15 ms·

Toshiba’s loss of star engineer tells tale of company's decline

180 points by cinquemb 8y ago

jpatokal 8y ago
"Dangling salaries of 10 million yen", or about $91k. The fact that this is considered unusually high tells you all you need to know about engineering salaries in Japan. (And yes, IT salaries are in the same ballpark.)
- tjpnz 8y ago
  5-6M JPY is pretty normal if you're an engineer here working for a traditional Japanese software company. Good news is that the number of people willing to accept that is growing fewer by the day.
  - inteleng 8y ago
    No wonder Sony can't compete in the hardware realm.
    - cthalupa 8y ago
      This is such a weird statement. What hardware realm? They're involved all over. Right now they're absolutely crushing the camera market - the A73 and AR73 are taking the world by storm, with tons of Canon and Nikon DSLR converts (Including myself). Their GM lenses are the sharpest available at a lot of focal lengths, the bokeh is close to the top of readily available modern lenses, etc. They're certainly competing there. Their UHS-II cards are some of the fastest on the market. The PS4 is the leader in lifetime sales vs. other consoles. What hardware are you talking about?
      - acct1771 8y ago
        OffTopic, the Switch isn't the leader?
        majewsky 8y ago
        The Switch has been out for less than 2 years, vs. 8 years or so for the PS4, which is quite a head start. It may outsell the PS4 right now, though.
        jsnell 8y ago
        > The Switch has been out for less than 2 years, vs. 8 years or so for the PS4, which is quite a head start You're off by a factor of two. The PS4 has been out for 4.5 years, not "8 years or so". > It may outsell the PS4 right now, though. In FY2017 the PS4 sold 19 million units. The Switch sold 13 million (15.5M sold in total so far, but 2.7M were in FY2016).
        majewsky 8y ago
        Thanks for the fact check.
        dasil003 8y ago
        PS4 has more units sold than Switch and Xbox One combined.
      - selimthegrim 8y ago
        Their phones have been treading water in the market for years.
        digi_owl 8y ago
        Depends on the market i suspect. That said, they seem to do way less marketing than Samsung or Apple. Even so, they have carved out a niche of making smaller Android phones (their Compact variants) that share internals with their larger brethren.
      - guelo 8y ago
        I agree with you but I do think Sony missed the chance to take advantage of their camera expertise and invent the best cameraphone first.
        scarface74 8y ago
        The number of people that would buy a phone just for the camera is a small market and the phone market aside from the iPhone is a low margin commodity market. Samsung makes a lot of money from the phone market - but not from selling phones. They make most of thier money as a component supplier. Sony's camera division makes money from selling camera parts to other companies - including Apple.
        kalleboo 8y ago
        The had the best cameraphones - the K800, K850 etc were way, way ahead of the game. Then the iPhone came out and just being a phone wasn't good enough. Now everyone else uses Sony's sensor anyway so what is their advantage? Lenses?
        digi_owl 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_T610 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_T610 Maybe not the first, damned close.
        flamemyst 8y ago
        Other factor also contributes to the demise of Sony phone division. Here in my country, Sony Z1 and Z2 boom as they are probably the first premium phone with nice camera and waterprof body. But bad aftermarket support and service destroy that advantages very quickly. Nowdays almost everyone avoid Sony smartphone. Either you choose phone with more support and service center such as Samsung or go to other way with Xiaomi (cheap with almost non existance official service & support).
      - inteleng 8y ago
        The Xperia phones and E-paper offerings are products where Sony could have been competitive with the market leaders (Apple, Amazon), partly because they were among the first to market, but they chose not to spend much on R&D and thus lost their dominance. My comment does not refer to the gaming and photography divisions, as those are cash cows for Sony.
  - weiming 8y ago
    > Good news is that the number of people willing to accept that is growing fewer by the day. Curious if you have any insights on where do they end up going instead, even if anecdotal. (E.g.: smaller firms, own startups, or foreign (US/China) opportunities?)
    - tjpnz 8y ago
      My first job in Japan was working at one of these places so I've seen it first hand. In my case I left to join a US startup with an office in Tokyo. Most of my former colleagues did similar and are now working either in startups (mostly Japanese) or for foreign corporations that do development work here.
      - ronnier 8y ago
        Even working for a US company in Tokyo I made a fraction of what I do here in the US. High level engineers I worked with got offers from google and Microsoft in Tokyo and the offers were less than $100k USD. They declined. Some moved to Europe, I moved back to the states. It’s mostly young single western men I see willing to take the pay cuts to live in Japan.
        cthalupa 8y ago
        >It’s mostly young single western men I see willing to take the pay cuts to live in Japan. My SO and I have seriously discussed moving to Tokyo when it comes time to raise a family. We're both pretty disappointed with the culture here in the US that makes it difficult to let your kids be independent and self reliant (See: Parents getting their kids taken away for letting them walk to the park, etc), and we've loved the time we've spent in Tokyo. The salary situation makes this pretty tough, though.
        Spooky23 8y ago
        Look at a private school first.
        voodootrucker 8y ago
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  What ballpark? Most software engineering salaries are much lower.
- laurieg 8y ago
