27y.o Male, US citizen, East Asian, doesn’t speak Japanese fluently but speaks fluent english.
I’ve been to Japan twice and felt very happy during my stay. Both visits were in Tokyo and the duration was 18- 20 days each. Been thinking if I could move to Japan in the future. I currently hold a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from a University in the US and work as an electronics engineer for the federal Government in the US. So far I have been applying for federal jobs that are position in Japan but still no replies for the job applications as Federal Job hiring process tends to take a while.
Am I being over optimistic of me being able to find a job in Japan to stay there? Every person I talked to about this gave me a look that I was being delusional or I’m talking nonsense.
As in why I want to move to Japan:
[1.Safety](https://1.Safety): Never felt so safe in my life until I visited Japan. In the city I currently live in I always see a shooting incident every week on the news and when I try to talk about this with friends/coworkers they avoid the subject and treat is as normal. I used to live in Dallas and the recent mass shooting that happened is the outlet mall where I used to buy clothes at.
[2.](https://2.No)Walkability: I really liked the aspect of daily walking. Where I live currently you will need to drive everywhere and walk-ability is non-existant. I dream of just biking to work or don’t need to own a car.
3.Learning a new language: It was fun trying to converse with Japanese people even though most of the time I didn’t understand 100% what they were saying. Listening is easier but speaking was harder for me.
[4.Food](https://4.Food): Food was amazing as I like rice and noodles. I hardly eat out in the US because I don’t really enjoy tipping.
5. Healthcare: American healthcare is crazy.
Reasons to not to move to Japan from my perspective:
1. Salary: I read stagnant salary is common in Japan. I will make less in Japan than USA.
2. Language: I am not fluent in Japanese and will be a disadvantage career wise until I get up to speed with learning Japanese.
3. Work life balance: Overtime work.
My heart wants to move there and try it out but my brain says not to. Recently my friend passed away due to cancer and he was talking to me about what he wanted in life and it never got fulfilled since cancer took it away quick. It made me think that I should try the stuff that I want to do because you never know when life will end.
Trying to be optimistic that if I get a job in Japan and not like it I can always move back to the US. I also think that living there and taking a vacation is a totally different thing. That is why I’m interested in moving to Japan. I will only move to Japan if I can get a full time job.
My plan at the moment is to change job to software engineering in the US and have job experience for 2-3 years and apply to Japan in the future.
Am I being too optimistic or this is a bad idea? Any input/advice is welcomed.
12 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Over optimistic/Delusional?**
27y.o Male, US citizen, East Asian, doesn’t speak Japanese fluently but speaks fluent english.
I’ve been to Japan twice and felt very happy during my stay. Both visits were in Tokyo and the duration was 18- 20 days each. Been thinking if I could move to Japan in the future. I currently hold a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from a University in the US and work as an electronics engineer for the federal Government in the US. So far I have been applying for federal jobs that are position in Japan but still no replies for the job applications as Federal Job hiring process tends to take a while.
Am I being over optimistic of me being able to find a job in Japan to stay there? Every person I talked to about this gave me a look that I was being delusional or I’m talking nonsense.
As in why I want to move to Japan:
[1.Safety](https://1.Safety): Never felt so safe in my life until I visited Japan. In the city I currently live in I always see a shooting incident every week on the news and when I try to talk about this with friends/coworkers they avoid the subject and treat is as normal. I used to live in Dallas and the recent mass shooting that happened is the outlet mall where I used to buy clothes at.
[2.](https://2.No)Walkability: I really liked the aspect of daily walking. Where I live currently you will need to drive everywhere and walk-ability is non-existant. I dream of just biking to work or don’t need to own a car.
3.Learning a new language: It was fun trying to converse with Japanese people even though most of the time I didn’t understand 100% what they were saying. Listening is easier but speaking was harder for me.
[4.Food](https://4.Food): Food was amazing as I like rice and noodles. I hardly eat out in the US because I don’t really enjoy tipping.
5. Healthcare: American healthcare is crazy.
Reasons to not to move to Japan from my perspective:
1. Salary: I read stagnant salary is common in Japan. I will make less in Japan than USA.
2. Language: I am not fluent in Japanese and will be a disadvantage career wise until I get up to speed with learning Japanese.
