One Year as a Software Engineer in Japan: Thoughts and Reflections

Before I knew it, I’ve already completed a full year working in Japan. Here, I’d like to share some thoughts and experiences, hoping to spark discussion and dispel some common myths about job hunting and working in Japan.

This is a rather long post, covering everything from my initial job hunt and day-to-day responsibilities to daily life, aiming to clarify information that isn’t often discussed online. Regarding the job hunt itself, I wrote a blog post about it last year. If you’re interested, feel free to check it out: A Software Engineer’s Job Hunting Experience in Japan.

Background

• 4 years of frontend experience (the first 3 years in Taiwan)
• Graduated from a national university of science and technology in Taiwan
• JLPT N1, TOEIC 830

I have loved Japanese culture for a long time. Back in university, the thought of working in Japan gradually took root, and I even applied for a working holiday visa at the time, hoping to set off that way. However, due to mandatory military service and financial constraints, I couldn’t follow through back then. Before graduating, I had over two years of work experience, and due to some past foolishness, I delayed my graduation by a year.

Fortunately, right after graduation, I received my military draft notice, allowing for a seamless transition into service (four months). After completing my service, I focused entirely on applying for positions in Japan and successfully landed an offer.

• 2018.07 Graduated from university (5th year)
• 2018.09 ~ 2019.01 Military service
• 2019.02 ~ 2019.04 Job hunting, sending resumes, interviewing
• 2019.04 Received offer, began visa processing
• 2019.04.23 Submitted Certificate of Eligibility (COE) application
• 2019.06.14 Received COE, went to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association to obtain the visa (took about 30–40 days)
• 2019.07.01 ~ 2020.07.01 Officially reached one full year at the company

Observations on Software Development in Japan

Taiwan has many great companies and talented people, along with substantial demand for software development. However, compared to Japan’s market size and population, it’s on a completely different scale. There are also many pure software companies here actively recruiting IT talent. I wanted to seize the opportunity to venture overseas while the opportunity cost was low and I was still young.

My current observation is that while some companies still don’t value software very highly—and there are plenty of situations where sales staff take precedence over engineers—there seems to be a gradual shift for the better recently.

Regarding open source, I think the earlier Tokyo COVID-19 Task Force Website serves as a great example. This website was built with contributions from community engineers across the country. While Japan’s pandemic policies were quite disorganized compared to Taiwan’s, you could still see people rolling up their sleeves to get things done. As a side note, this is the very repository where Audrey Tang’s Pull Request caused a major buzz.

Tokyo COVID-19 Task Force Website

This pandemic portal wasn’t just used in Tokyo; the same codebase was adopted by other regions as well. For example, Nagasaki and Fukuoka both cloned the Tokyo repository and adapted it for local use.

Additionally, the Japanese government provides a substantial amount of open data, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Open Data Portal and the Fukuoka City Open Data Portal. These include datasets on population changes, subway ridership, COVID-19 infection figures, and more. Looking at these initiatives, I don’t get the feeling that Japan is “falling behind”; it’s simply a difference shaped by culture.

Software Development Process

One thing you noticeably feel at work is that feature development comes with extremely detailed specification documents. Even down to page UI, individual components have detailed state transition logic and rendering conditions explicitly documented. Because requirements are so clearly defined, it is much easier to eliminate ambiguities during development.

The downside is that rather than “building first and iterating later,” Japanese work culture tends to prefer gathering resources, planning exhaustively, and obtaining cross-departmental sign-offs before taking action. This can significantly stretch out the overall development cycle. In these situations, the foreign engineer’s advantage lies in agility and adaptability—gradually introducing improvements within the existing framework, delivering results step by step, and advocating for process refinements.

Open Source / Tech Communities

At tech community events in Japan, I have met a few contributors to Vue and React. When applying to companies, the vast majority were recruiting for modern frontend frameworks like Vue and React, though many traditional Japanese corporations still stick to jQuery, ASP, or older PHP setups.

Japan’s software development ecosystem has its own distinct culture. For technical articles, platforms like Qiita dominate, while personal blogs frequently live on HATENA, and many developers write on Note. For tech community events and networking, Twitter and Connpass are the primary channels. In recent years, an indie developer created Zenn, which has been warmly embraced across the Japanese developer community.

I feel that information spreads quite rapidly in the Japanese software industry. Take Recoil as an example: just a day after the videos and documentation were released, Japanese developers had already published articles breaking it down. Articles from China followed soon after, whereas in Taiwan, discussions were mostly confined to Facebook groups or Twitter. Then again, this might simply be because Taiwanese developers are accustomed to reading original English sources directly and don’t feel the need to translate or summarize them.

Work Culture and Regulations

My company uses a flexible working hours system. Although it uses the minashi zangyo (みなし残業, where a set amount of overtime pay is built into the base salary, so working within that threshold does not incur additional overtime pay) system, I have rarely had to work overtime so far. Even if overtime is required, you can simply come in later the next day.

