5 ms·

> In 2011 I graduated with a Master's degree from Brown University and then moved to Japan and got a job as a software engineer. I'm curious why you would do t

> In 2011 I graduated with a Master's degree from Brown University and then moved to Japan and got a job as a software engineer. I'm curious why you would do this. In any other occupation, I could understand it. In many respects, Japan is a more advanced civilization than the United States. But as a SWE, there is nowhere else in the world that you can make a higher salary than the United States. Even if your long term ambition was to move to Japan, wouldn't you be better off becoming financially independent first and then moving?

asutekku 6y ago
Why would I want to move to the US if the high salary / working at FAANG is not the most important thing to me and I’m already from a developed country? For some reason a lot of people assume high salary is the most important aspect of life. Sure, US SWE salaries are absurdly high, but SWE earns relatively well in almost any other developed country too,
verroq 6y ago
Because you actually get to live there?
alextheparrot 6y ago
There’s a certain form of thinking I’ve become more aligned with, which is that not everything we do needs to be optimised. Additionally, trying to optimise everything may reduce the overall success compared to the naive “just do it” approach. I assume this is something that is person valued, and the easiest way to ensure it happened was to just do it. The optimisation proposed also has a hidden risk of never doing it at all, or other things getting in the way.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  > not everything we do needs to be optimised That reminds me of the Japanese craft of kintsugi, where broken/damaged everyday household objects honored and elevated above their station via repairs with gold inlay. It’s finding perfection in the mundane, leaving something undone, just so. Very Japanese vibe. Some things are better off left broken in view of being later restored, rather than being discarded and instantly replaced with nondescript sameness. Newness itself isn’t bad, but it is alluring; and yet, we can’t leave our culture by the wayside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi
- mcguire 6y ago
  Many things that are worth doing aren't worth doing well.
gas9S9zw3P9c 6y ago
Not everyone is optimizing for making money. I left a Silicon Valley FAANG for another country more than five years ago, even though I was making ~3x there compared to what I made in the new place. Even with the higher living costs, that's still a lot more money. I regret nothing. I'm so much happier here than I ever was in the Bay Area, and I doing this early in my life allowed me to have a lot of fun and stories to tell. Why would I "waste" my precious 20s and early 30s being miserable and retire at 35? Who even wants to retire? I wouldn't even know what to do with that money? Buy a house and sit in the garden the whole day? :) Not the life I wanted. This whole "make a lot of $$$ and be miserable in your 20s to optimize for the future" is such a common thing I see in SV and HN as part of the narratives that these VCs are pushing. I think you have it all backwards. You can make money any time. You can never back to your 20s and 30s where you don't have health problems, are full of energy, and have an easy time making friends.
- foepys 6y ago
  > Why would I "waste" my precious 20s and early 30s being miserable and retire at 35? Who even wants to retire? A few months ago I read a comment from somebody on a documentary about people optimizing for retirement in their 30s and it stuck with me: "Live like a caveman until you are 35, then retire and live like a caveman until you die."
  - gas9S9zw3P9c 6y ago