  Just for a bit of perspective, my city center rent(non-Tokyo) is 45,000 yen and a meal in a restaurant with drinks is around 3000.
  - merb 8y ago
    how much qm² does this apartment have (becase 45,000 yen is comparable to 350 euro which is extremly cheap, even if it is cold rent)
    - mikekchar 8y ago
      Not the OP, but a 45,000 yen apartment in a city centre is likely to be quite small (essentially a studio apartment). It really depends on the city, though. You might be able to get a 1 bedroom for that in an older building. Apartments in Japan tend to be small and having lived in various places in the world, I'm going to say that it is not really comparable. For example, no matter what you rent, you are going to get a stupidly small kitchen: probably a single sink, 0.5 meter counter top and a place to put a konro (2 burner gas range with a fish grill). Apart from the kitchen (which takes a lot of practice to get used to), the bath room/wash rooms tend to make very efficient use of space. If you are living in Japanese style, you also put your futons away in the closet during the day and can live in what would be your bedroom. I live in a rural area and since I work remotely, I wanted an office in the apartment. We tried to get a 3 bedroom apartment (so we would have a guest room as well), but it was just impossible. Nobody could even understand why a childless couple could possibly use that much space. So it's more a matter of culture than price. In large centres you actually have a lot more choice. For example when I visit Tokyo, I often see advertisements for 4 bedroom luxury apartments. They are about the same price as you would pay in any other metropolitan centre in the world. However, things like that just aren't available in a lot of smaller places. You pretty much have to buy a house.
    - laurieg 8y ago
      My place is about 40sqm, which is quite big for a single person in Japan. My place before was in a similar location but 25sqm and is quite representative of a Japanese single occupancy apartments.
- Nicholas7900 8y ago
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- ronnier 8y ago
  That’s why I left japan and came back to Seattle, really no reason to work for such little money and live in a small apartment when we are living through the best time to be an engineer in America.
  - spaceman1331 8y ago
    it is a terrible time to be an engineer in america engineers are abused and treated like shit
- scrollaway 8y ago
  $91k for an engineer salary is unusually high everywhere outside of the united states and switzerland.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    It's still low if you invented flash memory. Looking at market rates is the wrong paradigm for that kind of breakthrough. It presumes you could replace the flash inventor with another engineer for about the same salary.
    - SagelyGuru 8y ago
      "It presumes you could replace the flash inventor with another engineer for about the same salary." Yes, you can, if you already own his patent and do not expect him to invent anything else. It seems that is how the management looked at it.
  - msh 8y ago
    91k is not uncommon (it's often higher) for senior developers/engineers in Scandinavia.
    - GordonS 8y ago
      Sure, but everything in Scandinavia is expensive compared to the rest of Europe (I work for a Scandinavian company).
    - philangist 8y ago
      I'd love to work in Norway or Sweden one day. Do you know what the tech scene in Oslo or Stockholm are like? My experience is mostly in building backend/distributed systems.
      - mseebach 8y ago
        The scene is great in Stockholm, anchored in Spotify, King and a good representation of games companies (EA has a decent representation if I remember correctly). My knowledge of Oslo is limited, but from what I have heard, thing are a bit stunted there. Copenhagen (my former home turf) used to be not great, basically software engineering was/is considered low status and all the smart devs in corporations were steered to higher status, but less technical, roles like architect, consulting or project management (or other middle management). Denmark really bought into the idea that we're the ideas people, the grunt work can be done in India or Poland or whatever. Some successful software startups came out of there, like Endomondo, Vivino and Zendesk, but they moved their centre of gravity to the bay area at first opportunity. This has since changed, and from what I've heard there's a fairly happening startup scene there now (still an awful place to be a corporate dev, though).
- konceptz 8y ago
  I came here to say this, thanks. On the dev side. I’ve been told that there are a few main consultancy firms which do the bulk of development for most companies. It’s more appropriate to hire these firms than it is to build your own teams. Because these firms do not pay high amounts to their devs, it sets the norm across the country.
  - patio11 8y ago
    I mean there are a lot of causational arrows. In central Japan, for example, there exists an ultimate monopsony consumer of all engineering labor. Their salary scale is known to middle schoolers. All engineering labor is priced against that scale, sometimes directly, because that scale informs what they'll pay subcontractors and then the magic of consulting math replicates that scale across the supply chain.
- greggarious 8y ago
  I knew a guy who worked in the university IT department where I did my post-grad. He made more there than in Japan, and the cost of living was insanely low.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Normally patio11 would come out of the woodwork and explain that cash salary is a small fraction of "effective compensation" in Japan: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8576008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8576008
  - patio11 8y ago
