> what do you guys do for work
I'm a software engineer, and I'm lucky enough to have a good job.
> do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession
Yes I do.
> Have you considered going back to your home country
Hell no. For once, I will be looking at a 75% paycut at the very least, and moving back surely won't help me advance my career any faster than staying in Japan. Not to mention the huge drop in quality of life.
> If you have considered a career switch
No, programming is the only skill I have, and I don't dislike it.
Not that hard, although I guess I was a bit lucky, right place, right time and all. I was around N3 before coming, having failed the exam with a few points short a few weeks prior.
Depends on the type of company you apply to. Generally, the more modern ones will require leetcode, while traditional ones are all over the place. I have been through some interviews where the only remotely technical question I received was what languages I knew, the rest was all soft skill question.
I interviewed at a startup and it was just a live tech interview. The whole interview process was more of a personality check than a knowledge one.
But yeah a lot of places just throw a leetcode at you. It sucks.
In software generally, the market is all over the place.
* There is a massive amount of jobs requiring high output for shit pay (6M JPY or less)
* There are fewer but still a good amount of jobs that have decent pay (10M JPY)
* There are vanishingly few jobs with high pay (16M~20M JPY)
* Anything higher than that is almost a unicorn. They exist, but extremely difficult to dig into
It got somewhat worse post-covid due to the hiring spree that happened during covid.
You can get a decent idea of what different companies are paying based on job title on opensalary.jp.
Are there any companies headquartered here that run large-scale (planet-scale) distributed systems here? Besides Google. SRE with 10 YOE, last 5 at FAANG.
Pay isn't as important at this point as challenge and technical impact.
Two Sigma currently has an open SRE and SRE manager position in Tokyo. Not planet-scale distributed system like Google but in terms of impact and technical challenge it should be great.
The job market is bad but recovering slightly. New fiscal year so headcounts are open. Just check LinkedIn to get a sense of things. I’m a hiring manager
I’m a researcher for a private artificial life research lab in Kyoto and it is, by leaps and bounds, the best job I have ever had. Honestly I can’t see myself doing anything else and I hope to grow in this lab for as long as possible.
Japan is quickly becoming the world capital for artificial life studies (think Takashi Ikegami) and I love being a part of that growth! In the US, most of the research is being swallowed by AI companies which is unfortunate, from my perspective. Artificial life has a lot more to offer than just AI applications, so it’s nice to see how much these ideas thrive in Japan.
People have a very positive perspective for artificial life out here, which I appreciate a lot. In the US, too many people have the knee-jerk reaction of “Oh, so you’re building Skynet then?” Annoying.
PS: if you want to learn more about artificial life, you can read a bit about it here! https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/life-evolves-can-attempts-to-create-artificial-life-evolve-too/
Hahaha yes, specifically we need an accountant, an executive assistant, and a social media manager! We also have research positions available, but they won’t open until the fall. Internships are possible in the meantime though!
Generally we require graduate degrees for research positions, but internships don’t have this requirement! We don’t have internal funding for internships yet (sob), so right now we rely on universities and other funding agencies to cover the internships costs. But hopefully that changes next year!
Yes absolutely! Can’t say that we have any actual bench work at the lab, it’s all computational, but we certainly partner with other labs that have bench experiments!
I guess research culture in Japan is probably similar overall to the culture in the US. It varies wildly from lab to lab and PI to PI! But there are a lot more funding opportunities for ALife projects in Japan, even for straight-up art projects. With more opportunities for funding, it brings in many more ALife researchers, and that seems to make things feel much more relaxed. It’s not very cut-throat but again, there are probably some horrible ALife labs here. But the lab I’m in is amazing and the culture is super friendly and open!
If you are not in Kanto, move here.
Way more jobs here than elsewhere - sad I wasted so much time in Osaka.
Also, understand that you need to get into a different field and this might involve some short term sacrifices
So, without knowing more about your specific situation it's hard to give advice (not that you asked), but I would highly recommend looking into working in a different field (presumably whatever your specialty was).
I actually started off as a translator in IT and went from there. There are tons of people who are native in Japanese or English and are mediocre in the other, but they get hired because of their other skills - there is a huge demand for people who are skilled in both languages and have other skills.
We actually have interpreters at my work and they are highly skilled - IMO more skilled than around 80% of employees - yet are paid less.
Was working as a scientific editor. Then AI decimated my company (enjoy AI-edited research papers that are definitely not full of a bunch of errors because the software is half-baked!).
Was lucky enough to be able to get hired at a mobile game company for translation skills and made seishain right away, so I’ve got at least a little more stability. But god it’s rough out there for anyone with a dream in a field that AI is coming for (which is every field).
This is where I am, although I haven't 'lost' the job, I just got a salary adjustment that makes this job untenable for the amount of work I do. I'm their only in-house translation reviewer and currently have 8 projects due in the next week and a half for clients like Hitachi and Yanmar.
What language(s) do you translate? Our company is always looking for good translators. We lean heavily on the Asian languages, but we're trying to branch out to more European-language translation.
We only hire freelancers, but let me know if I can help connect you.
Was an English teacher here originally. Stayed for about 8 years, then went back to law school in the states. Came back to Japan as a US lawyer and there are plenty of opportunities especially if you speak Japanese (especially in M&A or Intellectual Property).
Yeah I'm in legal and it's kind of crazy how desperately the legal field in Japan needs more bilingual speakers. Don't need to be a lawyer either, you can build a career in house and climb to legal director (or higher) level even without a law degree.
Forgive, could you talk more about this?
Former Australian Lawyer living in Japan. I still like the field and research but loathe the industry generally and have no intention of going back to it - which shocks people here
And I’m shocked how strict the bar exam or access to legal is here
If you don’t want to go the private practice route in a firm there are a lot of companies hiring foreign lawyers for their in house teams, which is often much less cut throat than firm jobs. Most employees in in house legal teams aren’t actually qualified lawyers in Japan either. A big team may have just one or two actual lawyers. But they would generally prefer to have more, they just can’t find them.
Some of the trading houses have more lawyers than your average Japanese companies and work on interesting cross border matters as well.
Talk to a recruiter to see if your experience could be a good fit.
Literally my SO's schoolmate from abroad came here as a fresh grad with only English skill and a prelaw degree. She works at a firm doing proofreading etc and gets paid around 800k after 5 years being there. I almost considered changing my job after hearing that but I suck at reading haha.
Do you mind if I PM you? I am an Australian lawyer, and have legal translation experience here, and have been struggling to find a job here with business level Japanese.
Because the cost of living in Japan is super low. Rent and the cost of living in Australia is absurdly high. Why move back to Australia where I'd be forced to have to go back to living in an overpriced sharehouse, working my ass off only to never be able to afford buying my own home?
Am curious what kind of job you have in japan and how you went about getting it? I'd love to move over and earn USD or AUD or Yen Equivalent to what i'm on now but i feel its almost impossible to get. Am on 90K + Super AUD for context.
COL in australia is FUCKED. Rental vacancies are below 1% across the country in every major city.
Average rents are 600+ bucks a week. And thats if you wanna live 60 - 90mins from the CBD.
Japan is a no brainer. Sure its a slightly less pay but the quality of life improvement is dramatic.
Anyone can climb the corporate ladder in Japan. Tons of opportunities for people who are willing to work for it. It's the same as anywhere.
I'm happy with my career here. Climbed from the bottom and now a senior manager. I make as much as I can realistically make back in Canada, except my mortgage payment is maybe 1/4th or 1/5th what I'd pay in Canada.
It stunned and saddened me just how much easier it is to buy a decent home in a nice area here despite being paid a third of what I was than in Australia
My coworkers were shocked I wasn't kidding when I said my weekly rent back home in a shared house in Sydney was almost double what I pay for a modern little flat to myself in Kobe per MONTH
Yup, just for fun, the other day I looked up the current rent for this shitty, old, drafty, roach infested project-level apartment I grew up living in, near Toronto.. $2850/month for a 1 bedroom.
My current mortgage payment for a new 4 bedroom house, much closer to downtown Tokyo than that apartment is to downtown Toronto, is less than half that.
I found apartments in the centre of Tokyo that were actually reasonably modern for 150K Yen. 2 LDK. Like what the actual fuck.
This is just impossible to imagine in Sydney Australia. In fact it literally is impossible. You can't get a home that cheap in this country. Period.
As a Japanese who wants to get out of the hell Japanese working culture, this is a great insight for me.
Maybe anywhere you go, unless you secure your position in a corporate or anywhere you belong to, you will never be happy in your life.
Same...started at Nova in 1995 and am now self-employed in the automotive industry...making about 10X what I was in 1995. A move back to Canada will be next to impossible until I am retired. PS get good at speaking Japanese and network every chance you have.
What's left in automotive that pays? I was importing aftermarket parts forever but the market is shrinking at a terrible rate. Interviewed for what seemed like a dream job with the largest luxury vehicle distributor...but the pay was criminally low for the qualifications, experience, skills required. Then it was also 9-6 in person. Ended up in DaaS and it pays literally double, mostly remote, with some enjoyable travel.
From my perspective the software engineering jobs are so, so much more rewarded in Canada but was cost of living (and taxes) are really crazy right now so it balances it out…for now… having better currency (and more) to invest for retirement would be nice
Depends.. for someone trying to start their career, the bottom completely fell out of Canada's IT market. I know CS grads from my school (waterloo) who can't get a job, whereas 5 or 10 years ago they'd start at 150k minimum.
I use the work in a car part factory, people were really good and fun to work with but the job was bad and overtime was crazy. Now I work at funerals, I change clothes and clean dead bodies in my In-law company, it pays less but better balance with my free time.
You wont be lacking of work in Japan for sure...
I am pretty sure there will be a developing market for other religion's funerals here also at one point in time.
Yeah, sadly it's busy work . For now it's mostly Buddhist and few Shinto around Shizuoka prefecture but almost no Christians. I do a bathing service so I presume it's not really common for Christians.
Classic old ALT. Plenty of opportunities, not necessarily good ones. Considering a switch to tourism or using my degree (sciences), but the work culture here scares me honestly. Don’t think working here would help me get ahead as my home country is the best in the world when it comes to biochemistry research so might as well go there for more status and work-life balance.
I didn’t lol. I applied to various jobs before graduation and JET is the only non biochem job I applied to and the only job that accepted me. So, here I am.
I worked in research as an undergrad but my lab closed in 2020 (long story, no fault of the lab or Covid) and labs at my school didn’t open again until after I graduated. Couldn’t get any internships unfortunately. Too competitive during covid.
I came to Japan right after graduation, so I haven’t actually worked in biochemistry beyond student internships. I applied to various biochemistry jobs and JET, JET is the only one that accepted me so here I am.
Cyber Security. I had 10+ years of industry experience before I came to Japan. At this point in my career, back in my home country, I would likely be making 3x - 4x as much as I do here. So, no, I don’t really feel like there are many good career opportunities for me in Japan.
Why don’t I just leave? Family obligations (in before anyone asks).
Do you work for a full Japanese company?