    Another illusion is that these are absolute numbers. They're relative. When you're young, $100k is a lot of money. Enough to be happy and worry-free. Once you have that, you need $1M in cash to be happy and retire. Once you have $1M but realize everyone around you is making $1M/year to retire at $10M you suddenly need $10M. This will repeat itself, and you'll never have enough. You'll just become more miserable realizing how much more everyone else has. Yeah, platitudes. We all know this, right? Turns out, this cycle is totally unconscious and incredibly hard to break once you're in it and surrounded by such people. Get away while you can. At least for me, this was one of the reasons why working at FAANG where everyone is striving for $$$ made me miserable. It gave me such a warped view of the world.
bojo 6y ago
I did this and lived there for 11 years, half of it working at mobile game companies at scale. Yeah, comparatively the salaries suck compared to the US, but I got to experience a culture completely different from my own the entire time. Only optimizing for cash seems like a waste of a life, so many interesting things to do besides chase money. I’m now back in the States though, and all that skill building I did in Japan paid off. Making boatloads managing a software engineering department.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nonbirithm 6y ago
  I've always wanted to live in Japan. I sometimes feel like I'm optimizing way too much for money, and reading the article it seems like I only have 5 more years to practically have a chance at being able to live in Japan. So I'm convinced that maybe some things are worth giving up for happiness. So what am I supposed to do in order to accomplish the goal of working in Japan? I've self-studied the language since high school and would say I'm competent at reading and listening but not production. I haven't taken the JLPT yet but I would study for it if I'm going to take this seriously. I also have a lot of savings so money is not really as much of a concern. I would really, really want to if time is quickly running out for me, but I don't understand what relationship I have to the country that would merit being able to stay there at least on a work visa besides the fact that I want to live there and enjoy the culture, which TFA states is not good enough of a reason. The author's NLP job was itself related to the Japanese language, but there is no specific connection to Japanese that my skills would provide. And I haven't so much as gotten a response back from my dozen attempts at an internal transfer at a Top 100 company. Sometimes it feels like the only reason you're able to get a job is because you know the right people, and I don't personally know anyone living in Japan.
  - bojo 6y ago
    As long as you have a 4 year university degree you can apply for and get sponsorship from a company if they are willing to do the paperwork for a work visa, and just renew as required. Knowing Japanese helps a lot, but some tech companies hire English speakers - possibly because most of the employees are foreigners anyways. You can apply directly to companies if you can manage to track down their career pages (and read it if no English version), no prior connections required. However, it’ll be hit or miss as to whether they will sponsor you, and a big question mark if American during this COVID crisis.
bleepblorp 6y ago
US high-skill jobs optimize exclusively for high numeric salary while the culture in other developed countries allows high-skill people to have a subjectively higher quality of life while earning less money. The US can't be beat if what you want out of life is a big house, a big SUV, and as much money invested as possible. If you want things like a lot of paid vacation time, the option to live in a walkable community, working public transit, more psychological and economic security in the face of major illness or injury, etc, then you'll get a better deal elsewhere. Most places other than Japan also offer a much better work-life balance. Which is better really depends on what kind of lifestyle you want.