    I don't think you are interpreting that comment in this context the way I would. It is possible for an employee of a Japanese company to have a $91k salary and, also, a high internal status, resulting in non-pecuniary benefits as described. It is extraordinarily unlikely that employee is an engineer. (For additional "It's complicated!" context: I believe his bosses likely considered the offer they made him to be a plum. My ex-employer had a similar terminal outcome for distinguished engineers, where you'd be given a laboratory, perhaps an assistant or two, and total freedom. Is that a particularly compelling terminal offer? No. But it's an offer better than 99.8% of employees in the engineering track have. The mere fact that it is obviously better than what 99.8% of engineers get is a component of the offer; Japanese megacorps figure out that giving you money to purchase status is inefficient when they can simply award you status directly.)
    - SilasX 8y ago
      Right but I had in mind your other point that a lot of the compensation is in the form of the benefits of having the business card, although I guess that wouldn’t have any value in terms of a promotion while staying at the same workplace.
- meric 8y ago
  That's not what Toshiba pays - that's the salary headhunters use to take engineers away from Toshiba.
- sytelus 8y ago
  Doesn’t this come with perks like life long job security, retirement etc? I had heard that in Japan, working for a traditional company is like getting married.
cuddlypsycho 8y ago
I am not suggesting that Toshiba (or other tech fossils) has the right culture when it comes to dealing with its engineering talent .. BUT .. If a company is de-risking the process of inventing/commercializing a new solution for its engineers, then they are entitled to the IP. "A team led by Masuoka paved the way for the practical application of flash memory. The team was small when it was created in the 1980s, with an annual budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars." Asking for a bonus as an engineer for doing your job well is like begging for tips for waiting tables! If you don't think you are being compensated well for your skillset and you can get a better deal elsewhere then quit! If one thinks they have a great idea that would be incredibly profitable, they should quit their job and develop it on their own dime. I have a background in micro/nanofabrication and highly doubt that Mr. Masuoka could have done what he did in his garage, without the state of the art fab technology available at Toshiba at the time. A piece of advice to startup founders, always ALWAYS have a "propriety rights agreement" in place with whomever you work (contractors, employees, interns), detailing the ownership status of the IP created as a result of the collaboration. Without one, this could be a potential show-stopper later on when you are looking for outside investments and going through due diligence.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Except that as an engineer, you can stick with improving or enhancing existing processes, or aim to do something utterly revolutionary. Either way, you’ll be doing your job. Those who make a multi-billion dollar division most definitely should be very well compensated. The CEO sure is. Without talent like Masuoka, it really wouldn’t matter that there is advanced fab technology. You need skilled and talented people to use those things in creative ways.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Quitting is culturally not very well accepted in Japan. The expectation is that you work for the same company your whole career and in turn the company takes care of you.
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giri_%28Japanese%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giri_%28Japanese%29
lettergram 8y ago
It's really not much better in the U.S. or elsewhere. I believe it was Nokia which had a patent program where it was a $500 bonus per patent. Meaning, even if you invented something - that was your bonus. In my current role we have a similar program, beyond the relatively small bonus I think the only benefit is bragging rights. Patenting or inventing something means little to superiors. Large companies focus on the short term stategic initiatives, often being unable to capitalize on long term or even short term opportunities. That's why more nimble startups are more effective.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Was that always the case? I had a friend whose father was getting royalties for some chemical manufacturing process that he came up with. I recall that royalties were planned to be a major component of his retirement.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I wonder if it used to be better. I have heard of one company where engineers would get some percentage of savings or increased revenue if they came up with something. Then somebody got a several hundred thousand dollar award and the program got cancelled. I have received $500 for an idea what got valued at $2 million during the award ceremony.
    - vinnieman232 8y ago
      It was better at my employer in the mid-2000's. Systems process projects (6-sigma stuff) paid out to stakeholders in the project proportional to the measured cost savings in results. The payouts were similarly cancelled not because of large payouts, but more so for chasing cost-savings instead of product improbements.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        "for chasing cost-savings " It's interesting that for execs big bonuses for good work are considered motivational and necessary whereas for the little guy good work doesn't need to be rewarded because it would add cost.
weiming 8y ago
My understanding is that Japan has some of the smartest professionals, and yet very tough (unrewarding?) work conditions, especially in the megacorps. If so, it appears that there is room for foreign companies/startups (US, or even Chinese) to establish office in Japan and recruit away the best people with better pay/perks/vacation time/etc. Sort of "recruiting arbitrage." Heck, the same happened in the US in the past 10-15 years with a relatively small number of firms siphoning off the best talent. Curious if there are any examples of that (e.g. I know that Google has an office in Tokyo, but I don't know what kind of work they do.)
- distances 8y ago