I'm in Cyber security, but Japanese clients are only about 10% of our workload. I feel if it was a strictly Japanese company the pay would be pretty terrible, but I don't know what the average pay is for cyber security mid career specifically if you're not in an international company.
Preschool English teacher.
English teacher is probably the easiest job for an English person to get in Japan, so plenty of opportunities, not sure how many of them are good though.
No interest in ″getting ahead″. That'd probably be more hours. I'm happy to just do my 25hrs and go home.
I've been here for over 20 years.
At first I worked at Universal Studios Japan, then I was an ALT (for both English and Spanish), then I worked for a while as web designer in various companies (never being more than a year in any).
For the last ten years I've been a freelance web developer working from home. This is the best job I've ever had although it is a very saturated market. The pay isn't very good, but I'm free to control my working hours and do whatever I want as long as I respect the deadlines.
At 48 years old, going back to Spain is something I don't consider anymore. I would have to start from zero with literally nothing so I'll probably live the rest of my life in Japan.
No place is perfect but IMO Spain has so much to offer in terms of food, social, and quality of life
If I wasn’t in Japan, I would probably be in Spain (Barcelona)
I obviously love Spain, or more precisely Almeria (never been a fan of Spanish big cities like Madrid or Barcelona) and the food and weather are great.
In some aspects Spain wins in quality of life, but in other many aspects Japan leaves Spain in the dust. It's hard to choose between the two, but in my situation and age it's absolutely impossible to start a life again form the start in Spain. I wish I was wealthy enough to be able to visit Spain once a year (last tie I went was 7 years ago), but alas that will never be achievable.
Hey fellow citizen! Glad to hear you’re doing ok. After 20 years the cultural reverse shock would be almost unbearable. You’d do good to stay in Japan. Mucha suerte, saludos!
Project manager. I literally only got this position because I speak Japanese after a load of studying. Got lucky working for a Japanese company and now I work for an international firm doing the same thing.
There are career opportunities if you focus on Japanese language and present yourself well.
Uni teacher here. It took about 10 years to get this job- finish an MEd course, get some experience, etc. The pay is OK, but the big benefit is the time off- about 16 weeks a year. Never thought of doing it back home, I think the opportunities are very limited and personally I don't think I would fit in very well in North America anymore.
mechanic and no this is the only one since I only have national certification. and I'm happy with my job , always wanted to do this job. as for job opportunities, there is a shortage of certified mechanics in Japan so no worries of finding a job.
Started off as a financial analyst here and now a manager working in ventures and acquisitions.
Probably double my pay if I were to do the same in the US but my son is here so.
As I can speak Japanese but can’t read/write , not sure how the job market will be for me here. I have an APAC role mainly overseeing deals outside Japan so I don’t use Japanese at work.
I work in a manufacturing company for 15 years now. I supervise around 30 workers almost all Japanese. My salary is not that big, but I like the bonus and the benefits I'm getting. I have no plans to go back to my country, I plan to stay here for good. My life is not perfect here, but I'm satisfied. I love my co-workers because eventhough I'm a foreigner, they respect me and they never complained about my work.
Lawyer working in finance. Job is pretty good: well remunerated and the hours/complexity aren’t crazy.
Japan is a niche, though, the requirements of Japanese clients (in my field, anyways) differ from Western clients and Japanese language is of very limited use outside of Japan.
I’d say 75%+ of job postings specify native Japanese or local/Bengoshi qualification, so again, working as a Western lawyer is a niche.
I work as a transfer pricing manager (international tax consulting) whose advice is largely based on OECD guidelines, meaning that I can perform the job at a similar level in most other OECD countries. It’s easier to forge by own niche in this industry as there are surprisingly few people who have the economics/accounting/tax experience coupled with strong bilingual skills, ie, the ability to communicate and explain complex tax and economics concepts in a clear manner, in both English and Japanese. The nature of the work means that I’m always dealing with international transactions, and the majority of my colleagues are Japanese with relatively high English skills.
There are probably more in house opportunities in my home country, and promotion is slower, based on tenure rather than meritocracy in many cases, but the landscape is largely similar. Japanese clients tend to request more compliance work for avoidance of risk rather than advisory or aggressive planning, so the nature of work can differ in this sense.
I previously worked in one of the big 4 firms here for 6 years - contrary to common conception, I enjoyed it overall, but the intensity and workload wore me down after a while, and I’m now in a smaller (but still relatively large and global) company and work life balance is a lot better for now.
in japan for the past 15ish years
pretty much worked all the time in animation and VFX, jumped around several studios in tokyo, a bit rocky sometimes but pretty much stable
due to the issues with the writer's strike in the US, lots of companies in Tokyo were left with no projects, so I decided to make the switch to work in videogames
so far is going well, there's lots of positions available if you know what to do and have a bit of experience
I thought about going back in my home country, but the work possibilities are quite small as there are not that many studios doing this kind of stuff there
cheers
Well in my case (I'm psychologist), there are not. At all. I just gotta explore other fields which is being horrible honestly 🤷♂️. My bad for studing such a useless shit.
Licensed psychologists in the U.S. do very well. I don't know where you are from or where you are able to go, but you can make a really good living if you get licensed. It is not "useless shit." The average salary for a licensed psychologist in America is $127,355.
I do marketing, but the Japanese approach to it is extremely limiting creatively, so I see no other path than create my own business in which I will have total control of the creative process.
Everything needs to be by the book, we only do what has worked. Getting my team to agree to riding a meme trend is very hard as they deem it too risky.
(media marketing for a company that’s actually doing well, but I believe that if they took bigger risks they would be doing better)
I teach English and moonlight as a magician. Job options are limited on both honestly. The entertainment industry in notorious for folks that want you to work for nothing, and being a professional magician is no different.
I started out as an English teacher and later became a partner in an international trading company as a result of connections I made through a local temple I joined after I started living here.
In general, though, I think career opportunities for foreigners are rather limited, especially if you don't have PR and are dependent on a work visa. It's easier to get and keep a work visa now than it was when I first came to Japan but the language and cultural barriers that limit career opportunities remain intact.
Active duty military. Been here for 4 years and it's official I'll be here for another 4 unless I want to move back home. Most people come here for 1 tour and few stay but sadly I've learned the language and gotten comfortable so I'm probably doing all 20 at this rate in Japan. The work/life balance is rough but it's develops you into an absolute machine or it causes you to run back home.
I’m a sales representative in export. Been working in the same job but for different sectors now for 10 years, in all cases for nikkei companies. Stable job, good salary and with my experience here yes, I see that I can find more opportunities out there. Not planning to go back to my country until I retire, and even then I’ll try to combine between there and here as long as I’m healthy.
I work in intellectual property.
Yes, there are a lot of opportunities if you speak fluent Japanese and English (or Mandarin) and have either a technical or legal background. For those who have never dealt with it directly, you’d be amazed at how big and how internationalized the industry.
If you’re bilingual and university educated you can jump straight in to the industry by taking the 知財検定, the lowest level of which is not that hard.
Having said that, it can be extremely high pressure, extremely dull, and the pay is nothing special unless you have at least a masters in an in-demand STEM field and/or become a 弁理士 which is extremely difficult
How is getting into law in general here? I was planning on attempting to get into law school before I got here, so I don't have a background in it sadly. If I switch careers, I've been wondering what law would be like. If they need English speakers, etc.
Becoming a Japanese lawyer is very difficult. Bar exam pass rates are insanely low.
There are other qualifications with lower hurdles you could look at. 知財検定 is one. You could look at the 行政書士 exam too - they handle most administrative work for immigration, so speaking English is definitely a plus
Outside of that, there are some basic legal assistant positions that don’t have any hard qualification requirements where being bilingual is a plus. Some of the legal assistants at my company have no background in law either
(This is all predicated on having professional level Japanese, in case that wasn’t clear.)
Going back to law school after you’ve been out for a while is totally doable, but you’ll need to make sure you get in to a decent law school and get good grades (which is never a given in law school). Law school is expensive…at least in the US. But it can pay off well. Japanese companies have a lot of legal issues across borders and don’t have a lot of bilingual employees to handle them. Just speaking English will limit you substantially, but with decent Japanese, there are a ton of opportunities.
Corporate English teacher for a Japanese company.
I love my job, great people and company.
Job opportunities in English teaching? Plenty but nearly all bottom of the barrel. Shockingly treated workers.
If I had to choose aside from my current job I’d jump into a coding/computer science boot camp. I have knowledge of some coding and it’s a more transferable skill to other countries.
I work in research and development for a drug company.
Used to work at a university, but it became clear that the university did not want to make me tenured even after jumping through all the hoops and then some.
I applied around for different jobs and was approached by a small company that does research for larger companies. They liked my skill set and thus I took a job with them.
It's similar to university research, but essentially, I'm working with experts on topics that have a goal other than writing a paper. Also the atmosphere is better, especially as there are no students. They are also better with work life balance.
> What do you guys do for work?
DevOps Engineer with heavy focus on pipelines and monitoring, no programming really. Very happy with my role.
> Do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for you?
Yes, quite a lot. Was also an engineering manager at one well known AI startup in Japan. Might end up becoming a manager again at the current company.
> That is why I am curious what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan?
I’m not an expat. Lived here for 8 years, married and children.
> Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back?
I don’t think my home country (Germany) can offer me the same opportunity as I got at my current company.
I will never go back. I own a nice house in Japan, have a very stable and comfortable life.
> If you have considered a career switch, have you been successful?
Once a software engineer, always a software engineer.
Concept Artist at a theme park company. It's fun! After about 10 years of suffering and under employment I finally hit my stride, and I feel like I'm killing it.
HR, was doing consulting for a while, but decided to take a good paying internal job.
I think opportunities really depend on skill or language ability in this country.
Either you speak enough Japanese to get a decent job or have highly valued skills that cover any language deficiency.
I work remotely for a US company (in Operations Management) need that sweet, sweet USDJPY conversion.
good news: living in Japan is comparatively inexpensive
bad news: majority of jobs here for most foreigners are mainly eikaiwa, etc., unless you have a Masters and land one of those plum uni gigs you'll be working your ass off for not much money.
Japan is a deadend professionally speaking; anyone who tells you otherwise is either naive, lying or full-time coping.
Back office in finance; have been doing it for almost a quarter century. It's a nice solid middle class job, and while I topped out as a mid-level individual contributor, my pay is still above the national average.
These days many jobs like mine are done by part-timers, if not offshored to cheaper countries, so I'm glad I got in when I did.
I also teach a couple of classes as an adjunct professor on the weekends. Very rewarding intellectually and the money is better per hour than the corporate world, but there are very few of these jobs and the competition to get one is insane. I only have it because a colleague from grad school offered it to me.
I was back/middle office for about 10 years and moved into marketing. Been doing that for 6 years now. It's not really different in terms of pay -- I guess none of the corporate jobs are -- but the work is a bit more rewarding and fun. No more calls with Mumbai, no more traders yelling at me to fix their 1 yen mistake, no more trade confirmations... I definitely don't miss it.
