Any success stories working remotely here?

27 comments

1. My girlfriend is a Project Manager for a foreign/Japanese Tech company. She’s allowed to work remote full time but goes in sometimes to be more productive.

   Some English teachers transition to be software engineers by going through coding boot camps. Coding jobs will more likely allow you to work remotely than any other jobs.

2. I do digital marketing/sns/content strategy and have been remote in Japan since 2020.

   First was working for companies abroad here – hours could be bonkers for folks but fine for me.

   Then I managed to find something locally that was mostly remote, still meet IRL when needed but pretty flexible.

   It really depends on your skills, your experience, and what you can offer. I recommend trying to network and having a portfolio or website at the ready and with time you might find something 🙂

   Edit: spelling

3. Yeah, no. It’s not that easy to land a fully remote job. You’ve got to be able to bring something to the table that others can’t, I don’t think most low level coding/IT jobs allow for much remote work these days as they know what’s required to bring you up to scratch.

4. I landed a role with full work from home a few months before covid… that kinda became a pointless perk!

5. I’ve been working remote for nearly three years now. Feels much more relaxed. I get my work done, but no one is staring over my shoulder.

   I can’t work wherever I want, though, for security reasons. They are very nervous about client data getting stolen at cafes or whatever, but honestly, I don’t mind. I’d rather have to always work at my desk at home than have to spend an hour every morning just getting to work.

6. It work from home . Little more than 3 years now. Old famous Japanese IT company

7. Working from home since 2020, next job starting soon will be fully 100% remote. I just didn’t apply for places that didn’t offer remote

8. Freelance translation – worked from home for 10 years. Now I work in IT, also remotely. I miss the flexibility of freelancing. My current job is more collaborative, so I sometimes with I could go to the office. But still not worth the tradeoffs.

9. I’ve been working full time 100% for a tech company since moving here. Been to office less than 5 times in the last year, just to have lunch with some people.
   The freedom is nice. I go on extended ski trips for weeks at times during the winter. Also travel back to my home country every 3 months or so. I choose to start work at maybe 6am and end at 2pm, and usually go out and have fun in the afternoon. Weekday afternoon is my favorite time because the train is empty and no lines at restaurants. I can make frequent weekend trips from Tokyo to Kansai so that’s nice.

   The not so great: I spend more time traveling than at home so I practically pay double rent. Not a big deal but something I didn’t think of before.

10. It will depend very much on your living situation, the kind of work you are doing and what the employer expects of you. Personally I do something obscurely technical which requires a high degree of concentration in front of a computer screen; on good days I can take my laptop on an extended train tour of the Kanto area being creatively productive while scenery goes past, on bad days I have to hole up in a “coworking space” to actually get something done because being stuck at home with family for days on end is a recipe for insanity. It doesn’t help that in my case my “coworkers” are in entirely differerent timezones so I describe a lot of my working days as “talking to myself on the internet”. Still preferable to my previous daily commute to the hell office, but really I’d like a mix (say 40/60) of in-person collaboration and independent getting stuff done.

11. I work remotely, and have done so for this job and my last 2. I’m a developer working for foreign companies with some relation with Japan though. I have a friend who also works remotely in a similar situation. I had very limited options because of no PR and no fluent Japanese, so I’d like to say I’ve been lucky at every turn of events, there were really not that many options when I was last job-hunting, and my current job actually was tricky to set up.

    >”I wonder if I study that for a few months or a year, I could land a remote job.”

    Very likely not, specially for juniors/trainees most companies really prefer you to work in-person. But you could study for a year, work 2-3 years in a normal company, and then find a remote job. Or you might be lucky and find a job that allows you to work remotely from the get-go, but I wouldn’t count on it.

12. I work as a freelance translator. The instability isn’t great, but not having to go into an office is nice. Until recently I was doing that along with English teaching, and because of COVID most of my classes went online. When I quit that I only had one in-person class left.

    I’m a bit worried about my visa renewal but that’s not up for a couple of years, so I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts.

13. Working remotely for an offshore company as a Program/Portfolio Manager. Contracted for 40 hours but end up doing 30ish per week as I’d be wasting their money if I tried to stretch it out. Start at around 6am so I get afternoons free. Works out well for both of us.

    Depending on the work experience you have you may be able to land a remote role after a year of study. Focus on getting relevant certifications and run a few personal projects to build a portfolio to back yourself. Doesn’t need to be technical, ie for PM work you could help someone you know with structuring a project for their side hustle or business.

14. I work remotely but it’s for myself. I love it and I would never do it any other way but making your own company from nothing and getting to the point of stable money is a lot lot lot of work

15. I dropped a lucrative IT career and became a translator specifically so I could move away from the city and work from home.

    It was a huge pay cut in the beginning and took me time to adjust my spending habits, but now I earn a reasonable income of 30 to 40 man per month on average only working 3 to 5 hours 4 days a week.