  I assume a big barrier for this is job security. If I've understood correctly, quitting a company stamps you as a no-hire for other megacorps. And knowing western tendencies of firing people on business downturns, that may not be a tempting proposition.
- sotojuan 8y ago
  Quitting a typical salaryman job is a tough mental and cultural barrier for a lot of Japanese, so the best bet would be to hire new grads or young people. Even then, it might be tougher than it looks. That said, megacorps in Japan offer "perks" that American, especially tech companies, do not offer. See patio's post (scroll down to the "The company hereby promises the employee" section) for some examples: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan... In many ways it's the opposite of our SV-style company culture, where we switch jobs every 3-5 years.
  - Something1234 8y ago
    It's absolutely horrifying to me. For one think to completely occupy my life. I might be risk adverse, but this is a whole new level.
- Frachois 8y ago
  As a guy in Japanese traditional Soft company, what your idea has acheived by Big Company such as Accenture, they has Company called Avanade for this opportunity. Besides best talented Japanese just don’t learn Computer Science, they go to consultant and financial company or NTT, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu which main business is not software product( Actually they are manufacturer)
dingo_bat 8y ago
I remember my toshiba laptop as one of the best laptops I've owned. Solid construction, no skimping on components and stellar service. When it was time to upgrade I didn't find anything comparable, went with an HP that literally melted from its own heat within a year.
- majewsky 8y ago
  That's the problem with anecdata: My friend's 2011 HP Elitebook is working as well as ever. (Maybe don't buy a consumer model?)
  - felixarba 8y ago
    That's what I thought as well about HP, just anecdata, but every single HP I had (3 of them in total) broke within a year, for various reasons. I always thought it was just a coincidence, but then I got a Toshiba in 2014 and it's as good as new still.
  - dingo_bat 8y ago
    I wanted it for home use so why shouldn't I buy a consumer model? If it is so bad they shouldn't sell it, IMO.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
Chip engineers abandoned Hitachi, NEC, Sony and other Japanese electronics companies in droves, starting in the second half of the 1990s. Samsung Electronics of South Korea hired many on favorable terms ... Apparently, in the 1980s, Japan used to outlaw Japanese engineers traveling to South Korea to advise South Korean companies. Ultimately, this strategy failed.
zenovision 8y ago
Salaries in Europe are also very low for software developers. In Germany you will make on average 50-60K euro per year as a senior software developer. After tax this is less than 3000 euro per month. Similar situation in the UK. This is the reason why not a single company from Europe reached the TOP-10 in the world by market cap. Talents are moving away from Europe. According to news I read, 140000 people leaving Germany each year, especially people with high qualification.
- mtmail 8y ago
  175k even if you refer to the study "International Mobil" using 2009-2013 timefame [1]. 140k of those come back, they calculate 25k Germans net leaving per year. 70% are high qualified. The study says salary is not the main factor [2]. The 25k are offset by equal immigration from other EU countries [3] 1] https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/warum-deutsche-auswandern-geld-ist-nicht-der-hauptgrund/11482856.html https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/warum-deutsche-auswa... 2] https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/deutsche-auswanderer-dann-geht-doch/11483024.html https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/deutsche-auswanderer... 3] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/arbeitsmarkt/mehr-abwanderer-als-rueckkehrer-jung-hochqualifiziert-ausgewandert-deutschland-laufen-die-besten-talente-davon_id_4534094.html https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/arbeitsmarkt/mehr-abwande...
- novaRom 8y ago
  And terribly expensive rents, at least in big cities like Munich. Many engineers would like to move to US, but it’s much harder than to move to some other less expensive place within EU.
  - tunareter 8y ago
    I know more developers who would laugh at the idea of going to the US than wanting to go to the US. (Mostly qol reasons.) And rents are still far away from the likes of SF/NYC/Seattle.
- pandaman 8y ago
  The amazing thing is, it appears, that they still manage to get people from the US. A significant portion of my Linkedin spam is coming from EU/UK recruiters who evidently believe they have a chance to poach people from here. I figure they would not have been doing this if there were no takers.
thadk 8y ago
Varieties of Capitalism literature does a pretty good job describing what compromises may be happening here: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~phall/VofCIntro.pdf http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~phall/VofCIntro.pdf When I was first introduced to this concept, someone pointed out this partly indicates why 3D printing innovations are introduced by US firms and often then refined by German or other coordinated market economy-based firms.
myrandomcomment 8y ago
I wanted to hire someone that worked for a local Japanese company to come and work at my startup. Just handed then an offer letter that was 2x their current pay package. Done. Still cheaper then US package. It is sad what very good sr. people get paid in Japan. Makes it much simpler to hire them away.
- reustle 8y ago
  Unless they will be based in Japan, it's not that easy all the time.
  - myrandomcomment 8y ago
    This was hiring local in Tokyo for a Tokyo based role.
dennisgorelik 8y ago
"Unhappy with what he saw as Toshiba's failure to reward his work, Masuoka quit to become a professor at Tohoku University." That is a weird choice, considering that he was looking for a better recognition. He should have pursued a career at one of competitor firms, possibly in the US.