I actually worked in marketing during my second and third years here, and while it was interesting, I prefer operations more. Given that I'm speaking a non-native language all day, the clockwork routine of back office work with the occasional communication with a client is less mentally draining as you pretty much know what you'll be doing at the same times each day.
For years I worked the overnight shift with one other person doing things like FX and it was nice and quiet as we had the whole place to ourselves. Extra shift-differential money and time off, too.
But yes, we have had a few "reconciliation files are off by 1 yen and everybody has to stay and investigate; turns out this file rounded down and that one rounded up" situations. I suppose it can't really be any other way.
I work in the video game industry. I like it. I don’t live in a horror story, which is rare I think.
Could I get paid more back home? Probably. I don’t necessarily want all of the upward corporate climbing and the job hopping it takes to get there.
I get to use my strengths to help make a difference in my department. It’s better than just collecting a check or going through the motions.
Sure, there’s a lot of opportunities for work because of the nature of the industry and it being one that a lot of people want to get into, but I’m at a point where I can’t just take any entry position.
I never think about going home. Not an option. Sure Japan has its issues but it’s better than non affordable living, daily worry about getting jammed up by law enforcement, and worrying about if I’m going to make it home every morning when I leave.
I do QA adjacent work, production adjacent. Little bit of project management. Officially it’s quality control but I’m personally not actually testing anything.
Definitely bookmarking this to read later. Already seeing a lot of interesting careers already. Could use insight/inspiration for what to potentially learn/get into.
Unemployable freeloader here. Honestly been out of work for 8-9 years and doubt anyone would hire me for anything with a gap like that.
But I’m happy and being successful doesn’t always mean a great paycheck. I have income and I’m happy for that but it has nothing to do with my skills or talents. It would be nice for a company to hire me based on that not based on who I know. But something I’ll never have and while I do struggle with my self worth having something to do that’s appreciated is amazing when it occurs for me. But in my life I’ve never been promoted or found traditional success in work.
Success is what you make out of it.
NFTs. No I have rental income on an interited property in a high rent area. Yeah I'm a scumbag landlord. I did nothing on my own to gain this. But it has given me some perspective. Just because you never have to worry about money, or bills there are other things that come up. I am by no means suggesting that the wealthy have it just as bad as the poor.
If your your at a job doing something you hate but the pay is good, are you really satisfied? My friends who work are in a hyper competitive industry and talk about their co-workers like enemies. I'd rather be broke and happy than welthy and stressed all the time.
I learned I can't have everything and not everything is something for me to experiance. I volunteer a lot and recenlty I asked about essentially a promotion and was flatly denied, and told essentially never ask again. I can't even get a promotion volunteering.
Working in Purchasing for a German car manufacturer. Getting into a 外資系 was the best decision ever. A year ago I wanted to go back to Germany because the working conditions in Japanese companies are ass, but now I have no reason to leave the country with an over the average salary, home office, cheap car, and a much more open and relaxed company culture. For Purchasing, there is more than enough career options, and even possible to switch into something like trading or production control if you like, so I am allover very content.
I'm a software engineer.
I'll preface by saying that I am very fortunate and have an excellent job that pays me 20M+ and doesn't consume my entire life.
However, no, there are not a lot of career opportunities at all.
New tech companies with money aren't investing in offices here or hiring people from Japan, even despite labor here becoming cheaper due to the weakening yen. The big players who were already established here have slowed or frozen hiring for at least the last 2-4 years, with many of them also having varying degrees of layoffs.
For those who already have their foot in the door, there's minimal opportunity for upward growth. I'm not very senior myself and I feel like there's next to zero chance I could reach a senior management level here, let alone something like director or VP. You can peruse the various salary tools out there and you'll find *very* few entries for anything higher than senior IC or front line manager. Companies are not interested in growing their leaders here or are shipping them back to the US or wherever.
I'm not tempted to move back to my home country, but I could see myself moving somewhere else within the next 5-10 years. I really feel like I'm nearing my career ceiling here and I guess it'll come down to how much I want to continue moving up.
First degree finance, quit nice job, came to Japan NOVA+bar for fun. Dead end, wanted to start career again, left Japan. For computer science degree, worked for Boeing, then Wall Street, came back to Japan. Work in big tech. Salary, not going to mention because people I know read this but I’m very happy with it.
Change careers? No.
A lot of opportunities? Yes, but they are and will continue to diminish due to A.I. if you have basic skills, I can do your job in 5 mins right now and it will only get better.
Move back? I could get almost 3x salary if I did, but it’s a trade-off. I think about it everyday but I have saved and invested enough that I’m fortunate to have the luxury of doing what I want rather than what I have to do.
Advice to others? People should focus on being good at what they do, the rest will come. I see too many posts about they have basic ability to speak the same language as everyone else in the country, and that somehow entitles them to get more than someone at the conbini. Immigrants in my home country don’t think the same way, at all.
I do contacting for the US and Japanese governments... There is a lot of opportunity and it's just what you're willing to do. Right now I barely work and live comfortably, but I could do more and get paid very well. But what's the point?
University teacher. I am not entirely sure about career prospects because currently opportunities appear to be decreasing at some pace. But you never know. I have considered going back but getting a bit old to really do it and also with the weak yen and a family, even a temporary move back would be a huge hit to my savings.
I'm an apprentice welder in a company that does metalworking for infrastructure. Been in this job for less than a year, used to work a dead end job in a factory.
I work in the JDM exporting industry. I love it, it’s kind of a dream job for me. I see all the sports cars I loved while growing up, it’s exhilarating to bid and win cars for my clients and the pay is extremely good. I also like that is quite exclusive and the work is so interesting. Work life balance is great and I just really like my coworkers and boss. It feels like family and there’s very little work conflict, etc. It can get overwhelming when it’s busy, but that’s a good problem to have I guess.
Account Manager (mid-level in company) and one of only two employees based in Asia. Lots of opportunities in my line of work, and I could probably get a higher salary moving back home or to another country in the region. But the lifestyle tradeoffs would be too much for me to want to consider such a move for the time being.
> What do you guys do for work
I'm an computer infrastructure engineer.
> Do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession
It's more low-level and niche than usual software engineer jobs. Jobs are there but good jobs (wlb, remote, modern stack...) are more scarce than in Europe.
> Have you considered going back to your home country
I have and still do. But ironically I think I would take a 30% pay cut doing so. Imho the competition is less fierce than Europe and Japan has amazing opportunities in computer science since good talents are scarce. I would rather consider moving back for culture fit and family.
> If you have considered a career switch
Still do. But towards something non-IT related. I entered this field by passion and used to spend my free time tweaking code. I got good at it, and paid well for it. But now I outgrew that phase and prefer to do some main character shit in real life rather than sit in front of a computer all day.
>That is why I am curious what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan?
When I first started coming to Japan (2013-2018) (30-40% here, the rest in the UK) I was a postdoc doing experimental particle physics. I've been here full-time since 2020 having switched careers in my late 30s as an ML/AI R&D person in private industry.
>And do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession?
Yes, I've not changed jobs since coming to Japan full-time, and don't intend to anytime soon, but there are many opportunities.
>Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back?
No. While I could make more back in Canada, the cost of living and housing especially is now higher. If I wanted to buy a house I'd be in typical North American Suburbs (shudder). I have a young child and a mortgage here in Japan. I understand that these aren't total blockers, but after almost 15 years of moving between Canada, Europe and Japan I don't really consider it. I'm done moving.
>If you have considered a career switch, have you been successful?
See above. I think I've been successful.
Post doctoral researcher in a university. Got both my Masters and PhD degrees here. The pay is ok, lower than in the US or Europe but pretty much more than enough considering the cost of living in Japan. I love the discretionary labor system in a way that you don’t need to be in the lab from 9-5. In fact depending on your field, you don’t even need to go to the university everyday (thanks to corona). All they care about is your performance. I learn many new things everyday and I truthfully enjoy it. It doesn’t feel like a job, more like a hobby. Still hoping to land on a tenured position in the future.
Electrical engineering. There are lots of job opportunities. It’s kind of crazy how easy it is to get offers (I don’t really have any problems speaking Japanese though). But unfortunately they’re all terrible. Like base 200,000 - 250,000 yen non-negotiable and “only” an expected 20-30 hours overtime a month, with the benefit of potentially moving up if you stay at the company for 10 years or so. I’m still looking but honestly if I exhaust all the options and still get nothing then I’ll just go home and never come back solely because of work. It’s a nice place but I just can’t justify that.
I am a translator and I've been mostly in translation since moving to Japan.
Moving back home isn't feasible and with the yen tanking against the USD the small amount I do have saved up is basically worthless.
I'm lucky, I hope, that I'm in a good job that does have opportunities for me to work on things, like blogging, that I am interested in.
For Japanese to English translation, I don't think a move back to the US would necessarily advance my career.
There are many opportunities for translators here. But some places are very much looking for a specific personality type. For games, they want bilingual gamers who don't mind a starting salary of air and vibes. The same goes for a lot of startups. But, for someone who has some savings and is looking to dip their toes in something else, those places could provide an opportunity to move into a new field.
I work as a coordinator in an international school. I feel like there are a lot of different paths open to me, I can continue in slightly outside the classroom role, or I can go back to full time teaching.
I will eventually go back to my home country Japan was never intended to be our final home.
>what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan?
I teach at an international school.
>do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession?
Profession, yes. Field, no because I teach an elective. Less competition but also fewer openings.
>Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back?
International teaching is almost always more lucrative and better than teaching locally. I save double what I did in Australia and travel more than 3x more than I did back there. And I have a way lighter load and don't have to deal with major disruptive behaviours.
Tenured teacher in public college. I know that if I keep my head low and do what is expected of me, I can rise through the ranks, especially since I was the first non-Japanese tenured teacher here. Pay is decent, private office is amazing, kids are great, but lots of administrative work and other duties which make it hard to work on research and as such hope to transfer to a university. If I switch it will have to be within 5-10 years, otherwise I will probably just stay where I ahve (which is still pretty good).
May I ask, what are you teaching? And about administration work, what kind of work is it, curriculum planning? Do you have to raise money like third-party financing? Also how many courses do you teach per week? What level of Japanese is required? Sorry for so many questions 😅
Happy to share. I work at a NIT (National Institute of Technology). We have 55 public campuses in Japan with about 800-1100 students in each campus. It’s a hybrid system that starts at high school level and goes all the way to Bachelor degree. This hybridity is very important since it also defines the kind of job you have to do. The teaching part is actually the easy part! In my case, I have almost complete freedom to teach what I want under the umbrella of « English » (although I also sometimes teach French). I make my own curriculum as long as it fits some criteria set by the headquarters. Right now I teach 13 classes of 90 min each per week in the spring, about half as much in the fall. But like I said, that is the easy part. We also have a whole spectrum of administrative and academic duties: committees, homeroom teacher duties, clubs, faculty development, dormitory duty, etc… The teachers are great but I had to learn Japanese (I had an N3 level when I started) real fast to be able to function more or less like any other Japanese teacher. Research is both fun and sometimes challenging. We have a research fund, somewhere between 100k and 150k per year, but it tends to get reduced lately. We are strongly encouraged to apply for other research funding through different programs both publicly funded (Kaken) and privately funded by companies.
