3 ms·

I worked in Japan for ~7 years. I don't think I can relate with any of this, for starters I think not speaking Japanese relatively fluently would completely sha

by muyuu 7mo ago

I worked in Japan for ~7 years. I don't think I can relate with any of this, for starters I think not speaking Japanese relatively fluently would completely shape your experience from the get go. Granted, this was a long time ago and even seeing non-Japanese around in Tokyo was rare, unlike now. But in the office environment let alone in tech, I doubt you can really make it work without not just speaking Japanese, but being considerably adapted to their culture. I think the chances of the dev just moving to Japan to work in tech and be anything other than a total outcast are poor. Which is ok if you plan to just do a year or two maybe. Even the author himself first got well acquainted with the language and culture then moved into development. And even so, this is hardly for but a select few to just fit into this lifestyle. For North Americans or Europeans, the intersection of people who can make it work and are also incentivised to make it work looks infinitesimally small to me, esp. if you can opt for jobs in the industry in America or even Europe. It's a totally different story for someone from say South Korea or Taiwan, or to a lesser extent other Asian countries. For starters, coming in as a junior dev in Japan or as a translator won't be a massive pay downgrade for them. For South Koreans and Taiwanese the culture will be a lot more familiar, although there will of course still be some friction. So imagine coming in as mid-manager or higher, wow it sounds like quite the experiment to me knowing the place well. CEO with capital, maybe. But good luck with that.

socalgal2 7mo ago
I agree with you. The person in the article worked at Mercari which I used to go their tech meetups. The moment you entered it was as though you teleported into an SF/SV meetup. Mostly English speaking people with English presentations in a room with an SV like microkitchen, free SV snacks, etc... That's not the norm at all.
- axpy906 7mo ago
  Yeah, saw Mericari and had some flashing lights go off. Most Japanese tech is in - well Japanese - companies like Mericari, Woven and Rakuten are exceptions, hence you get a blog post on how to speak English properly.
cdavid 7mo ago
The typical solution is to work in one of the "global" (aka American) companies in Japan: google, amz, apple, ms, etc. At least for now there are enough jobs across all those companies for motivated foreigners, though that could change.
deaux 7mo ago
> Granted, this was a long time ago and even seeing non-Japanese around in Tokyo was rare, unlike now. Please say "non-East Asians" when that's what you mean. There were already loads of Chinese and Koreans around in Tokyo 7 years ago. > For North Americans or Europeans, the intersection of people who can make it work and are also incentivised to make it work looks infinitesimally small to me, esp. if you can opt for jobs in the industry in America or even Europe. The cultural adaptation you're talking about applies just as much to China and Korea, yet there's a huge reason for Europeans (not Americans, but they're the sole outlier) to work there as SWEs - post-tax + post-big-city-CoL, salaries are a lot better until you get to 10+ YoE. People tend to look at London or Amsterdam stated salaries and think this is impossible, but the tax and housing cost differences completely change the equation. 40k EUR at 40% tax is the same as 30k EUR at 20% tax. In big European capitals, for 800 EUR/month you get a parking space or a place to share with 3 others. In China or Korea in a tier 1 city for the same money you can rent a nice, newly built place for two (so 400 EUR/month/person) in a central location with private indoor parking and great transit links.
- muyuu 7mo ago
  > Please say "non-East Asians" when that's what you mean. There were already loads of Chinese and Koreans around in Tokyo 7 years ago. it wasn't 7 years ago, it was 20 years ago, 7 years up to 2006 there were some Chinese, but really few and far between and in the Kanto area, mostly in Yokohama i was studying Chinese back then, and I struggled to find people to practice > The cultural adaptation you're talking about applies just as much to China and Korea, yet there's a huge reason for Europeans (not Americans, but they're the sole outlier) to work there as SWEs - post-tax + post-big-city-CoL, salaries are a lot better until you get to 10+ YoE. probably it does - certainly Korea, China not as much - and also differently, and the topic here is Japan > People tend to look at London or Amsterdam stated salaries and think this is impossible, but the tax and housing cost differences completely change the equation. 40k EUR at 40% tax is the same as 30k EUR at 20% tax. 40K is extremely low in tech, and where are you paying 40% tax on 40k?? >In big European capitals, for 800 EUR/month you get a parking space or a place to share with 3 others. In China or Korea in a tier 1 city for the same money you can rent a nice, newly built place for two (so 400 EUR/month/person) in a central location with private indoor parking and great transit links. I can't speak of living in China or Korea, I have only visited. It wouldn't cross my mind to live in China, for reasons beyond the scope of this post. RE in Japan is currently much better than in say the UK or SanFran or NYC. MUCH better. This wasn't the case when I was there, it was comparable or even more expensive. However the yen was stronger and salaries in tech were, although lower, much closer than they are now. If you are a computer scientist or an electrical engineer, you will easily make double or triple the salary, so rent doesn't make up for it. This is a volatile situation though, right now the situation for juniors seems to have deteriorated massively everywhere, so it's really hard to tell how it would work out either way. But unless you really want to learn the language and the culture and are willing to make strong sacrifices for it, moving to Japan in order to work in tech sounds like a crazy proposition.