asutekku 6y ago

Why would I want to move to the US if the high salary / working at FAANG is not the most important thing to me and I’m already from a developed country? For some reason a lot of people assume high salary is the most important aspect of life. Sure, US SWE salaries are absurdly high, but SWE earns relatively well in almost any other developed country too,

verroq 6y ago

Because you actually get to live there?

alextheparrot 6y ago

There’s a certain form of thinking I’ve become more aligned with, which is that not everything we do needs to be optimised. Additionally, trying to optimise everything may reduce the overall success compared to the naive “just do it” approach. I assume this is something that is person valued, and the easiest way to ensure it happened was to just do it. The optimisation proposed also has a hidden risk of never doing it at all, or other things getting in the way.

aspenmayer 6y ago
> not everything we do needs to be optimised That reminds me of the Japanese craft of kintsugi, where broken/damaged everyday household objects honored and elevated above their station via repairs with gold inlay. It’s finding perfection in the mundane, leaving something undone, just so. Very Japanese vibe. Some things are better off left broken in view of being later restored, rather than being discarded and instantly replaced with nondescript sameness. Newness itself isn’t bad, but it is alluring; and yet, we can’t leave our culture by the wayside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi
mcguire 6y ago
Many things that are worth doing aren't worth doing well.

gas9S9zw3P9c 6y ago

Not everyone is optimizing for making money. I left a Silicon Valley FAANG for another country more than five years ago, even though I was making ~3x there compared to what I made in the new place. Even with the higher living costs, that's still a lot more money. I regret nothing. I'm so much happier here than I ever was in the Bay Area, and I doing this early in my life allowed me to have a lot of fun and stories to tell. Why would I "waste" my precious 20s and early 30s being miserable and retire at 35? Who even wants to retire? I wouldn't even know what to do with that money? Buy a house and sit in the garden the whole day? :) Not the life I wanted. This whole "make a lot of $$$ and be miserable in your 20s to optimize for the future" is such a common thing I see in SV and HN as part of the narratives that these VCs are pushing. I think you have it all backwards. You can make money any time. You can never back to your 20s and 30s where you don't have health problems, are full of energy, and have an easy time making friends.

foepys 6y ago
> Why would I "waste" my precious 20s and early 30s being miserable and retire at 35? Who even wants to retire? A few months ago I read a comment from somebody on a documentary about people optimizing for retirement in their 30s and it stuck with me: "Live like a caveman until you are 35, then retire and live like a caveman until you die."
- gas9S9zw3P9c 6y ago
  Another illusion is that these are absolute numbers. They're relative. When you're young, $100k is a lot of money. Enough to be happy and worry-free. Once you have that, you need $1M in cash to be happy and retire. Once you have $1M but realize everyone around you is making $1M/year to retire at $10M you suddenly need $10M. This will repeat itself, and you'll never have enough. You'll just become more miserable realizing how much more everyone else has. Yeah, platitudes. We all know this, right? Turns out, this cycle is totally unconscious and incredibly hard to break once you're in it and surrounded by such people. Get away while you can. At least for me, this was one of the reasons why working at FAANG where everyone is striving for $$$ made me miserable. It gave me such a warped view of the world.

bojo 6y ago

I did this and lived there for 11 years, half of it working at mobile game companies at scale. Yeah, comparatively the salaries suck compared to the US, but I got to experience a culture completely different from my own the entire time. Only optimizing for cash seems like a waste of a life, so many interesting things to do besides chase money. I’m now back in the States though, and all that skill building I did in Japan paid off. Making boatloads managing a software engineering department.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nonbirithm 6y ago
I've always wanted to live in Japan. I sometimes feel like I'm optimizing way too much for money, and reading the article it seems like I only have 5 more years to practically have a chance at being able to live in Japan. So I'm convinced that maybe some things are worth giving up for happiness. So what am I supposed to do in order to accomplish the goal of working in Japan? I've self-studied the language since high school and would say I'm competent at reading and listening but not production. I haven't taken the JLPT yet but I would study for it if I'm going to take this seriously. I also have a lot of savings so money is not really as much of a concern. I would really, really want to if time is quickly running out for me, but I don't understand what relationship I have to the country that would merit being able to stay there at least on a work visa besides the fact that I want to live there and enjoy the culture, which TFA states is not good enough of a reason. The author's NLP job was itself related to the Japanese language, but there is no specific connection to Japanese that my skills would provide. And I haven't so much as gotten a response back from my dozen attempts at an internal transfer at a Top 100 company. Sometimes it feels like the only reason you're able to get a job is because you know the right people, and I don't personally know anyone living in Japan.
- bojo 6y ago
  As long as you have a 4 year university degree you can apply for and get sponsorship from a company if they are willing to do the paperwork for a work visa, and just renew as required. Knowing Japanese helps a lot, but some tech companies hire English speakers - possibly because most of the employees are foreigners anyways. You can apply directly to companies if you can manage to track down their career pages (and read it if no English version), no prior connections required. However, it’ll be hit or miss as to whether they will sponsor you, and a big question mark if American during this COVID crisis.

bleepblorp 6y ago

US high-skill jobs optimize exclusively for high numeric salary while the culture in other developed countries allows high-skill people to have a subjectively higher quality of life while earning less money. The US can't be beat if what you want out of life is a big house, a big SUV, and as much money invested as possible. If you want things like a lot of paid vacation time, the option to live in a walkable community, working public transit, more psychological and economic security in the face of major illness or injury, etc, then you'll get a better deal elsewhere. Most places other than Japan also offer a much better work-life balance. Which is better really depends on what kind of lifestyle you want.