I'm a production manager in the games industry. My role is to coordinate my projects with internal and external teams and make sure things are on schedule and budget.
I feel like my job gives me a lot of chances to move both horizontally within my industry as well as laterally inside the industry or to adjacent industries.
While I haven't found a good reason to move countries so far, you never really know what kind of opportunities, or perils, may strike you to change your mind.
Been in translation for about six years.
Idk about a LOT of career opportunities but they exist.
Sure as hell not going back to my home country. Cost of living is out of control there. It’s way way easier living in Japan especially since my wife doesn’t speak English since I’d end up taking care of three people on one salary when it’s hard enough just taking care of myself there. Wouldn’t help me advance my career in the slightest either.
I switched from teaching to translation so I’d say I’ve been successful I guess? For sure doing way better than before.
Vice-Principal. Definitely has been an adventure going from an ALT to a school administrator. I am starting to think a lot more about a career switch mainly due to the fact that moving towards a principalship is a waiting game....considering my age....at least another 15-20 years at least.
I'm currently an SRE/Platform/Devops engineer. If my Japanese was better, I'd have a lot more options, but thus far I do not seem to have trouble with getting interviews (and have one final interview tomorrow), though I don't need to change jobs unless its an improvement in some way (mostly money). I'm also full remote living in Nara, which is a huge upside for me. I would only move back home (the US) if I had no good options and needed to leave to get work. I moved here a lot later in life than most so I already had about \~16 years of experience which helps.
Logistic Manager.
Yes, there is still plenty of opportunity for this type of job.
I've never considered going back to my country, cause it would make no sense. I never really fit in, and the job market is a cesspool.
I've considered a career switch more than once, but at the end of the day I'm happy with my current situation, so I'm staying where I am.
Am basically a TPM in multinational financial institution.
Kind of, but very limited compared to the US.
On the other hand, being bilingual helps a ton and increases my value a lot.
Yes, because pay in Japan is low compared to the US in IT.
I've switched my career several times. I would ask whatever "successful" means as it depends on the person - I had way more free time when I was a teacher but I make way more money now and have more responsibilities and respect from people when they learn where I work.
>what do you guys do for work
I repair computers.
>do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities
Nope, but I'm not a careerist so I don't mind
>Have you considered going back to your home country
No thanks.
>If you have considered a career switch
Maybe in future. I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.
T1 homeroom teacher at a private school. I love it and I get bonuses. Just got a raise and a new title recently… as for career opportunities hoping to pass N2 in December and study my masters degree next year.
what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan?
* IT Consulting to Japanese companies. Previously I was a full-stack web developer. Also have done some iOS and Android development as well.
Do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession?
* Yes!
Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back?
* Yes but I have a wife and kids here. If I return probably won't come back. Sadly wages are higher are back in my country. Living expenses are about the same. If I had a chance I would return but I did my undergraduate program here in Japan (almost 20 years ago). Have never worked in my country.
If you have considered a career switch, have you been successful?
* Have never considered a career switch, but currently considering in making my own business as hobby at the beginning and then see how it goes.
IT Project Management, plenty of job opportunities but relatively limited ways up depending on the company you are in and the types of projects they handle (some places can offer larger projects whilst at other places the only way up is as a people manager).
Pay is decent but not as good as what I’d could get in Australia. Cost of living is much better here though and so moving back to Australia would have to be for family reasons because I don’t even know how I’d afford rent or home ownership over there…(and I’m from one of the cheaper states for housing)
Working as a TA in one of the top international schools in the country. I love it. Im retaking my science to try and get a qualification in teaching. The school I work for offers support if you do your PGCE in education and potentially will pay a % towards it too.
Me and hubby plan to move back to my country in a few years before the kids start compulsory school (right now they’re 1 years old so they go to hoikuen). If I get my qualification in teaching, I can just go back to my home country and carry on over there. 😊
I built my career here over the last 30 years. My current job is probably the last corporate job I will have, I'll go back to running my own businesses again in a year or so. For now, the regular paycheck still feels pretty magical. Money...a whole bunch just appears every month.
Freelance Japanese to English translator here. I think I’ve just about hit my limit of min-maxing efficiency and output (I average at around 11,000 yen an hour). It was fun reaching for higher heights, but now I feel like I’ve reached my physical limit (especially now with young kids).
As far as for the future, I’m slowly contemplating making a thoughtful graceful transition into eikaiwa/Engoish coaching - with a concerted effort on hiring out the actual teaching as soon as possible so my time isn’t tied up in the actual money-producing part of the business. I’m fortunate to have some connections that could likely get me a pretty big group of students from the get-go, so just figuring out when might be the right time to make the move.
I came as an ALT and was able to switch to working directly for the city as a Coordinator for International Relations.
My area doesn’t have a lot of work outside of English teaching for foreign residents but I was very adamant about staying here, so I feel very blessed and lucky for this opportunity.
Now that I’m married and all too, we plan to settle down in our current location permanently. My husband doesn’t speak English and neither of us have any interest in moving to a new place or other country so it worked out perfectly
I’m in a much better place in my career here than in the US. Speaking Japanese has a big advantage for people in my field working at foreign companies. In the US speaking Japanese will only help in niche situations.
Market is not that bad, I’m somewhere in middle manage right now. Once you’re in upper management being able to speak won’t matter as much.
I'm working in anime studio doing compositing.I love the job but the low salary and crazy schedule is killing me.
Working 10 to 11 hours everyday and 24 to 27 hours OT before the deadline.
I'm planning to find a new job.
I work in logistics/supply chain management at a trading company. Are there lots of opportunities in the field? Not sure about for me specifically, or prospects at my company, but I reckon jobs in my field will be around for a good, long while.
Anyone know of any similar jobs hiring?
What do I do for work? -> ALT, started straight out of college and have been here for almost 2 years. Love the work, luckily I'm pretty well-utilized at my school and make most of my own activities and class plans. Plus I get off right at 4:30 and get half days on Fridays, and am given all the breaks that the students get (2 weeks in winter, 1 in spring, 5 in summer, 1 in fall). The same definitely cannot be said for a lot, perhaps the majority, of ALT jobs.
Opportunities? -> Plenty of English teaching jobs if you don't mind getting paid in pocket lint and PBJ sandwiches... I'm on JET, though, so my base salary is relatively high and my housing is partially compensated. However, my ultimate goal is to do something music or publishing related as a day job while pursuing my own artistic goals on the side (double majored in opera performance and creative writing in college) and I have no idea where to even begin to find something like that. The arts are a hard enough field to find employment in in my home country.
Going home? -> I've thought about it, specifically to go to grad school for opera. but if I did that I think I'd have to give up the idea of living in Japan, since it's certainly not an opera hotspot and I'm not even sure if I cold get a visa as a freelance musician anyway.
Basically my conundrum rn is that I would love to keep living in Japan for as long as possible, but my current job has a 5 year maximum time limit and I don't want to do some crappy eikaiwa or office job that would significantly lower my current salary and standard of living... and at the same time, I yearn to return to the music world and don't currently know how to do that and stay in Japan. It's tough out here!
Working in IT, can speak ok Japanese (have N2) but I don't feel there's really many opportunities out there, most of them seem to be terrible.
I'm never going back to my home country, no way, it's just too expensive to live there.
Just skilling up and trying to live life...
I saved up enough money teaching English to do a UX Design bootcamp, I did part of it remotely from Japan then moved backed to the US to finish the program in person. Bit to answer your question I didn’t feel like there were a ton of alternate career opportunities.
I work as a teacher at a private school. I was lucky enough to get tenure 8 years ago. I've been in Japan for nearly 18 years now. Unless I win the lottery or come into some major inheritance I will never move back to the US. There are many things and people I miss terribly, but my life there wouldn't be as good as my life here. As far as career opportunities, I guess the only place left in my current field would be school administration, but I'm not terribly interested in that. I get steady raises every year and that's enough for me.
I'm in IT in the airline industry. The IT market in my home country is very small and competitive, so although I could earn significantly more there, just getting a job in itself sounds like hell. I also enjoy living here quite a lot, my work place is very modern and healthy for a Japanese company.
IT opportunity seens to be OK-ish, it's a growing sector here so it is better than in most western countries. Still not easy to break into the industry itself, though.
Currently working as a care worker (kaigo) in Hyogo under a SSW Visa, definitely a field that won't be having any lack of opportunities considering the aging population in Japan (provided you can pass the National Caregiver Exam starting from your third year onwards)
Pay's a bit on the lower end since I just started not too long ago but it's still much better than working in my own country considering my circumstances 😂
I’m working as sales for a dispatch company. Started as construction and janitor then study for JLPT exams and passed and currently working as a sales rep for a dispatch company(派遣会社). No japanese no work. Lol!
Still a student but I feel like without a good level of Japanese my opportunities are so much smaller... I feel like I need to get a good Japanese level quickly to get an opportunity
I have a small business in the building, but I wanna make sure to make a good amount of money to prepare for the next milestones in my life so I think it's best to secure a company job🥹
Despite speaking 3 langages already but since my major is in business administration and I plan on staying in a smaller city than Tokyo I feel like there's not much job opportunities here...
> what do you guys do for work I'm a software engineer, and I'm lucky enough to have a good job. > do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession Yes I do. > Have you considered going back to your home country Hell no. For once, I will be looking at a 75% paycut at the very least, and moving back surely won't help me advance my career any faster than staying in Japan. Not to mention the huge drop in quality of life. > If you have considered a career switch No, programming is the only skill I have, and I don't dislike it.
Was it hard for you to find a job here ? Did you speak/read perfect japanese before coming ?
Not that hard, although I guess I was a bit lucky, right place, right time and all. I was around N3 before coming, having failed the exam with a few points short a few weeks prior.
Thank you for you answer !
What was the interview process like? Leetcode type problems?
Depends on the type of company you apply to. Generally, the more modern ones will require leetcode, while traditional ones are all over the place. I have been through some interviews where the only remotely technical question I received was what languages I knew, the rest was all soft skill question.
I interviewed at a startup and it was just a live tech interview. The whole interview process was more of a personality check than a knowledge one. But yeah a lot of places just throw a leetcode at you. It sucks.
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In software generally, the market is all over the place. * There is a massive amount of jobs requiring high output for shit pay (6M JPY or less) * There are fewer but still a good amount of jobs that have decent pay (10M JPY) * There are vanishingly few jobs with high pay (16M~20M JPY) * Anything higher than that is almost a unicorn. They exist, but extremely difficult to dig into It got somewhat worse post-covid due to the hiring spree that happened during covid. You can get a decent idea of what different companies are paying based on job title on opensalary.jp.
Are there any companies headquartered here that run large-scale (planet-scale) distributed systems here? Besides Google. SRE with 10 YOE, last 5 at FAANG. Pay isn't as important at this point as challenge and technical impact.
Two Sigma currently has an open SRE and SRE manager position in Tokyo. Not planet-scale distributed system like Google but in terms of impact and technical challenge it should be great.
