I'm Bangladeshi, born and raised in Japan, so I have had the unique experience of being fully native in Japanese as well as knowing English to be able to communicate with foreigners. In the six years I have been working as an engineer, over three different companies (one multinational megacorp, one startup, and one large local company), there were only TWO DAYS where I had to use English for work, and that was to communicate with a team in Paris about an internal project. Everything else is 100% Japanese. Documentation is in Japanese, comments in code are in Japanese, git commit messages are in Japanese, everything. Even if you are working at an international or multinational company, they are stationed in Japan to serve the Japanese market, so you will have to communicate with Japanese people, in Japanese. Noone is going to adapt to you, and it is your responsibility to adapt. Knowing English in Japan is practically useless outside of working with foreign clients and reading English documentation for whatever library you're working with (which generally has Japanese documentation anyway, generally easier to understand than in English, so when you're talking to coworkers you will have to be familiar with the Japanese terms regardless). Personally, with the awful pay, terrible exchange rates, and increasing pension year by year (that IIRC foreigners have to pay into as well), and declining healthcare services, I have no idea why anyone would even consider moving here. Just my two cents, good luck everyone.

No Japanese mostly means no Japanese in day to day work task. Japanese may be needed with co workers, HR, upper bosses, social groups and many other areas.

Let me put on my two cents' worth with regards to language 😅. I work with polish native team in my company. But recently new person who doesn't speak English joined us. During the work time ( no meetings 😆 ) we use polish. When it comes to planning, refinement, etc. we switch to english in order to properly convey our thoughts and understand each other. This happens as it was mentioned that "in IT we use English mostly". But we need to remember that this "IT culture" came to us from US directly and we have adopted it as it was easier for us to do it. Japan on the other hand because it's ethically and culturally a monolith adopted IT with their culture in mind. Maybe that's why people either can't or won't understand why japanese is needed in Japan to do work. Also - if you move abroad you should at least have some willingness to learn new language 😁😁

One of my favorite learning tools is a JS basics book in Japanese. Helped me get familiar with the software concepts I already learned in English. Double whammy

thankfully I speak Japanese, before I start working I will grind all the tech words out, shouldnt be that hard. Also trying to get the english speaking only software engineer jobs here is just as hard as trying to get a job in software engineering in the west. the only labor shortage of tech/software engineering in Japan is in the local market. obviously you need to be fully fluent in those.

"It worked for me, why don't you try the same?" is the best advice ever. It's science! Seriously, it reduces your chances, increases competition, and probably will mean fewer possibilities for a promotion if you even make it. How can you hope to make decisions, manage a team, and have meetings with other stakeholders if you don't speak the local language? Sure, the developers might be more exposed to English, and you could also have foreign co-workers. But outside of that bubble, everyone else will prefer speaking their native language. Personally, my minimum is getting N2 and a decent speaking level before applying. But language is not everything, there will also be some cultural differences, and being prepared is never a wasted effort.

Important topic, and a nice live demo, thanks for the vid. By the way, do you recommend any scouting sites? I was scouted on an IT site for my current job (in Germany) but not sure if there’s as much stuff like that in Japan

Knowing Japanese is a big plus.

Great Video. I totally agree with needing to speak the local language not only for having access to more jobs but to also integrate into the society. I will say though I have been contacted by multiple recruiters for Cloud/Infrastructure jobs and they've told me there are plenty of english jobs for my skillset and I have conducted a few interviews where the company reiterated they're english only.

Yessir, if you don't have any Japanese you better have the skills and experience to make up for that. There is very much a balance of skill and Japanese language that is considered. Also the job market in Japan is very much handled with recruitment agencies, most of these jobs listed hide the company names and other details because of their competitors. So my advice is to interact with the recruiters who will disclose these details to you. There may be some companies who are also willing to work with your lack of Japanese, but you need to show that you are willing to learn the language, you should also expect to prove that you are serious about living in Japan long term as well. Every single casual call or interview will raise this question of longevity.

Learning Chinese, German, Russian, Greek, French, Dutch, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, urdu. Many great languages all around the world. If your willing to learn other languages, why not all places. Not as hard as people think.

Thanks for the information in regard to the reality of the IT job market in Japan. I'm considering the option of going to a language school first; could you please give me the name of that school you mentioned on minute 14:44. Would really appreciate the info. Cheers!

Good to mention that if you are still a student to sign up for a study abroad program at your school or take a gap year and go to a language school.Also if you can find a desk job where you can get away with checking Facebook the whole time and use that time to code/japanese instead.

I am currently in japan and i have n2 Japanese and basic it skills whats the chance of getting in it company?

why would anyone even want to go to japan just to speak english all the time, what happened to trying to assimilate lol

I'm too old. Does it makes sense for a 37 year old guy to start on JLPT? My tech skills are stellar though and my CV has big names

How did you transition from Teaching to IT? I'm trying to do the same - I'm in Japan

What is the best way to pass ITPEC exam as a beginner?

Great video, insightful and matches my experience trying to find Japanese tech positions. N3 + a in-demand language (C++) hasnt been enough to land a job while in the UK So I have the money saved up to study, and I am also able to get a spouse visa. However, my wife is concerned that me "quitting my job and moving to Japan without a job" would make job hunting more difficult because of japans "culture of not hiring unemployed people". Could you share the light on how true this is? Will Japanese employers not hire someone who hasn't worked for a whole year even if that year was spent at language school? Cheers Tom

Make a video on how you find freelance work pls 🙏

As a foreigner currently working in the digital industry in Japan, I can firmly verify that the employment market in Japan IT industry is getting harsher even for the local applicants, let alone foreigners who may not be able to speak fluent Japanese. Or you will need to accept a crippling wage when yen is so weak currently. Oh and ghosting is also a thing in Japan. Some Japanese can speak pretty good English, but they are the absolute minority. You cannot get away without speaking/writing Japanese while working in a Japanese company. Yes. I also heard about big Japanese corps like Toshiba undergo mass layoff, or push early retirement for some senior executives to cut cost. Square-Enix is currently in a very bad shape either which has kinda frozen employment of developers (you may still find them posting jobs online but expect fat chance of ghosting.)

I would rather try to get a position in a foreign company

I had an English speaking IT job in japan but first I had to have Japanese IT experience and appled on wantedly in Japanese lol 😅

VC Money is drying up and AI's already starting to come into hurdles; Financial and Regulatory bodies have already said they're not interested, certainly not to the level it needs to be what it's being sold as. And there's nothing else in the pipeline. Yeah, get your Japanese down. Just don't take it personally if you REALLY have to prove yourself with the language barrier, they're starting you at "This guy doesn't speak a word of Japanese."

sounds like a train wreck over there

Even people who work at Woven struggle to get people they know jobs there 🙁

Nice video bro, very considerate to your girlfriend to speak softly.. but not sure she'd take kindly to being called "the dog".

why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why do you keep appearing in my feed... be gone