180 points by cinquemb 8y ago

"Dangling salaries of 10 million yen", or about $91k. The fact that this is considered unusually high tells you all you need to know about engineering salaries in Japan. (And yes, IT salaries are in the same ballpark.)

tjpnz 8y ago
5-6M JPY is pretty normal if you're an engineer here working for a traditional Japanese software company. Good news is that the number of people willing to accept that is growing fewer by the day.
- inteleng 8y ago
  No wonder Sony can't compete in the hardware realm.
  - cthalupa 8y ago
    This is such a weird statement. What hardware realm? They're involved all over. Right now they're absolutely crushing the camera market - the A73 and AR73 are taking the world by storm, with tons of Canon and Nikon DSLR converts (Including myself). Their GM lenses are the sharpest available at a lot of focal lengths, the bokeh is close to the top of readily available modern lenses, etc. They're certainly competing there. Their UHS-II cards are some of the fastest on the market. The PS4 is the leader in lifetime sales vs. other consoles. What hardware are you talking about?
    - acct1771 8y ago
      OffTopic, the Switch isn't the leader?
      - majewsky 8y ago
        The Switch has been out for less than 2 years, vs. 8 years or so for the PS4, which is quite a head start. It may outsell the PS4 right now, though.
        jsnell 8y ago
        > The Switch has been out for less than 2 years, vs. 8 years or so for the PS4, which is quite a head start You're off by a factor of two. The PS4 has been out for 4.5 years, not "8 years or so". > It may outsell the PS4 right now, though. In FY2017 the PS4 sold 19 million units. The Switch sold 13 million (15.5M sold in total so far, but 2.7M were in FY2016).
        majewsky 8y ago
        Thanks for the fact check.
      - dasil003 8y ago
        PS4 has more units sold than Switch and Xbox One combined.
    - selimthegrim 8y ago
      Their phones have been treading water in the market for years.
      - digi_owl 8y ago
        Depends on the market i suspect. That said, they seem to do way less marketing than Samsung or Apple. Even so, they have carved out a niche of making smaller Android phones (their Compact variants) that share internals with their larger brethren.
    - guelo 8y ago
      I agree with you but I do think Sony missed the chance to take advantage of their camera expertise and invent the best cameraphone first.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        The number of people that would buy a phone just for the camera is a small market and the phone market aside from the iPhone is a low margin commodity market. Samsung makes a lot of money from the phone market - but not from selling phones. They make most of thier money as a component supplier. Sony's camera division makes money from selling camera parts to other companies - including Apple.
      - kalleboo 8y ago
        The had the best cameraphones - the K800, K850 etc were way, way ahead of the game. Then the iPhone came out and just being a phone wasn't good enough. Now everyone else uses Sony's sensor anyway so what is their advantage? Lenses?
      - digi_owl 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_T610 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_T610 Maybe not the first, damned close.
      - flamemyst 8y ago
        Other factor also contributes to the demise of Sony phone division. Here in my country, Sony Z1 and Z2 boom as they are probably the first premium phone with nice camera and waterprof body. But bad aftermarket support and service destroy that advantages very quickly. Nowdays almost everyone avoid Sony smartphone. Either you choose phone with more support and service center such as Samsung or go to other way with Xiaomi (cheap with almost non existance official service & support).
    - inteleng 8y ago
      The Xperia phones and E-paper offerings are products where Sony could have been competitive with the market leaders (Apple, Amazon), partly because they were among the first to market, but they chose not to spend much on R&D and thus lost their dominance. My comment does not refer to the gaming and photography divisions, as those are cash cows for Sony.
- weiming 8y ago
  > Good news is that the number of people willing to accept that is growing fewer by the day. Curious if you have any insights on where do they end up going instead, even if anecdotal. (E.g.: smaller firms, own startups, or foreign (US/China) opportunities?)
  - tjpnz 8y ago
    My first job in Japan was working at one of these places so I've seen it first hand. In my case I left to join a US startup with an office in Tokyo. Most of my former colleagues did similar and are now working either in startups (mostly Japanese) or for foreign corporations that do development work here.
    - ronnier 8y ago
      Even working for a US company in Tokyo I made a fraction of what I do here in the US. High level engineers I worked with got offers from google and Microsoft in Tokyo and the offers were less than $100k USD. They declined. Some moved to Europe, I moved back to the states. It’s mostly young single western men I see willing to take the pay cuts to live in Japan.
      - cthalupa 8y ago
        >It’s mostly young single western men I see willing to take the pay cuts to live in Japan. My SO and I have seriously discussed moving to Tokyo when it comes time to raise a family. We're both pretty disappointed with the culture here in the US that makes it difficult to let your kids be independent and self reliant (See: Parents getting their kids taken away for letting them walk to the park, etc), and we've loved the time we've spent in Tokyo. The salary situation makes this pretty tough, though.
        Spooky23 8y ago
        Look at a private school first.
        voodootrucker 8y ago
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
What ballpark? Most software engineering salaries are much lower.
laurieg 8y ago
Just for a bit of perspective, my city center rent(non-Tokyo) is 45,000 yen and a meal in a restaurant with drinks is around 3000.
- merb 8y ago
  how much qm² does this apartment have (becase 45,000 yen is comparable to 350 euro which is extremly cheap, even if it is cold rent)
