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The comments here are talking about how that's the entertainment industry for you, and that's true, but it's also Japan, where salaries are much lower in genera

The comments here are talking about how that's the entertainment industry for you, and that's true, but it's also Japan, where salaries are much lower in general than in the US or Europe. Per a quick Google search, at current exchange rates, it's not uncommon to see programmers with 2-3 years of experience earning $30K/year USD there, sometimes lower than that. Japan's economy has been stagnating for decades and that's reflected across the board, not just in entertainment.

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neaden 3y ago
Labor conditions in Japan in general, in terms of pay and hours, seem so much worse then nations with similar per capita GDP I don't really get why.
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ekianjo 3y ago
> at current exchange rates Looking at exchange rates is the wrong way of looking at things since they vary widely in the space of 5 years or so. You need to look at purchasing power in their local currency. Like eating out in japan is WAY cheaper than in Europe for anything comparable. And looking at the bubble that is programmers salaries is ridiculous as a benchmark, because then it mostly depends on whether there are large actors to drive such salaries up in said countries.
franciscop 3y ago
> (It's another reason why, as a Westerner, you almost certainly do not want to try to live in Japan.) This is a really bad take, I've lived in Tokyo for 6 years. As a western developer (in IT as we say here in Japan), you will most certain improve your quality of life by moving to e.g. Tokyo vs most USA cities. While what you said it's true, there's also other truths: - As others comment, as a foreigner working in Tokyo with some experience, you can opt to much higher salaries than the local graduates (for so many reasons). It'd be easy to make 6-8M JPY in Japanese companies, and depending on other factors 8-10M JPY is not rare. Since we are in HN, I'm sure many here can even opt for 10M+ JPY. - If you can, just work remotely for US/EU while living here, or for a branch of a EU/US company, since salaries will be much higher. That is true. That way you can make 10-30M JPY easily, and with that you can live _very_ comfortable. Only issue you might have is how you manage to get a Visa. For reference, you can live well as a single guy in Tokyo with 4-5M JPY. Lifestyle is different though, so it depends on what you value, e.g. houses ARE smaller, but neighborhoods are walkable and beautiful (highly depends where you come from). If you do want to have your cake and eat to, meaning living in a "very big" house for Japanese standards while having everything else nice from Japan, yeah you'll need to be making 8M+ JPY for sure.

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neaden 3y ago

Labor conditions in Japan in general, in terms of pay and hours, seem so much worse then nations with similar per capita GDP I don't really get why.

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ekianjo 3y ago

> at current exchange rates Looking at exchange rates is the wrong way of looking at things since they vary widely in the space of 5 years or so. You need to look at purchasing power in their local currency. Like eating out in japan is WAY cheaper than in Europe for anything comparable. And looking at the bubble that is programmers salaries is ridiculous as a benchmark, because then it mostly depends on whether there are large actors to drive such salaries up in said countries.

franciscop 3y ago

> (It's another reason why, as a Westerner, you almost certainly do not want to try to live in Japan.) This is a really bad take, I've lived in Tokyo for 6 years. As a western developer (in IT as we say here in Japan), you will most certain improve your quality of life by moving to e.g. Tokyo vs most USA cities. While what you said it's true, there's also other truths: - As others comment, as a foreigner working in Tokyo with some experience, you can opt to much higher salaries than the local graduates (for so many reasons). It'd be easy to make 6-8M JPY in Japanese companies, and depending on other factors 8-10M JPY is not rare. Since we are in HN, I'm sure many here can even opt for 10M+ JPY. - If you can, just work remotely for US/EU while living here, or for a branch of a EU/US company, since salaries will be much higher. That is true. That way you can make 10-30M JPY easily, and with that you can live _very_ comfortable. Only issue you might have is how you manage to get a Visa. For reference, you can live well as a single guy in Tokyo with 4-5M JPY. Lifestyle is different though, so it depends on what you value, e.g. houses ARE smaller, but neighborhoods are walkable and beautiful (highly depends where you come from). If you do want to have your cake and eat to, meaning living in a "very big" house for Japanese standards while having everything else nice from Japan, yeah you'll need to be making 8M+ JPY for sure.