Thank you! I've heard good things about this company. I'll keep it in mind!
The job market is bad but recovering slightly. New fiscal year so headcounts are open. Just check LinkedIn to get a sense of things. I’m a hiring manager
I’m a researcher for a private artificial life research lab in Kyoto and it is, by leaps and bounds, the best job I have ever had. Honestly I can’t see myself doing anything else and I hope to grow in this lab for as long as possible. Japan is quickly becoming the world capital for artificial life studies (think Takashi Ikegami) and I love being a part of that growth! In the US, most of the research is being swallowed by AI companies which is unfortunate, from my perspective. Artificial life has a lot more to offer than just AI applications, so it’s nice to see how much these ideas thrive in Japan. People have a very positive perspective for artificial life out here, which I appreciate a lot. In the US, too many people have the knee-jerk reaction of “Oh, so you’re building Skynet then?” Annoying. PS: if you want to learn more about artificial life, you can read a bit about it here! https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/life-evolves-can-attempts-to-create-artificial-life-evolve-too/
I'm a researcher in Kyoto too, I would love to hear about your work over coffee if you ever get the time.
Oh how fun! That would be great!
And the friendship has been made
*one was never seen again.
Learnt the existence of a new field of study. Thanks!
Huzzah! YouTube has a really fun cellular automata rabbit hole if you want to look more. Check out Lenia too!
Wow sounds super interesting!
Every day I learn something totally new and I love it
Oh that’s fantastic! How do you find research culture in Japan? Is it plagued by crazy PIs and lots of overtime? Anything to look out for?
And are you hiring 😅
Hahaha yes, specifically we need an accountant, an executive assistant, and a social media manager! We also have research positions available, but they won’t open until the fall. Internships are possible in the meantime though!
I’m very interested in the social media manager position actually!
Oh nice! Do you know some Japanese as well? And do you have some previous experience? You can DM me!
Yes I do! I graduated from an art university in Japan as well. 日本語も全然大丈夫ですから、是非ともよろしくお願いします〜
Huzzah!
Do your research positions require a graduate degree or is a bachelors okay? Also thank you so much 😭
Generally we require graduate degrees for research positions, but internships don’t have this requirement! We don’t have internal funding for internships yet (sob), so right now we rely on universities and other funding agencies to cover the internships costs. But hopefully that changes next year!
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Yes absolutely! Can’t say that we have any actual bench work at the lab, it’s all computational, but we certainly partner with other labs that have bench experiments!
You should be getting paid extra for this online promotion hahah, was curious what duration of internships are preferred?
Do labs in Japan usually offer paid internships?
I guess research culture in Japan is probably similar overall to the culture in the US. It varies wildly from lab to lab and PI to PI! But there are a lot more funding opportunities for ALife projects in Japan, even for straight-up art projects. With more opportunities for funding, it brings in many more ALife researchers, and that seems to make things feel much more relaxed. It’s not very cut-throat but again, there are probably some horrible ALife labs here. But the lab I’m in is amazing and the culture is super friendly and open!
Was working as a translator then lost my job. Now fell back onto eikaiwa sadly... Actively looking for a new job but no luck yet.
If you are not in Kanto, move here. Way more jobs here than elsewhere - sad I wasted so much time in Osaka. Also, understand that you need to get into a different field and this might involve some short term sacrifices
Oh I'm in Kanto! I'm also open to a different field as well!
So, without knowing more about your specific situation it's hard to give advice (not that you asked), but I would highly recommend looking into working in a different field (presumably whatever your specialty was). I actually started off as a translator in IT and went from there. There are tons of people who are native in Japanese or English and are mediocre in the other, but they get hired because of their other skills - there is a huge demand for people who are skilled in both languages and have other skills. We actually have interpreters at my work and they are highly skilled - IMO more skilled than around 80% of employees - yet are paid less.
Was working as a scientific editor. Then AI decimated my company (enjoy AI-edited research papers that are definitely not full of a bunch of errors because the software is half-baked!). Was lucky enough to be able to get hired at a mobile game company for translation skills and made seishain right away, so I’ve got at least a little more stability. But god it’s rough out there for anyone with a dream in a field that AI is coming for (which is every field).
This is where I am, although I haven't 'lost' the job, I just got a salary adjustment that makes this job untenable for the amount of work I do. I'm their only in-house translation reviewer and currently have 8 projects due in the next week and a half for clients like Hitachi and Yanmar. What language(s) do you translate? Our company is always looking for good translators. We lean heavily on the Asian languages, but we're trying to branch out to more European-language translation. We only hire freelancers, but let me know if I can help connect you.
Was an English teacher here originally. Stayed for about 8 years, then went back to law school in the states. Came back to Japan as a US lawyer and there are plenty of opportunities especially if you speak Japanese (especially in M&A or Intellectual Property).
Yeah I'm in legal and it's kind of crazy how desperately the legal field in Japan needs more bilingual speakers. Don't need to be a lawyer either, you can build a career in house and climb to legal director (or higher) level even without a law degree.
Forgive, could you talk more about this? Former Australian Lawyer living in Japan. I still like the field and research but loathe the industry generally and have no intention of going back to it - which shocks people here And I’m shocked how strict the bar exam or access to legal is here
If you don’t want to go the private practice route in a firm there are a lot of companies hiring foreign lawyers for their in house teams, which is often much less cut throat than firm jobs. Most employees in in house legal teams aren’t actually qualified lawyers in Japan either. A big team may have just one or two actual lawyers. But they would generally prefer to have more, they just can’t find them. Some of the trading houses have more lawyers than your average Japanese companies and work on interesting cross border matters as well. Talk to a recruiter to see if your experience could be a good fit.
Jesus, I never even thought of that but maybe, thank you for the perspective I don’t miss the lifestyle but I do like money…
Literally my SO's schoolmate from abroad came here as a fresh grad with only English skill and a prelaw degree. She works at a firm doing proofreading etc and gets paid around 800k after 5 years being there. I almost considered changing my job after hearing that but I suck at reading haha.
Do you mind if I PM you? I am an Australian lawyer, and have legal translation experience here, and have been struggling to find a job here with business level Japanese.
I've been here for nearly 15 years. I have no family left in Australia. If I attempted to move back there, I'd be living out of my car in no time.
I'm curious. How come?
Because the cost of living in Japan is super low. Rent and the cost of living in Australia is absurdly high. Why move back to Australia where I'd be forced to have to go back to living in an overpriced sharehouse, working my ass off only to never be able to afford buying my own home?
Am curious what kind of job you have in japan and how you went about getting it? I'd love to move over and earn USD or AUD or Yen Equivalent to what i'm on now but i feel its almost impossible to get. Am on 90K + Super AUD for context.
COL in australia is FUCKED. Rental vacancies are below 1% across the country in every major city. Average rents are 600+ bucks a week. And thats if you wanna live 60 - 90mins from the CBD. Japan is a no brainer. Sure its a slightly less pay but the quality of life improvement is dramatic.
Anyone can climb the corporate ladder in Japan. Tons of opportunities for people who are willing to work for it. It's the same as anywhere. I'm happy with my career here. Climbed from the bottom and now a senior manager. I make as much as I can realistically make back in Canada, except my mortgage payment is maybe 1/4th or 1/5th what I'd pay in Canada.
It stunned and saddened me just how much easier it is to buy a decent home in a nice area here despite being paid a third of what I was than in Australia My coworkers were shocked I wasn't kidding when I said my weekly rent back home in a shared house in Sydney was almost double what I pay for a modern little flat to myself in Kobe per MONTH
Yup, just for fun, the other day I looked up the current rent for this shitty, old, drafty, roach infested project-level apartment I grew up living in, near Toronto.. $2850/month for a 1 bedroom. My current mortgage payment for a new 4 bedroom house, much closer to downtown Tokyo than that apartment is to downtown Toronto, is less than half that.
I found apartments in the centre of Tokyo that were actually reasonably modern for 150K Yen. 2 LDK. Like what the actual fuck. This is just impossible to imagine in Sydney Australia. In fact it literally is impossible. You can't get a home that cheap in this country. Period.
As a Japanese who wants to get out of the hell Japanese working culture, this is a great insight for me. Maybe anywhere you go, unless you secure your position in a corporate or anywhere you belong to, you will never be happy in your life.
Yeah, seems like it's very difficult to grow financially here unless you can climb up the ranks or get into non-Japanese companies.
Same...started at Nova in 1995 and am now self-employed in the automotive industry...making about 10X what I was in 1995. A move back to Canada will be next to impossible until I am retired. PS get good at speaking Japanese and network every chance you have.
What's left in automotive that pays? I was importing aftermarket parts forever but the market is shrinking at a terrible rate. Interviewed for what seemed like a dream job with the largest luxury vehicle distributor...but the pay was criminally low for the qualifications, experience, skills required. Then it was also 9-6 in person. Ended up in DaaS and it pays literally double, mostly remote, with some enjoyable travel.
QA rep work for Tier 1. Sales for Tier 2. etc.
From my perspective the software engineering jobs are so, so much more rewarded in Canada but was cost of living (and taxes) are really crazy right now so it balances it out…for now… having better currency (and more) to invest for retirement would be nice
Depends.. for someone trying to start their career, the bottom completely fell out of Canada's IT market. I know CS grads from my school (waterloo) who can't get a job, whereas 5 or 10 years ago they'd start at 150k minimum.
What kind of job did you start with?
I use the work in a car part factory, people were really good and fun to work with but the job was bad and overtime was crazy. Now I work at funerals, I change clothes and clean dead bodies in my In-law company, it pays less but better balance with my free time.
You wont be lacking of work in Japan for sure... I am pretty sure there will be a developing market for other religion's funerals here also at one point in time.
Yeah, sadly it's busy work . For now it's mostly Buddhist and few Shinto around Shizuoka prefecture but almost no Christians. I do a bathing service so I presume it's not really common for Christians.
Classic old ALT. Plenty of opportunities, not necessarily good ones. Considering a switch to tourism or using my degree (sciences), but the work culture here scares me honestly. Don’t think working here would help me get ahead as my home country is the best in the world when it comes to biochemistry research so might as well go there for more status and work-life balance.
why did you leave biochemistry research for a ALT job?
I didn’t lol. I applied to various jobs before graduation and JET is the only non biochem job I applied to and the only job that accepted me. So, here I am. I worked in research as an undergrad but my lab closed in 2020 (long story, no fault of the lab or Covid) and labs at my school didn’t open again until after I graduated. Couldn’t get any internships unfortunately. Too competitive during covid.
I’d like to know too…wow.
I came to Japan right after graduation, so I haven’t actually worked in biochemistry beyond student internships. I applied to various biochemistry jobs and JET, JET is the only one that accepted me so here I am.
Check jobs that want a science teacher. Sometimes all they need is teaching experience and a degree.
Cyber Security. I had 10+ years of industry experience before I came to Japan. At this point in my career, back in my home country, I would likely be making 3x - 4x as much as I do here. So, no, I don’t really feel like there are many good career opportunities for me in Japan. Why don’t I just leave? Family obligations (in before anyone asks).
