experience and achievement.

   So they had a meeting, and shortly after they gave me a new offer with better salary.

   For my case, it is a Japanese start-up company, and during the interview they did not ask me regarding compensation until they gave me an offer. I heard that it is taboo to negotiate salary with Japanese company, but I think it won’t hurt if you try to ask them politely. If they really want you onboard with them, the worst answer you will get is “no” to your plead.

   Probably the one who made an offer to you might not be the same person who interviewed you, and therefore they don’t know your capability. By sending them an e-mail requesting higher salary, they might bring this issue to the upper management, and among them are the person you had an interview with. They can recommend you with better salary if they deem that you deserve it.

10. I have an offer previously which was around 6.5 million yen annual. I was planning to move since the pay was decent enough, but when I calculated the living expense in tokyo. yes I was making a-bit more but not justifiable to move away from my family to relocate considering what I’m also getting at my current job. but if you get at least 9million yen. I think that should be good

11. My company is currently looking for senior engineers in the cloud engineering field and with your experience you should be able to get a pretty decent offer.

    I’d be happy to refer you so feel free to DM for details if you’re interested.