Software Engineer / DevOps Salaries in Tokyo

7 comments

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

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   **Software Engineer / DevOps Salaries in Tokyo**

   Is it possible to make anywhere close to $200k USD as a Senior DevOps Engineer with high level AWS certifications and experience working for well-known international hedge fund? I want to move to Tokyo and could live comfortably on 10M JPY but I also want to save a meaningful amount of USD each month for the future.

   All the research I’ve done so far shows 14M as about the highest I could hope for but maybe there are some financial institutions that pay close to NYC salaries I don’t know about?

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2. Very unlikely for engineer in Tokyo. But cost of living is cheaper compare to NYC.

3. Before the exchange rates tanked, it wasn’t that hard for senior imo. Now, you’re talking staff or principal rank for that kind of money, and there are maybe five engineers in the country who make that.

   Having said that, wanting to save USD for the future is already not a good place to start from. Japan is like a different dimension; if your future isn’t here and you’re wanting to eventually leave, I don’t know that I would recommend it… now if you were planning instead on settling here, that’s different.

   Nothing here will beat what you can get overseas in terms of pure money in your pocket.

4. Engineering Manager here

   I was a DevOps before, and I have lots of work friends here who do it. Long story short: 200k USD is near impossable

   29 Million yen would be a mind blowing amount to make unless it was a short term stay and you were helping set something up. Most of these kinds of roles (including my company, a USA company) just would hire someone in the USA and let the US take that kind of budget on. I have a good friend who is a fluent Japanese, Korean, and Native level English speaker and works at a popular music streaming service office in Japan. He is a Staff Level Enginner and makes around 16-18 million. I’ve never seen someone make that much here except him and I would say hes literally the most important person for his company in all of Asia.

   He also knows, he could make more moving to America and have the same job. But, location is everything, and hes fine doing this until hes ready. Japan salary is lower, but the cost is overall lower if you understand this isn’t America.

   I live in an upscale apartment, I have Motorcyles, I plan on getting a car next year, those are all things that most people would dream of in Japan. I make around 13 million pre bonus (Thats an amazing salary here), and I never feel like im ever without here compared to when I lived in NYC….

   I’m not going to say its impossible, but I work in hiring people, and I speak with a lot of people everyday about salaries and roles. I’ve never seen a 30 million gig before that wasn’t like a Director or VP (I have seen this before from head hunters) but thats going to require near native Japanese, and as you know is a very different kind of role.

5. 20M yen is possible, but i would say it probably needs to be in fintech rather than consumer tech. 29M yen, maybe a stretch.

6. The socioeconomic hierarchy is important here in Asia. Did you attend a top school? Do you have FO experience making investment decisions? If not, better to settle for 5-10M yen per year. Probably for the best.

7. US-based investment banks and Google/Microsoft/Apple offer salaries in that range at a mid-manager level, although competition for roles is extremely fierce.