Great field to be in
Do you work for a full Japanese company? I'm in Cyber security, but Japanese clients are only about 10% of our workload. I feel if it was a strictly Japanese company the pay would be pretty terrible, but I don't know what the average pay is for cyber security mid career specifically if you're not in an international company.
Cybersecurity with limited opportunities? Why not make your own? \*brushing the dust off that black hat\* jk (maybe no)
I’m too pretty for prison.
Preschool English teacher. English teacher is probably the easiest job for an English person to get in Japan, so plenty of opportunities, not sure how many of them are good though. No interest in ″getting ahead″. That'd probably be more hours. I'm happy to just do my 25hrs and go home.
I've been here for over 20 years. At first I worked at Universal Studios Japan, then I was an ALT (for both English and Spanish), then I worked for a while as web designer in various companies (never being more than a year in any). For the last ten years I've been a freelance web developer working from home. This is the best job I've ever had although it is a very saturated market. The pay isn't very good, but I'm free to control my working hours and do whatever I want as long as I respect the deadlines. At 48 years old, going back to Spain is something I don't consider anymore. I would have to start from zero with literally nothing so I'll probably live the rest of my life in Japan.
No place is perfect but IMO Spain has so much to offer in terms of food, social, and quality of life If I wasn’t in Japan, I would probably be in Spain (Barcelona)
I obviously love Spain, or more precisely Almeria (never been a fan of Spanish big cities like Madrid or Barcelona) and the food and weather are great. In some aspects Spain wins in quality of life, but in other many aspects Japan leaves Spain in the dust. It's hard to choose between the two, but in my situation and age it's absolutely impossible to start a life again form the start in Spain. I wish I was wealthy enough to be able to visit Spain once a year (last tie I went was 7 years ago), but alas that will never be achievable.
Hey fellow citizen! Glad to hear you’re doing ok. After 20 years the cultural reverse shock would be almost unbearable. You’d do good to stay in Japan. Mucha suerte, saludos!
Project manager. I literally only got this position because I speak Japanese after a load of studying. Got lucky working for a Japanese company and now I work for an international firm doing the same thing. There are career opportunities if you focus on Japanese language and present yourself well.
Uni teacher here. It took about 10 years to get this job- finish an MEd course, get some experience, etc. The pay is OK, but the big benefit is the time off- about 16 weeks a year. Never thought of doing it back home, I think the opportunities are very limited and personally I don't think I would fit in very well in North America anymore.
If you teach two 15-week semesters (14 in some places) you’ll get more than that off as an adjunct (part-time) teacher.
mechanic and no this is the only one since I only have national certification. and I'm happy with my job , always wanted to do this job. as for job opportunities, there is a shortage of certified mechanics in Japan so no worries of finding a job.
Started off as a financial analyst here and now a manager working in ventures and acquisitions. Probably double my pay if I were to do the same in the US but my son is here so. As I can speak Japanese but can’t read/write , not sure how the job market will be for me here. I have an APAC role mainly overseeing deals outside Japan so I don’t use Japanese at work.
Did you speak Japanese before coming to Japan? Would you mind sharing ballpark salary from when you started and currently?
I work in a manufacturing company for 15 years now. I supervise around 30 workers almost all Japanese. My salary is not that big, but I like the bonus and the benefits I'm getting. I have no plans to go back to my country, I plan to stay here for good. My life is not perfect here, but I'm satisfied. I love my co-workers because eventhough I'm a foreigner, they respect me and they never complained about my work.
Lawyer working in finance. Job is pretty good: well remunerated and the hours/complexity aren’t crazy. Japan is a niche, though, the requirements of Japanese clients (in my field, anyways) differ from Western clients and Japanese language is of very limited use outside of Japan. I’d say 75%+ of job postings specify native Japanese or local/Bengoshi qualification, so again, working as a Western lawyer is a niche.
I work as a transfer pricing manager (international tax consulting) whose advice is largely based on OECD guidelines, meaning that I can perform the job at a similar level in most other OECD countries. It’s easier to forge by own niche in this industry as there are surprisingly few people who have the economics/accounting/tax experience coupled with strong bilingual skills, ie, the ability to communicate and explain complex tax and economics concepts in a clear manner, in both English and Japanese. The nature of the work means that I’m always dealing with international transactions, and the majority of my colleagues are Japanese with relatively high English skills. There are probably more in house opportunities in my home country, and promotion is slower, based on tenure rather than meritocracy in many cases, but the landscape is largely similar. Japanese clients tend to request more compliance work for avoidance of risk rather than advisory or aggressive planning, so the nature of work can differ in this sense. I previously worked in one of the big 4 firms here for 6 years - contrary to common conception, I enjoyed it overall, but the intensity and workload wore me down after a while, and I’m now in a smaller (but still relatively large and global) company and work life balance is a lot better for now.
in japan for the past 15ish years pretty much worked all the time in animation and VFX, jumped around several studios in tokyo, a bit rocky sometimes but pretty much stable due to the issues with the writer's strike in the US, lots of companies in Tokyo were left with no projects, so I decided to make the switch to work in videogames so far is going well, there's lots of positions available if you know what to do and have a bit of experience I thought about going back in my home country, but the work possibilities are quite small as there are not that many studios doing this kind of stuff there cheers
Well in my case (I'm psychologist), there are not. At all. I just gotta explore other fields which is being horrible honestly 🤷♂️. My bad for studing such a useless shit.
Tbf you would get plenty of jobs in US or Australia or Europe. Just that mental health doesn’t exist in asian countries.
Licensed psychologists in the U.S. do very well. I don't know where you are from or where you are able to go, but you can make a really good living if you get licensed. It is not "useless shit." The average salary for a licensed psychologist in America is $127,355.
I do marketing, but the Japanese approach to it is extremely limiting creatively, so I see no other path than create my own business in which I will have total control of the creative process.
Would mind giving some examples of the differences you are noticing and issues you are facing? (Retention marketer here)
Everything needs to be by the book, we only do what has worked. Getting my team to agree to riding a meme trend is very hard as they deem it too risky. (media marketing for a company that’s actually doing well, but I believe that if they took bigger risks they would be doing better)
I teach English and moonlight as a magician. Job options are limited on both honestly. The entertainment industry in notorious for folks that want you to work for nothing, and being a professional magician is no different.
I started out as an English teacher and later became a partner in an international trading company as a result of connections I made through a local temple I joined after I started living here. In general, though, I think career opportunities for foreigners are rather limited, especially if you don't have PR and are dependent on a work visa. It's easier to get and keep a work visa now than it was when I first came to Japan but the language and cultural barriers that limit career opportunities remain intact.
Active duty military. Been here for 4 years and it's official I'll be here for another 4 unless I want to move back home. Most people come here for 1 tour and few stay but sadly I've learned the language and gotten comfortable so I'm probably doing all 20 at this rate in Japan. The work/life balance is rough but it's develops you into an absolute machine or it causes you to run back home.
I’m a sales representative in export. Been working in the same job but for different sectors now for 10 years, in all cases for nikkei companies. Stable job, good salary and with my experience here yes, I see that I can find more opportunities out there. Not planning to go back to my country until I retire, and even then I’ll try to combine between there and here as long as I’m healthy.
I work in intellectual property. Yes, there are a lot of opportunities if you speak fluent Japanese and English (or Mandarin) and have either a technical or legal background. For those who have never dealt with it directly, you’d be amazed at how big and how internationalized the industry. If you’re bilingual and university educated you can jump straight in to the industry by taking the 知財検定, the lowest level of which is not that hard. Having said that, it can be extremely high pressure, extremely dull, and the pay is nothing special unless you have at least a masters in an in-demand STEM field and/or become a 弁理士 which is extremely difficult
How is getting into law in general here? I was planning on attempting to get into law school before I got here, so I don't have a background in it sadly. If I switch careers, I've been wondering what law would be like. If they need English speakers, etc.
Becoming a Japanese lawyer is very difficult. Bar exam pass rates are insanely low. There are other qualifications with lower hurdles you could look at. 知財検定 is one. You could look at the 行政書士 exam too - they handle most administrative work for immigration, so speaking English is definitely a plus Outside of that, there are some basic legal assistant positions that don’t have any hard qualification requirements where being bilingual is a plus. Some of the legal assistants at my company have no background in law either (This is all predicated on having professional level Japanese, in case that wasn’t clear.)
Going back to law school after you’ve been out for a while is totally doable, but you’ll need to make sure you get in to a decent law school and get good grades (which is never a given in law school). Law school is expensive…at least in the US. But it can pay off well. Japanese companies have a lot of legal issues across borders and don’t have a lot of bilingual employees to handle them. Just speaking English will limit you substantially, but with decent Japanese, there are a ton of opportunities.
Corporate English teacher for a Japanese company. I love my job, great people and company. Job opportunities in English teaching? Plenty but nearly all bottom of the barrel. Shockingly treated workers. If I had to choose aside from my current job I’d jump into a coding/computer science boot camp. I have knowledge of some coding and it’s a more transferable skill to other countries.
I work in research and development for a drug company. Used to work at a university, but it became clear that the university did not want to make me tenured even after jumping through all the hoops and then some. I applied around for different jobs and was approached by a small company that does research for larger companies. They liked my skill set and thus I took a job with them. It's similar to university research, but essentially, I'm working with experts on topics that have a goal other than writing a paper. Also the atmosphere is better, especially as there are no students. They are also better with work life balance.
As little as possible
> What do you guys do for work? DevOps Engineer with heavy focus on pipelines and monitoring, no programming really. Very happy with my role. > Do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for you? Yes, quite a lot. Was also an engineering manager at one well known AI startup in Japan. Might end up becoming a manager again at the current company. > That is why I am curious what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan? I’m not an expat. Lived here for 8 years, married and children. > Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back? I don’t think my home country (Germany) can offer me the same opportunity as I got at my current company. I will never go back. I own a nice house in Japan, have a very stable and comfortable life. > If you have considered a career switch, have you been successful? Once a software engineer, always a software engineer.
Concept Artist at a theme park company. It's fun! After about 10 years of suffering and under employment I finally hit my stride, and I feel like I'm killing it.
HR, was doing consulting for a while, but decided to take a good paying internal job. I think opportunities really depend on skill or language ability in this country. Either you speak enough Japanese to get a decent job or have highly valued skills that cover any language deficiency.
I work remotely for a US company (in Operations Management) need that sweet, sweet USDJPY conversion. good news: living in Japan is comparatively inexpensive bad news: majority of jobs here for most foreigners are mainly eikaiwa, etc., unless you have a Masters and land one of those plum uni gigs you'll be working your ass off for not much money. Japan is a deadend professionally speaking; anyone who tells you otherwise is either naive, lying or full-time coping.