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    Not the OP, but a 45,000 yen apartment in a city centre is likely to be quite small (essentially a studio apartment). It really depends on the city, though. You might be able to get a 1 bedroom for that in an older building. Apartments in Japan tend to be small and having lived in various places in the world, I'm going to say that it is not really comparable. For example, no matter what you rent, you are going to get a stupidly small kitchen: probably a single sink, 0.5 meter counter top and a place to put a konro (2 burner gas range with a fish grill). Apart from the kitchen (which takes a lot of practice to get used to), the bath room/wash rooms tend to make very efficient use of space. If you are living in Japanese style, you also put your futons away in the closet during the day and can live in what would be your bedroom. I live in a rural area and since I work remotely, I wanted an office in the apartment. We tried to get a 3 bedroom apartment (so we would have a guest room as well), but it was just impossible. Nobody could even understand why a childless couple could possibly use that much space. So it's more a matter of culture than price. In large centres you actually have a lot more choice. For example when I visit Tokyo, I often see advertisements for 4 bedroom luxury apartments. They are about the same price as you would pay in any other metropolitan centre in the world. However, things like that just aren't available in a lot of smaller places. You pretty much have to buy a house.
  - laurieg 8y ago
    My place is about 40sqm, which is quite big for a single person in Japan. My place before was in a similar location but 25sqm and is quite representative of a Japanese single occupancy apartments.
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ronnier 8y ago
That’s why I left japan and came back to Seattle, really no reason to work for such little money and live in a small apartment when we are living through the best time to be an engineer in America.
- spaceman1331 8y ago
  it is a terrible time to be an engineer in america engineers are abused and treated like shit
scrollaway 8y ago
$91k for an engineer salary is unusually high everywhere outside of the united states and switzerland.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  It's still low if you invented flash memory. Looking at market rates is the wrong paradigm for that kind of breakthrough. It presumes you could replace the flash inventor with another engineer for about the same salary.
  - SagelyGuru 8y ago
    "It presumes you could replace the flash inventor with another engineer for about the same salary." Yes, you can, if you already own his patent and do not expect him to invent anything else. It seems that is how the management looked at it.
- msh 8y ago
  91k is not uncommon (it's often higher) for senior developers/engineers in Scandinavia.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    Sure, but everything in Scandinavia is expensive compared to the rest of Europe (I work for a Scandinavian company).
  - philangist 8y ago
    I'd love to work in Norway or Sweden one day. Do you know what the tech scene in Oslo or Stockholm are like? My experience is mostly in building backend/distributed systems.
    - mseebach 8y ago
      The scene is great in Stockholm, anchored in Spotify, King and a good representation of games companies (EA has a decent representation if I remember correctly). My knowledge of Oslo is limited, but from what I have heard, thing are a bit stunted there. Copenhagen (my former home turf) used to be not great, basically software engineering was/is considered low status and all the smart devs in corporations were steered to higher status, but less technical, roles like architect, consulting or project management (or other middle management). Denmark really bought into the idea that we're the ideas people, the grunt work can be done in India or Poland or whatever. Some successful software startups came out of there, like Endomondo, Vivino and Zendesk, but they moved their centre of gravity to the bay area at first opportunity. This has since changed, and from what I've heard there's a fairly happening startup scene there now (still an awful place to be a corporate dev, though).
konceptz 8y ago
I came here to say this, thanks. On the dev side. I’ve been told that there are a few main consultancy firms which do the bulk of development for most companies. It’s more appropriate to hire these firms than it is to build your own teams. Because these firms do not pay high amounts to their devs, it sets the norm across the country.
- patio11 8y ago
  I mean there are a lot of causational arrows. In central Japan, for example, there exists an ultimate monopsony consumer of all engineering labor. Their salary scale is known to middle schoolers. All engineering labor is priced against that scale, sometimes directly, because that scale informs what they'll pay subcontractors and then the magic of consulting math replicates that scale across the supply chain.
greggarious 8y ago
I knew a guy who worked in the university IT department where I did my post-grad. He made more there than in Japan, and the cost of living was insanely low.
SilasX 8y ago
Normally patio11 would come out of the woodwork and explain that cash salary is a small fraction of "effective compensation" in Japan: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8576008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8576008
- patio11 8y ago
  I don't think you are interpreting that comment in this context the way I would. It is possible for an employee of a Japanese company to have a $91k salary and, also, a high internal status, resulting in non-pecuniary benefits as described. It is extraordinarily unlikely that employee is an engineer. (For additional "It's complicated!" context: I believe his bosses likely considered the offer they made him to be a plum. My ex-employer had a similar terminal outcome for distinguished engineers, where you'd be given a laboratory, perhaps an assistant or two, and total freedom. Is that a particularly compelling terminal offer? No. But it's an offer better than 99.8% of employees in the engineering track have. The mere fact that it is obviously better than what 99.8% of engineers get is a component of the offer; Japanese megacorps figure out that giving you money to purchase status is inefficient when they can simply award you status directly.)
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Right but I had in mind your other point that a lot of the compensation is in the form of the benefits of having the business card, although I guess that wouldn’t have any value in terms of a promotion while staying at the same workplace.
meric 8y ago
That's not what Toshiba pays - that's the salary headhunters use to take engineers away from Toshiba.
sytelus 8y ago
Doesn’t this come with perks like life long job security, retirement etc? I had heard that in Japan, working for a traditional company is like getting married.

