How I Found A Software Development Job in Japan Without Experience and Without Speaking Japanese
By: Drew Terry
Tags: Tech, Japan, Jobs, Coding, Software Engineering

I moved to Tokyo to start a software engineering job in December of 2015. Since I’ve been here I’ve gotten a lot of questions on how I was able to find the job especially since I spoke very little Japanese and most importantly because I didn’t have a computer science degree or any professional engineering experience.

So I decided to share the concrete steps I followed to find my first engineering job in Japan and hopefully, others will be able to learn from it.

Step 1. Don’t graduate with a job already in hand and go to Japan

After college, I was really lost in terms of what I wanted to do with my life and I didn’t have a job. I had been rejected by most of the jobs typical business majors aspire to do, namely consulting and investment banking (honestly I wasn’t really that interested, I just thought it was what I was supposed to do as a business major), so I decided that I would do a two-month language course in Japan and hopefully figure stuff out after that.

Initially, I didn’t really have the intention of moving to Japan or finding a job here, to be honest, I was just really interested in the language and the culture. But soon I realized that the only way I would ever learn Japanese to a level I would be satisfied with was if I lived and breathed Japanese every single day, and the only way that was going to happen was if I lived in Japan. So I made the decision that I was going to find a way to live in Japan.

As an American, this decision meant that I would need to get a visa that would allow me to stay for an extended period of time. This left me with a few options — I could enroll full time in an intensive language school, I could go to graduate school, or I could find a job. Since I had just spent the last 4 years in college and wasn’t really looking to spend another couple of years just spending money, I decided my only option was to find a job here.

This left me in a situation where I was a new college graduate with no full-time professional experience, and I really didn’t speak any Japanese…I could probably pass N5 and that was about it…

I spent the next month doing research and talking to as many people as I could including recruiters and friends of friends of friends, and attending college alumni events to see what kind of jobs would be available for someone with a business major, no professional experience, almost no language ability and who had never worked or lived in Japan. After talking to a ton of people, the overwhelming response was that I should A) teach English, B) go back to the U.S., work at an established company and then transfer to Japan after a couple of years, or C) find a way to go to graduate school. However, being as impatient (and stubborn) as I am, I would tell people that none of those options sounded like a good option for me, which garnered a lot of “That’s gonna be hard…but good luck…”, accompanied by a healthy dose of skepticism.

Basically, the general message was that if I wanted to live in Japan, it was not going to be under the terms that I wanted. But these rebuffs didn’t really stop me and only made me resolve to try harder and get more creative.

Step 2. Get desperate and lucky

After a month of searching (which really isn’t that long, but note that I only had 2 months to find a job), literally everyone I talked to said that 1. I needed way more experience to do jobs that were business-related, or 2. I needed to have near-fluent Japanese ability. I didn’t want to give up though, so I did what everyone does in this situation — I asked strangers on the internet for help.

At that time, I was a fairly active user of Quora, a question and answer site that was becoming quite popular in the US. I had written both answers and some questions there and fairly frequently I had gotten helpful responses. So I decided to post a question on Quora simply directly asking what I was looking for.

I posted this question without much hope, but it took me only a few seconds to write so I thought I had nothing to lose. And then one day I got a response:

Of course, I dropped him a line and we set up a time to chat.

The following week I had lunch with him and 2 other members working at his startup and we discussed what kinds of roles could be available. The answer was: none. Again, with my lack of language ability and experience, there was no role I could realistically do at the company. However, he graciously offered to try to help me find a job and connect me with other people that might have some other leads.

As we walked out from lunch, I asked him why exactly he said he was open to hiring foreigners and he said that he was “trying to hire engineers and it was hard to find talent in Japan”.

Step 3. Seize the opportunity and get lucky again

Now, I had no Computer Science degree and had basically learned to make really, really simple websites in college via a minor called Web Technologies and Applications, where I learned a lot of HTML, CSS, and a little bit of Javascript and PHP.

However, near the end of graduation and while I had been living in Japan, I luckily had been learning more web development in my spare time by taking Learn Python the Hard Way and by creating a kanji learning application with the Django web framework.

So when I heard they were trying to hire engineers, I don’t know why but I jumped at it and said “I can do engineering!”. I was a little nervous after I said it because most of what I learned about web development had been self-taught over the last few months and there was no way I could ever call myself an engineer. But the CEO of the company was willing to give me a shot and set up a meeting with their CTO.

A few days later, I met with the CTO and showed him the very ugly, incomplete piece of crap kanji app I had been making. And it was crappy, as of now I can’t even figure out how to get the app running on my laptop again. But even though it was crappy, at that point it worked, and apparently it was good enough that they decided to let me do a one-month internship while my visa was still valid (due to labor laws in Japan, what I did was not really an internship, but more of a way of showing that I could work as a software engineer, kind of a long story).

I could write a lot more about how that internship went, especially considering none of the engineers I worked with spoke any English, and I barely knew how to code. But for now, this is basically where the story ends. I completed the internship and got a full-time offer to work in Japan as a software engineer, and I am extremely thankful that the CEO and his team were willing to take a chance on me. I wouldn’t be where I am at today without them.

Wait, are you saying I need to post questions on Quora to get a software job in Japan?

I know my story is really specific and honestly, I would not suggest copying almost anything I did in order to find your first software engineering job in Japan. The fact of the matter is that I just got SUPER lucky. However, the one thing I would like to show with this story is that it is possible to find your dream job in Japan given enough determination, risk-taking, and luck. Additionally, since I came here initially the software industry has grown considerably in terms of the acceptance of foreigners, so it’s easier than ever to enter Japan as a software engineer.

Quick Practical Advice for Actually Finding a Job Here

Alright, I’ll give you some real things you can do if you want to work in Japan as a software engineer, especially if you don’t have formal software engineering experience. Again, I could probably write a huge in-depth article about this, but let me just write down some quick pieces of advice and add a bunch of links :)

Come to Japan and meet people [Maybe wait until Covid situation calms down]

If you are fortunate to be in a place in your life where you can make a trip to Japan, this is definitely what you should do if you want to find a job here. This way you can talk to more people, make more connections and find opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t be able to find from your own country. I would suggest having some kind of portfolio that you can show people as well.

Basically, almost every single person I know found their job in Japan through some kind of connection, so even if you are not currently in Japan, actively finding ways to connect with people in Japan is the single most important thing when trying to find a job here.

Get engaged in the community

Attend meetups such as:

Join the HacknewsTokyo slack channel to see what’s happening in the Tokyo tech scene.

Attend a coding bootcamp

This is a great option if you have very little programming experience and some spare time (and cash). These boot camps typically last around 3 months and will prepare you to become a full-fledged software engineer in Japan, even if you have very little programming experience. If you complete one of the following bootcamps you are almost guaranteed of being able to find a software engineering job in Japan:

Be persistent and don’t get discouraged

It can seem hard sometimes since most companies in Japan require high levels of Japanese to be an engineer, but almost every person I know who has tried to find a software engineering job here has managed to find one eventually.

If you are just searching for companies that hire English-speaking engineers, I would suggest you check out Tokyo Dev and JapanDev as a starting point to get information on companies that hire English-speaking software engineers.

Additionally, there is a youtube channel called Dev In Japan, which has been growing in popularity and gives good insights into what it is like working as a developer in Japan.

Want to keep up to date about the tech industry in Japan?

Feel free to follow me or message me on Twitter or connect with me on Linkedin.

I am currently also working on a project called OpenSalary which aggregates salary data for engineers in Japan so hopefully this can be helpful in your job search as well. Thanks for reading!