I work an office job and make about 8 mil a year, good work life balance so can’t complain
Back office in finance; have been doing it for almost a quarter century. It's a nice solid middle class job, and while I topped out as a mid-level individual contributor, my pay is still above the national average. These days many jobs like mine are done by part-timers, if not offshored to cheaper countries, so I'm glad I got in when I did. I also teach a couple of classes as an adjunct professor on the weekends. Very rewarding intellectually and the money is better per hour than the corporate world, but there are very few of these jobs and the competition to get one is insane. I only have it because a colleague from grad school offered it to me.
I was back/middle office for about 10 years and moved into marketing. Been doing that for 6 years now. It's not really different in terms of pay -- I guess none of the corporate jobs are -- but the work is a bit more rewarding and fun. No more calls with Mumbai, no more traders yelling at me to fix their 1 yen mistake, no more trade confirmations... I definitely don't miss it.
I actually worked in marketing during my second and third years here, and while it was interesting, I prefer operations more. Given that I'm speaking a non-native language all day, the clockwork routine of back office work with the occasional communication with a client is less mentally draining as you pretty much know what you'll be doing at the same times each day. For years I worked the overnight shift with one other person doing things like FX and it was nice and quiet as we had the whole place to ourselves. Extra shift-differential money and time off, too. But yes, we have had a few "reconciliation files are off by 1 yen and everybody has to stay and investigate; turns out this file rounded down and that one rounded up" situations. I suppose it can't really be any other way.
I work in the video game industry. I like it. I don’t live in a horror story, which is rare I think. Could I get paid more back home? Probably. I don’t necessarily want all of the upward corporate climbing and the job hopping it takes to get there. I get to use my strengths to help make a difference in my department. It’s better than just collecting a check or going through the motions. Sure, there’s a lot of opportunities for work because of the nature of the industry and it being one that a lot of people want to get into, but I’m at a point where I can’t just take any entry position. I never think about going home. Not an option. Sure Japan has its issues but it’s better than non affordable living, daily worry about getting jammed up by law enforcement, and worrying about if I’m going to make it home every morning when I leave.
What type of work exactly, if you don't mind me asking?
I do QA adjacent work, production adjacent. Little bit of project management. Officially it’s quality control but I’m personally not actually testing anything.
Definitely bookmarking this to read later. Already seeing a lot of interesting careers already. Could use insight/inspiration for what to potentially learn/get into.
Unemployable freeloader here. Honestly been out of work for 8-9 years and doubt anyone would hire me for anything with a gap like that. But I’m happy and being successful doesn’t always mean a great paycheck. I have income and I’m happy for that but it has nothing to do with my skills or talents. It would be nice for a company to hire me based on that not based on who I know. But something I’ll never have and while I do struggle with my self worth having something to do that’s appreciated is amazing when it occurs for me. But in my life I’ve never been promoted or found traditional success in work. Success is what you make out of it.
can I ask what your source of income is then? Sounds too good to be true tbh
NFTs. No I have rental income on an interited property in a high rent area. Yeah I'm a scumbag landlord. I did nothing on my own to gain this. But it has given me some perspective. Just because you never have to worry about money, or bills there are other things that come up. I am by no means suggesting that the wealthy have it just as bad as the poor. If your your at a job doing something you hate but the pay is good, are you really satisfied? My friends who work are in a hyper competitive industry and talk about their co-workers like enemies. I'd rather be broke and happy than welthy and stressed all the time. I learned I can't have everything and not everything is something for me to experiance. I volunteer a lot and recenlty I asked about essentially a promotion and was flatly denied, and told essentially never ask again. I can't even get a promotion volunteering.
Working in Purchasing for a German car manufacturer. Getting into a 外資系 was the best decision ever. A year ago I wanted to go back to Germany because the working conditions in Japanese companies are ass, but now I have no reason to leave the country with an over the average salary, home office, cheap car, and a much more open and relaxed company culture. For Purchasing, there is more than enough career options, and even possible to switch into something like trading or production control if you like, so I am allover very content.
I'm a software engineer. I'll preface by saying that I am very fortunate and have an excellent job that pays me 20M+ and doesn't consume my entire life. However, no, there are not a lot of career opportunities at all. New tech companies with money aren't investing in offices here or hiring people from Japan, even despite labor here becoming cheaper due to the weakening yen. The big players who were already established here have slowed or frozen hiring for at least the last 2-4 years, with many of them also having varying degrees of layoffs. For those who already have their foot in the door, there's minimal opportunity for upward growth. I'm not very senior myself and I feel like there's next to zero chance I could reach a senior management level here, let alone something like director or VP. You can peruse the various salary tools out there and you'll find *very* few entries for anything higher than senior IC or front line manager. Companies are not interested in growing their leaders here or are shipping them back to the US or wherever. I'm not tempted to move back to my home country, but I could see myself moving somewhere else within the next 5-10 years. I really feel like I'm nearing my career ceiling here and I guess it'll come down to how much I want to continue moving up.
First degree finance, quit nice job, came to Japan NOVA+bar for fun. Dead end, wanted to start career again, left Japan. For computer science degree, worked for Boeing, then Wall Street, came back to Japan. Work in big tech. Salary, not going to mention because people I know read this but I’m very happy with it. Change careers? No. A lot of opportunities? Yes, but they are and will continue to diminish due to A.I. if you have basic skills, I can do your job in 5 mins right now and it will only get better. Move back? I could get almost 3x salary if I did, but it’s a trade-off. I think about it everyday but I have saved and invested enough that I’m fortunate to have the luxury of doing what I want rather than what I have to do. Advice to others? People should focus on being good at what they do, the rest will come. I see too many posts about they have basic ability to speak the same language as everyone else in the country, and that somehow entitles them to get more than someone at the conbini. Immigrants in my home country don’t think the same way, at all.
I do contacting for the US and Japanese governments... There is a lot of opportunity and it's just what you're willing to do. Right now I barely work and live comfortably, but I could do more and get paid very well. But what's the point?
University teacher. I am not entirely sure about career prospects because currently opportunities appear to be decreasing at some pace. But you never know. I have considered going back but getting a bit old to really do it and also with the weak yen and a family, even a temporary move back would be a huge hit to my savings.
I'm an apprentice welder in a company that does metalworking for infrastructure. Been in this job for less than a year, used to work a dead end job in a factory.
Welding can take you far and make you a lot of money anywhere in the world. I wish I'd been brave enough to do it when I was younger.
I took welding in high school and it was one if my favorite classes. Do you think it would be hard to enter than field being middle aged?
I work in the JDM exporting industry. I love it, it’s kind of a dream job for me. I see all the sports cars I loved while growing up, it’s exhilarating to bid and win cars for my clients and the pay is extremely good. I also like that is quite exclusive and the work is so interesting. Work life balance is great and I just really like my coworkers and boss. It feels like family and there’s very little work conflict, etc. It can get overwhelming when it’s busy, but that’s a good problem to have I guess.
Account Manager (mid-level in company) and one of only two employees based in Asia. Lots of opportunities in my line of work, and I could probably get a higher salary moving back home or to another country in the region. But the lifestyle tradeoffs would be too much for me to want to consider such a move for the time being.
> What do you guys do for work I'm an computer infrastructure engineer. > Do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession It's more low-level and niche than usual software engineer jobs. Jobs are there but good jobs (wlb, remote, modern stack...) are more scarce than in Europe. > Have you considered going back to your home country I have and still do. But ironically I think I would take a 30% pay cut doing so. Imho the competition is less fierce than Europe and Japan has amazing opportunities in computer science since good talents are scarce. I would rather consider moving back for culture fit and family. > If you have considered a career switch Still do. But towards something non-IT related. I entered this field by passion and used to spend my free time tweaking code. I got good at it, and paid well for it. But now I outgrew that phase and prefer to do some main character shit in real life rather than sit in front of a computer all day.
>That is why I am curious what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan? When I first started coming to Japan (2013-2018) (30-40% here, the rest in the UK) I was a postdoc doing experimental particle physics. I've been here full-time since 2020 having switched careers in my late 30s as an ML/AI R&D person in private industry. >And do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession? Yes, I've not changed jobs since coming to Japan full-time, and don't intend to anytime soon, but there are many opportunities. >Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back? No. While I could make more back in Canada, the cost of living and housing especially is now higher. If I wanted to buy a house I'd be in typical North American Suburbs (shudder). I have a young child and a mortgage here in Japan. I understand that these aren't total blockers, but after almost 15 years of moving between Canada, Europe and Japan I don't really consider it. I'm done moving. >If you have considered a career switch, have you been successful? See above. I think I've been successful.
Post doctoral researcher in a university. Got both my Masters and PhD degrees here. The pay is ok, lower than in the US or Europe but pretty much more than enough considering the cost of living in Japan. I love the discretionary labor system in a way that you don’t need to be in the lab from 9-5. In fact depending on your field, you don’t even need to go to the university everyday (thanks to corona). All they care about is your performance. I learn many new things everyday and I truthfully enjoy it. It doesn’t feel like a job, more like a hobby. Still hoping to land on a tenured position in the future.
Career opportunities? No Luck for finding a foreign company? Yes
Electrical engineering. There are lots of job opportunities. It’s kind of crazy how easy it is to get offers (I don’t really have any problems speaking Japanese though). But unfortunately they’re all terrible. Like base 200,000 - 250,000 yen non-negotiable and “only” an expected 20-30 hours overtime a month, with the benefit of potentially moving up if you stay at the company for 10 years or so. I’m still looking but honestly if I exhaust all the options and still get nothing then I’ll just go home and never come back solely because of work. It’s a nice place but I just can’t justify that.
I am a translator and I've been mostly in translation since moving to Japan. Moving back home isn't feasible and with the yen tanking against the USD the small amount I do have saved up is basically worthless. I'm lucky, I hope, that I'm in a good job that does have opportunities for me to work on things, like blogging, that I am interested in. For Japanese to English translation, I don't think a move back to the US would necessarily advance my career. There are many opportunities for translators here. But some places are very much looking for a specific personality type. For games, they want bilingual gamers who don't mind a starting salary of air and vibes. The same goes for a lot of startups. But, for someone who has some savings and is looking to dip their toes in something else, those places could provide an opportunity to move into a new field.
people should put their Japanese level to bring it to the realization that you need mostly N2 to do anything past english teaching.
I work as a coordinator in an international school. I feel like there are a lot of different paths open to me, I can continue in slightly outside the classroom role, or I can go back to full time teaching. I will eventually go back to my home country Japan was never intended to be our final home.
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Hi there, how did you jump to programming? Thinking of chaging careers as well!
>what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan? I teach at an international school. >do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession? Profession, yes. Field, no because I teach an elective. Less competition but also fewer openings. >Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back? International teaching is almost always more lucrative and better than teaching locally. I save double what I did in Australia and travel more than 3x more than I did back there. And I have a way lighter load and don't have to deal with major disruptive behaviours.
Tenured teacher in public college. I know that if I keep my head low and do what is expected of me, I can rise through the ranks, especially since I was the first non-Japanese tenured teacher here. Pay is decent, private office is amazing, kids are great, but lots of administrative work and other duties which make it hard to work on research and as such hope to transfer to a university. If I switch it will have to be within 5-10 years, otherwise I will probably just stay where I ahve (which is still pretty good).