cuddlypsycho 8y ago

I am not suggesting that Toshiba (or other tech fossils) has the right culture when it comes to dealing with its engineering talent .. BUT .. If a company is de-risking the process of inventing/commercializing a new solution for its engineers, then they are entitled to the IP. "A team led by Masuoka paved the way for the practical application of flash memory. The team was small when it was created in the 1980s, with an annual budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars." Asking for a bonus as an engineer for doing your job well is like begging for tips for waiting tables! If you don't think you are being compensated well for your skillset and you can get a better deal elsewhere then quit! If one thinks they have a great idea that would be incredibly profitable, they should quit their job and develop it on their own dime. I have a background in micro/nanofabrication and highly doubt that Mr. Masuoka could have done what he did in his garage, without the state of the art fab technology available at Toshiba at the time. A piece of advice to startup founders, always ALWAYS have a "propriety rights agreement" in place with whomever you work (contractors, employees, interns), detailing the ownership status of the IP created as a result of the collaboration. Without one, this could be a potential show-stopper later on when you are looking for outside investments and going through due diligence.

chris_wot 8y ago
Except that as an engineer, you can stick with improving or enhancing existing processes, or aim to do something utterly revolutionary. Either way, you’ll be doing your job. Those who make a multi-billion dollar division most definitely should be very well compensated. The CEO sure is. Without talent like Masuoka, it really wouldn’t matter that there is advanced fab technology. You need skilled and talented people to use those things in creative ways.
adrianN 8y ago
Quitting is culturally not very well accepted in Japan. The expectation is that you work for the same company your whole career and in turn the company takes care of you.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giri_%28Japanese%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giri_%28Japanese%29

lettergram 8y ago

It's really not much better in the U.S. or elsewhere. I believe it was Nokia which had a patent program where it was a $500 bonus per patent. Meaning, even if you invented something - that was your bonus. In my current role we have a similar program, beyond the relatively small bonus I think the only benefit is bragging rights. Patenting or inventing something means little to superiors. Large companies focus on the short term stategic initiatives, often being unable to capitalize on long term or even short term opportunities. That's why more nimble startups are more effective.

Spooky23 8y ago
Was that always the case? I had a friend whose father was getting royalties for some chemical manufacturing process that he came up with. I recall that royalties were planned to be a major component of his retirement.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I wonder if it used to be better. I have heard of one company where engineers would get some percentage of savings or increased revenue if they came up with something. Then somebody got a several hundred thousand dollar award and the program got cancelled. I have received $500 for an idea what got valued at $2 million during the award ceremony.
  - vinnieman232 8y ago
    It was better at my employer in the mid-2000's. Systems process projects (6-sigma stuff) paid out to stakeholders in the project proportional to the measured cost savings in results. The payouts were similarly cancelled not because of large payouts, but more so for chasing cost-savings instead of product improbements.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      "for chasing cost-savings " It's interesting that for execs big bonuses for good work are considered motivational and necessary whereas for the little guy good work doesn't need to be rewarded because it would add cost.

weiming 8y ago

My understanding is that Japan has some of the smartest professionals, and yet very tough (unrewarding?) work conditions, especially in the megacorps. If so, it appears that there is room for foreign companies/startups (US, or even Chinese) to establish office in Japan and recruit away the best people with better pay/perks/vacation time/etc. Sort of "recruiting arbitrage." Heck, the same happened in the US in the past 10-15 years with a relatively small number of firms siphoning off the best talent. Curious if there are any examples of that (e.g. I know that Google has an office in Tokyo, but I don't know what kind of work they do.)