    For the transition, obviously I reduced my expenses significantly. I’d say I worked on my Japanese but I was already pretty fluent. I was definitely already well past N1. It just took a few years to learn to write better English that didn’t immediately sound like it was translated from Japanese.

16. My wife (Japanese) works remotely. I’d suggest looking for large American consulting / fintech companies. I know a guy who got a job at Rakuten as a Java programmer as well – he had a few years experience going in

17. I transitioned into coding in the States before arriving in Japan. I work a remote job for a US company. I take meetings at 6~9 am ish, and work flexibly for the rest of the day on my own terms. The company only tracks my output.

    I’ve been remote for over 3 years now.

    I do think it’s possible to transition using a bootcamp of sorts in Japan. Not sure how feasible 100% remote is as your first gig as others have noted.

    I would actually like to be hybrid though, I like being in the office and collaborating. I use coworking offices to get out of the house.

18. I mean you don’t have to go into coding. There are other jobs like project management, delivery, customer support If you find openings, get interviews and are a culture fit / skill fit.

    There is rarely a simple easy way otherwise everyone would do that. If you do end up investing time and money into coding or really any 専門学校 do some research and talk with as many people. A cursory look via linkedin at personnel qualifications and where people who have taken the course are currently working vs how long since they completed the program can also tell you a wealth of knowledge.

19. My friend got a fully remote English Job for IT support at a foreign tech Company. They’re out there

20. Yes. I live in Japan, but I work for a UC corpo, doing work is some very remote places.

    …or did you mean like just staying in your house “remote?” 

21. I work 99% remote* in accounting. It varies by function in accounting if you can work remotely or not and they limit it to in Japan – so no working from a different country as you please like some of the influencers you see.

    * we have one of those “pretty please come xx times a week” policies that aren’t enforced, and of course I have to go in sometimes for meetings/training.

22. Working remote for last 7-8 years with 3 companies managing global IT/IT teams. Because my teams are mostly in other countries, I only go into office when I want to, when there are collaboration meetings in Tokyo with others coming in country, or there is a social event. I set my own hours, but, because I have global teams, I also have to be flexible with my mornings/evenings in order to support them.

    Not a junior role and I put in time in more junior positions in order to get into these positions, but that wasn’t the goal as much as it was an unexpected benefit of doing what I really like doing at work. I say that in order to show, yes they do exist, but it is more the end result of doing something I really enjoy and put in years at than it is looking for the end result within a given field and applying for a job there.

    I find, more often than not, if you find what you really like doing and are passionate about, you have more of a chance finding a job that also meets the lifestyle you want. Not saying this is you necessarily, but the worst coders, IT security people, etc. are those that got into the job because of reasons other than passion for doing the work and they often end up also being the ones that aren’t happy in the end.

23. >Live whenever, work from wherever! I guess I’m just looking for some hope…I think it lies in working remotely.

    There`s a fantasy that if you get a remote job, you get to live the life, work while sipping a drink at some nice, fancy, far flung resort place and enjoy the world while working.

    Most remote jobs in Japan, despite being remote, often expect you to work during office hours. So that means that even if you`re travelling while working remotely, you’ll be working during the daylight hours and once you finish work… every where`s dark and there`s not much left to enjoy. The only freedom you get is where you choose to work.

    If it`s not a job that`s constrained by office hours, ie your ideal *Live whenever, work from wherever!*, then it often comes with the expectation also of ***Work Whenever***. That means you`re likely on call or standby all the time, making it hard to properly enjoy travelling. It takes a special kind of mindset to be able to switch on and off from work modes at the drop of a hat to be able to enjoy.

    > A few of my friends do coding and IT work. I wonder if I study that for a few months or a year, I could land a remote job.

    I`m not saying that these ideal remote jobs don`t exist, but I think it`s a bit unrealistic to expect them to be within reach with just a few months or a year or two of study.

    Remote work may not be all that good anyway, sometimes being able leave work and leave all the mental baggage from work at the office isn`t such a bad thing after all.

24. I work in IT and I did few years in office, few remote, and now hybrid (which I prefer). If your goal is to get a remote job without experience, you will have better luck getting a job from your home country. It will also pay higher but the hours may be difficult. Look into QA or SDET roles if you are interested in IT. It has lower barrier of entrance and less knowledge to master to be job ready.

25. IT as well and work from home mostly these days. Some others from my company move around Japan with the seasons which is the dream.

    If I was single with no familial commitments that’s what I’d do, but at least I can visit home for longer stretches and work during my time there.

26. Yep. Run a fund remotely. And about to set up another online business

27. I’ve been fully remote since about 2 or 3 years before Covid hit. Most of my team mates are in Australia or Singapore so no one questioned me not going into the office. I’m a digital marketer working on SEM/SEO for entire Asia Pacific in tech.