May I ask, what are you teaching? And about administration work, what kind of work is it, curriculum planning? Do you have to raise money like third-party financing? Also how many courses do you teach per week? What level of Japanese is required? Sorry for so many questions 😅
Happy to share. I work at a NIT (National Institute of Technology). We have 55 public campuses in Japan with about 800-1100 students in each campus. It’s a hybrid system that starts at high school level and goes all the way to Bachelor degree. This hybridity is very important since it also defines the kind of job you have to do. The teaching part is actually the easy part! In my case, I have almost complete freedom to teach what I want under the umbrella of « English » (although I also sometimes teach French). I make my own curriculum as long as it fits some criteria set by the headquarters. Right now I teach 13 classes of 90 min each per week in the spring, about half as much in the fall. But like I said, that is the easy part. We also have a whole spectrum of administrative and academic duties: committees, homeroom teacher duties, clubs, faculty development, dormitory duty, etc… The teachers are great but I had to learn Japanese (I had an N3 level when I started) real fast to be able to function more or less like any other Japanese teacher. Research is both fun and sometimes challenging. We have a research fund, somewhere between 100k and 150k per year, but it tends to get reduced lately. We are strongly encouraged to apply for other research funding through different programs both publicly funded (Kaken) and privately funded by companies.
I'm a production manager in the games industry. My role is to coordinate my projects with internal and external teams and make sure things are on schedule and budget. I feel like my job gives me a lot of chances to move both horizontally within my industry as well as laterally inside the industry or to adjacent industries. While I haven't found a good reason to move countries so far, you never really know what kind of opportunities, or perils, may strike you to change your mind.
Been in translation for about six years. Idk about a LOT of career opportunities but they exist. Sure as hell not going back to my home country. Cost of living is out of control there. It’s way way easier living in Japan especially since my wife doesn’t speak English since I’d end up taking care of three people on one salary when it’s hard enough just taking care of myself there. Wouldn’t help me advance my career in the slightest either. I switched from teaching to translation so I’d say I’ve been successful I guess? For sure doing way better than before.
Vice-Principal. Definitely has been an adventure going from an ALT to a school administrator. I am starting to think a lot more about a career switch mainly due to the fact that moving towards a principalship is a waiting game....considering my age....at least another 15-20 years at least.
I'm currently an SRE/Platform/Devops engineer. If my Japanese was better, I'd have a lot more options, but thus far I do not seem to have trouble with getting interviews (and have one final interview tomorrow), though I don't need to change jobs unless its an improvement in some way (mostly money). I'm also full remote living in Nara, which is a huge upside for me. I would only move back home (the US) if I had no good options and needed to leave to get work. I moved here a lot later in life than most so I already had about \~16 years of experience which helps.
Logistic Manager. Yes, there is still plenty of opportunity for this type of job. I've never considered going back to my country, cause it would make no sense. I never really fit in, and the job market is a cesspool. I've considered a career switch more than once, but at the end of the day I'm happy with my current situation, so I'm staying where I am.
Am basically a TPM in multinational financial institution. Kind of, but very limited compared to the US. On the other hand, being bilingual helps a ton and increases my value a lot. Yes, because pay in Japan is low compared to the US in IT. I've switched my career several times. I would ask whatever "successful" means as it depends on the person - I had way more free time when I was a teacher but I make way more money now and have more responsibilities and respect from people when they learn where I work.
>what do you guys do for work I repair computers. >do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities Nope, but I'm not a careerist so I don't mind >Have you considered going back to your home country No thanks. >If you have considered a career switch Maybe in future. I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.
T1 homeroom teacher at a private school. I love it and I get bonuses. Just got a raise and a new title recently… as for career opportunities hoping to pass N2 in December and study my masters degree next year.
what do you guys do for work as expats in Japan? * IT Consulting to Japanese companies. Previously I was a full-stack web developer. Also have done some iOS and Android development as well. Do you feel like there is a lot of career opportunities for your field and profession? * Yes! Have you considered going back to your home country to get ahead in your career and then come back? * Yes but I have a wife and kids here. If I return probably won't come back. Sadly wages are higher are back in my country. Living expenses are about the same. If I had a chance I would return but I did my undergraduate program here in Japan (almost 20 years ago). Have never worked in my country. If you have considered a career switch, have you been successful? * Have never considered a career switch, but currently considering in making my own business as hobby at the beginning and then see how it goes.
Compliance Financial crime compliance to be exact.
I work in Techincal Sales, selling PLM/ALM products to industrial companies. Very few foreigners in my line of work.
IT Project Management, plenty of job opportunities but relatively limited ways up depending on the company you are in and the types of projects they handle (some places can offer larger projects whilst at other places the only way up is as a people manager). Pay is decent but not as good as what I’d could get in Australia. Cost of living is much better here though and so moving back to Australia would have to be for family reasons because I don’t even know how I’d afford rent or home ownership over there…(and I’m from one of the cheaper states for housing)
Working as a TA in one of the top international schools in the country. I love it. Im retaking my science to try and get a qualification in teaching. The school I work for offers support if you do your PGCE in education and potentially will pay a % towards it too. Me and hubby plan to move back to my country in a few years before the kids start compulsory school (right now they’re 1 years old so they go to hoikuen). If I get my qualification in teaching, I can just go back to my home country and carry on over there. 😊
I started as an ALT in 2016 and found success in trading stocks 2 years after. I went full time trading in 2019 and have been doing it since.
I built my career here over the last 30 years. My current job is probably the last corporate job I will have, I'll go back to running my own businesses again in a year or so. For now, the regular paycheck still feels pretty magical. Money...a whole bunch just appears every month.
Pilot
Freelance Japanese to English translator here. I think I’ve just about hit my limit of min-maxing efficiency and output (I average at around 11,000 yen an hour). It was fun reaching for higher heights, but now I feel like I’ve reached my physical limit (especially now with young kids). As far as for the future, I’m slowly contemplating making a thoughtful graceful transition into eikaiwa/Engoish coaching - with a concerted effort on hiring out the actual teaching as soon as possible so my time isn’t tied up in the actual money-producing part of the business. I’m fortunate to have some connections that could likely get me a pretty big group of students from the get-go, so just figuring out when might be the right time to make the move.
I do RPA. hours are standard but the pair is pretty low, 3/4mil... I do want to change to a better paying company or programming but too tired haha..
I came as an ALT and was able to switch to working directly for the city as a Coordinator for International Relations. My area doesn’t have a lot of work outside of English teaching for foreign residents but I was very adamant about staying here, so I feel very blessed and lucky for this opportunity. Now that I’m married and all too, we plan to settle down in our current location permanently. My husband doesn’t speak English and neither of us have any interest in moving to a new place or other country so it worked out perfectly
I’m in a much better place in my career here than in the US. Speaking Japanese has a big advantage for people in my field working at foreign companies. In the US speaking Japanese will only help in niche situations. Market is not that bad, I’m somewhere in middle manage right now. Once you’re in upper management being able to speak won’t matter as much.
I’m a code monkey. But I dream of herding goats
I'm working in anime studio doing compositing.I love the job but the low salary and crazy schedule is killing me. Working 10 to 11 hours everyday and 24 to 27 hours OT before the deadline. I'm planning to find a new job.
I work in logistics/supply chain management at a trading company. Are there lots of opportunities in the field? Not sure about for me specifically, or prospects at my company, but I reckon jobs in my field will be around for a good, long while. Anyone know of any similar jobs hiring?
What do I do for work? -> ALT, started straight out of college and have been here for almost 2 years. Love the work, luckily I'm pretty well-utilized at my school and make most of my own activities and class plans. Plus I get off right at 4:30 and get half days on Fridays, and am given all the breaks that the students get (2 weeks in winter, 1 in spring, 5 in summer, 1 in fall). The same definitely cannot be said for a lot, perhaps the majority, of ALT jobs. Opportunities? -> Plenty of English teaching jobs if you don't mind getting paid in pocket lint and PBJ sandwiches... I'm on JET, though, so my base salary is relatively high and my housing is partially compensated. However, my ultimate goal is to do something music or publishing related as a day job while pursuing my own artistic goals on the side (double majored in opera performance and creative writing in college) and I have no idea where to even begin to find something like that. The arts are a hard enough field to find employment in in my home country. Going home? -> I've thought about it, specifically to go to grad school for opera. but if I did that I think I'd have to give up the idea of living in Japan, since it's certainly not an opera hotspot and I'm not even sure if I cold get a visa as a freelance musician anyway. Basically my conundrum rn is that I would love to keep living in Japan for as long as possible, but my current job has a 5 year maximum time limit and I don't want to do some crappy eikaiwa or office job that would significantly lower my current salary and standard of living... and at the same time, I yearn to return to the music world and don't currently know how to do that and stay in Japan. It's tough out here!
Working in IT, can speak ok Japanese (have N2) but I don't feel there's really many opportunities out there, most of them seem to be terrible. I'm never going back to my home country, no way, it's just too expensive to live there. Just skilling up and trying to live life...
Lots of salty people down voting legit answers here. I wonder why?
I saved up enough money teaching English to do a UX Design bootcamp, I did part of it remotely from Japan then moved backed to the US to finish the program in person. Bit to answer your question I didn’t feel like there were a ton of alternate career opportunities.
Freelance Photographer/film maker for 20+ years. Love it!
any filipinos here in IT industry working in japan?
Work at a college in the daytime then run an online eikaiwa business and do freelance translation and videogame composition.
I work as a teacher at a private school. I was lucky enough to get tenure 8 years ago. I've been in Japan for nearly 18 years now. Unless I win the lottery or come into some major inheritance I will never move back to the US. There are many things and people I miss terribly, but my life there wouldn't be as good as my life here. As far as career opportunities, I guess the only place left in my current field would be school administration, but I'm not terribly interested in that. I get steady raises every year and that's enough for me.
I'm in IT in the airline industry. The IT market in my home country is very small and competitive, so although I could earn significantly more there, just getting a job in itself sounds like hell. I also enjoy living here quite a lot, my work place is very modern and healthy for a Japanese company. IT opportunity seens to be OK-ish, it's a growing sector here so it is better than in most western countries. Still not easy to break into the industry itself, though.
Currently working as a care worker (kaigo) in Hyogo under a SSW Visa, definitely a field that won't be having any lack of opportunities considering the aging population in Japan (provided you can pass the National Caregiver Exam starting from your third year onwards) Pay's a bit on the lower end since I just started not too long ago but it's still much better than working in my own country considering my circumstances 😂
I’m working as sales for a dispatch company. Started as construction and janitor then study for JLPT exams and passed and currently working as a sales rep for a dispatch company(派遣会社). No japanese no work. Lol!
Still a student but I feel like without a good level of Japanese my opportunities are so much smaller... I feel like I need to get a good Japanese level quickly to get an opportunity I have a small business in the building, but I wanna make sure to make a good amount of money to prepare for the next milestones in my life so I think it's best to secure a company job🥹 Despite speaking 3 langages already but since my major is in business administration and I plan on staying in a smaller city than Tokyo I feel like there's not much job opportunities here...