distances 8y ago
I assume a big barrier for this is job security. If I've understood correctly, quitting a company stamps you as a no-hire for other megacorps. And knowing western tendencies of firing people on business downturns, that may not be a tempting proposition.
sotojuan 8y ago
Quitting a typical salaryman job is a tough mental and cultural barrier for a lot of Japanese, so the best bet would be to hire new grads or young people. Even then, it might be tougher than it looks. That said, megacorps in Japan offer "perks" that American, especially tech companies, do not offer. See patio's post (scroll down to the "The company hereby promises the employee" section) for some examples: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan... In many ways it's the opposite of our SV-style company culture, where we switch jobs every 3-5 years.
- Something1234 8y ago
  It's absolutely horrifying to me. For one think to completely occupy my life. I might be risk adverse, but this is a whole new level.
Frachois 8y ago
As a guy in Japanese traditional Soft company, what your idea has acheived by Big Company such as Accenture, they has Company called Avanade for this opportunity. Besides best talented Japanese just don’t learn Computer Science, they go to consultant and financial company or NTT, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu which main business is not software product( Actually they are manufacturer)

dingo_bat 8y ago

I remember my toshiba laptop as one of the best laptops I've owned. Solid construction, no skimping on components and stellar service. When it was time to upgrade I didn't find anything comparable, went with an HP that literally melted from its own heat within a year.

majewsky 8y ago
That's the problem with anecdata: My friend's 2011 HP Elitebook is working as well as ever. (Maybe don't buy a consumer model?)
- felixarba 8y ago
  That's what I thought as well about HP, just anecdata, but every single HP I had (3 of them in total) broke within a year, for various reasons. I always thought it was just a coincidence, but then I got a Toshiba in 2014 and it's as good as new still.
- dingo_bat 8y ago
  I wanted it for home use so why shouldn't I buy a consumer model? If it is so bad they shouldn't sell it, IMO.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

Chip engineers abandoned Hitachi, NEC, Sony and other Japanese electronics companies in droves, starting in the second half of the 1990s. Samsung Electronics of South Korea hired many on favorable terms ... Apparently, in the 1980s, Japan used to outlaw Japanese engineers traveling to South Korea to advise South Korean companies. Ultimately, this strategy failed.

zenovision 8y ago

Salaries in Europe are also very low for software developers. In Germany you will make on average 50-60K euro per year as a senior software developer. After tax this is less than 3000 euro per month. Similar situation in the UK. This is the reason why not a single company from Europe reached the TOP-10 in the world by market cap. Talents are moving away from Europe. According to news I read, 140000 people leaving Germany each year, especially people with high qualification.

mtmail 8y ago
175k even if you refer to the study "International Mobil" using 2009-2013 timefame [1]. 140k of those come back, they calculate 25k Germans net leaving per year. 70% are high qualified. The study says salary is not the main factor [2]. The 25k are offset by equal immigration from other EU countries [3] 1] https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/warum-deutsche-auswandern-geld-ist-nicht-der-hauptgrund/11482856.html https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/warum-deutsche-auswa... 2] https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/deutsche-auswanderer-dann-geht-doch/11483024.html https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/deutsche-auswanderer... 3] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/arbeitsmarkt/mehr-abwanderer-als-rueckkehrer-jung-hochqualifiziert-ausgewandert-deutschland-laufen-die-besten-talente-davon_id_4534094.html https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/arbeitsmarkt/mehr-abwande...
novaRom 8y ago
And terribly expensive rents, at least in big cities like Munich. Many engineers would like to move to US, but it’s much harder than to move to some other less expensive place within EU.
- tunareter 8y ago
  I know more developers who would laugh at the idea of going to the US than wanting to go to the US. (Mostly qol reasons.) And rents are still far away from the likes of SF/NYC/Seattle.
pandaman 8y ago
The amazing thing is, it appears, that they still manage to get people from the US. A significant portion of my Linkedin spam is coming from EU/UK recruiters who evidently believe they have a chance to poach people from here. I figure they would not have been doing this if there were no takers.

thadk 8y ago

Varieties of Capitalism literature does a pretty good job describing what compromises may be happening here: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~phall/VofCIntro.pdf http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~phall/VofCIntro.pdf When I was first introduced to this concept, someone pointed out this partly indicates why 3D printing innovations are introduced by US firms and often then refined by German or other coordinated market economy-based firms.

myrandomcomment 8y ago

I wanted to hire someone that worked for a local Japanese company to come and work at my startup. Just handed then an offer letter that was 2x their current pay package. Done. Still cheaper then US package. It is sad what very good sr. people get paid in Japan. Makes it much simpler to hire them away.

reustle 8y ago
Unless they will be based in Japan, it's not that easy all the time.
- myrandomcomment 8y ago
  This was hiring local in Tokyo for a Tokyo based role.

dennisgorelik 8y ago

"Unhappy with what he saw as Toshiba's failure to reward his work, Masuoka quit to become a professor at Tohoku University." That is a weird choice, considering that he was looking for a better recognition. He should have pursued a career at one of competitor firms, possibly in the US.