4 ms·

If you aren't Japanese, Japan is not a good place to further your career.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
anamax 18y ago
One of my friends who has made it "biggest" in SV spent a couple of years working in Japan. He thinks that those years helped him a lot.
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  What was he doing there? I spent a year working in Japan. It has had little impact on my career. If anything, it was a negative. It may be a different story if you go over there to start Yahoo! Japan, or launch your street fashion brand.
  - anamax 18y ago
    He worked as both an engineer and a "help sell things" person. He worked for an American company and a Japanese company. (I forget the order.)
ncarlson 18y ago
Why? I disagree. If you go over there to teach English or engage in an unrelated job, sure, it's not a healthy career move. But there are plenty of large multinational companies working out of Tokyo.
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  Even at a large multinational, the experience you get in Japan is not applicable anywhere else. When you move somewhere else, nobody cares about your experience abroad and the language and cultural skills are no longer useful. Few people would consider moving from the USA to Germany or France a career building move for a software developer. Yet, there is some mystique about Japan. It might be a cool place for international banking, or importing and exporting obscure luxury items, but it's actually a bad place for a software developer. Programming is considered a low-status job for dorks. The techniques are bad and outdated. The work culture is anti-conducive to creative software development. There aren't many good Japanese programmers. The ones that are good are almost all indie developers - it's not like they're hiring. I mean, just think about it... where would you even work? Try to name 10 places where it would be good to work as a software developer in Japan. I don't want to dissuade someone from living abroad. I've lived in Japan and Australia and had a great time. However, if I had wanted to focus on a software career it would have made more sense to just get a job at Google.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

One of my friends who has made it "biggest" in SV spent a couple of years working in Japan. He thinks that those years helped him a lot.

menloparkbum 18y ago
What was he doing there? I spent a year working in Japan. It has had little impact on my career. If anything, it was a negative. It may be a different story if you go over there to start Yahoo! Japan, or launch your street fashion brand.
- anamax 18y ago
  He worked as both an engineer and a "help sell things" person. He worked for an American company and a Japanese company. (I forget the order.)

ncarlson 18y ago

Why? I disagree. If you go over there to teach English or engage in an unrelated job, sure, it's not a healthy career move. But there are plenty of large multinational companies working out of Tokyo.

menloparkbum 18y ago
Even at a large multinational, the experience you get in Japan is not applicable anywhere else. When you move somewhere else, nobody cares about your experience abroad and the language and cultural skills are no longer useful. Few people would consider moving from the USA to Germany or France a career building move for a software developer. Yet, there is some mystique about Japan. It might be a cool place for international banking, or importing and exporting obscure luxury items, but it's actually a bad place for a software developer. Programming is considered a low-status job for dorks. The techniques are bad and outdated. The work culture is anti-conducive to creative software development. There aren't many good Japanese programmers. The ones that are good are almost all indie developers - it's not like they're hiring. I mean, just think about it... where would you even work? Try to name 10 places where it would be good to work as a software developer in Japan. I don't want to dissuade someone from living abroad. I've lived in Japan and Australia and had a great time. However, if I had wanted to focus on a software career it would have made more sense to just get a job at Google.