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I think you should try working at a smaller company. I've also been an engineer in Japan for a while and found startups a lot easier to deal with than mid-sized
by grose 9y ago
I think you should try working at a smaller company. I've also been an engineer in Japan for a while and found startups a lot easier to deal with than mid-sized or larger companies. For example, you almost never have to send e-mails because everything is over Slack and surprisingly casual. Working with other teams is easy because there are only a small amount of engineers and everyone knows each other. Google Docs instead of Excel so you don't have to worry about SHIFT-JIS. Go somewhere without middle management where you work directly under the CTO or at most one other guy and you'll see less meetings. Of course, you'll still see some of the classic Japanese bureaucracy, but nothing compared to the bigger places.
My main gripe with Japanese companies is that they simply don't pay as well as American ones do.
- GuiA 9y ago> My main gripe with Japanese companies is that they simply don't pay as well as American ones do. Fair, but Tokyo can be much, much cheaper than SF or NYC (in my personal experience, rent alone is up to a 2-3x difference. Same with dining out - a 1500¥ dinner easily runs you $30-40 with tip in SF).
- desu_ 9y agoI think the implication is that Japanese companies in Japan pay generally less than American companies in Japan, which seems true at least when comparing Japanese and American big names. It's also the case outside engineering/tech. It's fairly common knowledge among Japanese workers and foreign residents living in Japan. One hypothesis (which I like) is that Japanese companies offer a higher non-monetary compensation (I am not talking about flex-time).
- GuiA 9y agoOh I see. I didn’t get the “American companies in japan” subtext. Yes, that makes sense.