by muyuu 7mo ago

socalgal2 7mo ago

I agree with you. The person in the article worked at Mercari which I used to go their tech meetups. The moment you entered it was as though you teleported into an SF/SV meetup. Mostly English speaking people with English presentations in a room with an SV like microkitchen, free SV snacks, etc... That's not the norm at all.

axpy906 7mo ago
Yeah, saw Mericari and had some flashing lights go off. Most Japanese tech is in - well Japanese - companies like Mericari, Woven and Rakuten are exceptions, hence you get a blog post on how to speak English properly.

cdavid 7mo ago

The typical solution is to work in one of the "global" (aka American) companies in Japan: google, amz, apple, ms, etc. At least for now there are enough jobs across all those companies for motivated foreigners, though that could change.

deaux 7mo ago

> Granted, this was a long time ago and even seeing non-Japanese around in Tokyo was rare, unlike now. Please say "non-East Asians" when that's what you mean. There were already loads of Chinese and Koreans around in Tokyo 7 years ago. > For North Americans or Europeans, the intersection of people who can make it work and are also incentivised to make it work looks infinitesimally small to me, esp. if you can opt for jobs in the industry in America or even Europe. The cultural adaptation you're talking about applies just as much to China and Korea, yet there's a huge reason for Europeans (not Americans, but they're the sole outlier) to work there as SWEs - post-tax + post-big-city-CoL, salaries are a lot better until you get to 10+ YoE. People tend to look at London or Amsterdam stated salaries and think this is impossible, but the tax and housing cost differences completely change the equation. 40k EUR at 40% tax is the same as 30k EUR at 20% tax. In big European capitals, for 800 EUR/month you get a parking space or a place to share with 3 others. In China or Korea in a tier 1 city for the same money you can rent a nice, newly built place for two (so 400 EUR/month/person) in a central location with private indoor parking and great transit links.

muyuu 7mo ago
> Please say "non-East Asians" when that's what you mean. There were already loads of Chinese and Koreans around in Tokyo 7 years ago. it wasn't 7 years ago, it was 20 years ago, 7 years up to 2006 there were some Chinese, but really few and far between and in the Kanto area, mostly in Yokohama i was studying Chinese back then, and I struggled to find people to practice > The cultural adaptation you're talking about applies just as much to China and Korea, yet there's a huge reason for Europeans (not Americans, but they're the sole outlier) to work there as SWEs - post-tax + post-big-city-CoL, salaries are a lot better until you get to 10+ YoE. probably it does - certainly Korea, China not as much - and also differently, and the topic here is Japan > People tend to look at London or Amsterdam stated salaries and think this is impossible, but the tax and housing cost differences completely change the equation. 40k EUR at 40% tax is the same as 30k EUR at 20% tax. 40K is extremely low in tech, and where are you paying 40% tax on 40k?? >In big European capitals, for 800 EUR/month you get a parking space or a place to share with 3 others. In China or Korea in a tier 1 city for the same money you can rent a nice, newly built place for two (so 400 EUR/month/person) in a central location with private indoor parking and great transit links. I can't speak of living in China or Korea, I have only visited. It wouldn't cross my mind to live in China, for reasons beyond the scope of this post. RE in Japan is currently much better than in say the UK or SanFran or NYC. MUCH better. This wasn't the case when I was there, it was comparable or even more expensive. However the yen was stronger and salaries in tech were, although lower, much closer than they are now. If you are a computer scientist or an electrical engineer, you will easily make double or triple the salary, so rent doesn't make up for it. This is a volatile situation though, right now the situation for juniors seems to have deteriorated massively everywhere, so it's really hard to tell how it would work out either way. But unless you really want to learn the language and the culture and are willing to make strong sacrifices for it, moving to Japan in order to work in tech sounds like a crazy proposition.