3. Work life balance: Overtime work.
My heart wants to move there and try it out but my brain says not to. Recently my friend passed away due to cancer and he was talking to me about what he wanted in life and it never got fulfilled since cancer took it away quick. It made me think that I should try the stuff that I want to do because you never know when life will end.
Trying to be optimistic that if I get a job in Japan and not like it I can always move back to the US. I also think that living there and taking a vacation is a totally different thing. That is why I’m interested in moving to Japan. I will only move to Japan if I can get a full time job.
My plan at the moment is to change job to software engineering in the US and have job experience for 2-3 years and apply to Japan in the future.
Am I being too optimistic or this is a bad idea? Any input/advice is welcomed.
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Honestly Japan is hard but at the same time I know what you mean by life taking your chances
Not crazy at all to want to live in a well-functioning 1st world country.
There are many of us that have zero interest in anime, manga, video games we just appreciate Japan for the things you mentioned, safety, orderliness, universal health care, food and travel experiences, good value, service etc.
Go with your gut, if you don’t try you will likely regret it, and keep in mind money is not everything, quality of life is more important to me than my brokerage statement.
Finally, writing is on the wall for the US for anyone who can be bothered to read, better to make plans sooner than later.
If you make this it into a 5 to 10 years plan, it’s not delusional. At least you’re not saying stuff like “I’ll just – do English teaching (literally the worst way of coming to Japan, even if you “plan to switch to another career later”)/ – be a doctor (though you can’t speak Japanese at all!)/ – run for president and fix Japan (but you’re a foreigner so you can’t, also why)”.
If you spend the time properly switching to SW engineering and getting experience your chances of landing a job are much higher than coming here with no experience and no Japanese. You could even get a job at a modern company with better conditions and pay.
So you have a good head on your shoulders already 🙂 Good luck.
Not unrealistic at all. 2-3 years experience is the universal recommendation for aspiring IT engineers when trying to move to Japan.
If you’re self teaching a development language, you’ll have some free time you can also dedicate to learning Japanese. Depending on how big of a goal being in Japan is, you can totally get a strong proficiency level in 3 years with a few hours of study a day and efficient language learning tools.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
Getting into SWEA is a decent approach. Just be aware the market is rough at the moment. There are a good amount of non English speaking roles in SWE. Of course Japanese is always a plus. However, I don’t think they will sponsor a visa for you unless you are already in Japan. Unless you work for a big company and get transferred to the US, it may be difficult to get a visa for SWE.
Some people will come over to teach English, get a different job, and switch their visa. It’s risky but it’s possible.
the only bad idea is not going ahead with your dream and seeing what it’s like and experiencing it. you may or may not like it in Japan but it’s a learning experience and if you decide to move out of Japan you still win and won’t die on your deathbed wishing you did what you wanted to but didn’t.
Search for jobs and apply for them. If you get one, move, if not, you can’t.
Change to SWE in the US under this kind of market? Definitely over optimistic, with so many layoffs in tech and many SWE with 5~10 yoe having trouble finding a permanent role.
>I dream of just biking to work or don’t need to own a car.
This is a good enough reason by itself, lol. I love trains and public transit and I don’t drive or ever want to own a car, and that was one big reason I looked for jobs here. You have a degree, you can do it!
I think if you would like to move to Japan “only” because of the above mentionend points, then I would rather recommend to move to a European country, especially the Scandinavian ones or Germany, Benelux. Since you definitely have points 1 to 3 and 5 there as well and you don’t have all the negative points you mentioned.
But I can totally understand if you want to move to Japan because you feel drawn to the culture there 😉
But be also aware of the racism in Japan. That is one of the reasons why I wouldn’t want to live there longer than a year. Finding a flat as a foreigner for example is quite hard. And outside of tokyo people usually can’t even speak basic English, so you’re Japanese has to be quite good. For me it was JLPT N3 level when I started to feel comfortable in daily situations 😅
I definitely don’t want to discourage you though, like I said I can totally understand if you’re drawn to Japan. I just wanted to make some remarks 🙂
switching to SWE is the right idea to land a job from outside japan. the hard part is breaking into SWE and landing roles in a reputable company