That said, I do believe that sweatshop companies (“black companies”) still exist in Japan, as do unwritten rules like “you can’t leave before your manager does.” Works like “The Dark Side of Japanese IT Dispatch Work Seen by a Taiwanese Engineer” depict many of the darker realities of dispatch work in Japan. Avoiding this comes down to asking around thoroughly and asking probing questions during interviews.

What I want to emphasize here is that “your experience is what defines your reality.” The perspectives and experiences shared in this article might differ completely from your own, and I am by no means trying to invalidate anyone else’s journey. However, by offering an additional perspective, I hope to give people a more balanced basis for decision-making, rather than blindly assuming that “working in Japan = sweatshop labor.”

Compensation

In my view, while there are plenty of low-paying companies in Japanese software development, the salary ceiling is substantially higher than in Taiwan.

I encourage everyone to check out Open Salary. The top tier easily reaches 10 million yen or more, with companies like LINE, Mercari, Google Japan, Yahoo, and PayPay offering very competitive compensation packages. While foreign multinationals make up a large portion, I believe select Japanese startups can also offer competitive salaries. As long as you have solid skills, you can find great career opportunities in Japan—it’s not nearly as bleak as forums like PTT often portray.

Open Salary compensation listing

Of course, looking closely, you’ll also notice companies where compensation does not align well with years of experience. I currently work in Fukuoka, where an annual income above 5 million yen allows for a very comfortable lifestyle—affording occasional travel while still saving money. I will break down living expenses in detail below.

Taxes

Taxes are a frequent topic of conversation, and every time I look at the income tax, pension, and the brutal resident tax on my payslip, my heart sinks a little. According to calculation tables, an annual salary of 5 million yen, after subtracting various deductions and assuming you claim overseas parents as dependents, results in monthly income tax payments of around 12,000 yen. You can check exact figures using a simple income tax and resident tax calculator.

Claiming overseas dependents can save you quite a bit: each relative provides an income deduction of 380,000 yen. Claiming parents plus a sibling gives a deduction of 380,000 * 3 = 1,140,000 yen. At an effective tax rate of 20%, that saves roughly 228,000 yen (1,140,000 * 0.2 = 228,000 yen) in taxes—a substantial amount of savings.

Another observation: taxes in Taiwan are comparatively much lower. A Dutch colleague at our company mentioned that almost half (42%) of his salary back home went to the government. As a result, when he receives Japanese tax forms, he doesn’t even bother filling them out because, to him, that amount of money feels negligible XD.

More than taxes, however, the pension contribution (nenkin) is what feels truly daunting. At an annual salary of 5 million yen, according to standard brackets, you must pay 37,515 yen per month (450,180 / 12).

If you plan on returning to Taiwan in the future or decide not to continue working in Japan, remember to apply for the Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment (脱退一時金). The government will refund up to three years’ worth of your pension contributions. Although some will still be withheld, getting something back is far better than nothing, and the accumulated sum over three years represents a meaningful chunk of savings.

Colleagues

Among engineers, nearly half the company consists of foreign nationals, with Taiwanese and Chinese engineers making up the largest share.

While Japan is not as hyper-competitive as the Bay Area, the ongoing labor shortage makes it a remarkably international stage. In addition to geographical advantages, you get to collaborate with engineers from all over the world, which has been a wonderful experience.

Living in Fukuoka

“Fukuoka is more relaxed. If you’re looking for work-life balance, Fukuoka is a very attractive option.”

— BBC: Could Fukuoka become Japan’s most innovative city?

I currently live in Fukuoka. Some people who want to work in Japan harbor misconceptions about Fukuoka, viewing it as “the countryside” or believing overseas work has to be in Tokyo. Most online information about Fukuoka focuses on tourism, so I’d like to elaborate more on living here.

While Fukuoka cannot match Tokyo’s sheer bustle or diverse facades, as the largest metropolis in Kyushu, it is a uniquely charming, highly livable, and workable city. According to surveys on this site, Fukuoka ranks 4th nationwide among cities where people most want to live.

Even if you come to Fukuoka on a working holiday visa, there is a sizable Taiwanese community here to look out for one another. There are also several snack shops and dessert cafes opened by Taiwanese locals, so there’s no need to worry.

1. Affordable Cost of Living and Rent

Before moving to Japan, I lived in Taipei in an older rooftop add-on apartment near Xingtian Temple. The building was about 20 to 30 years old, and rent was NT$13,000 a month. I lived there for two and a half years.

Water leaks, peeling paint and mold (wall cancer), an outdated air conditioner, an ancient washing machine, and years of accumulated dust gave me chronic allergies—I was constantly sneezing and had a runny nose.

After moving to Fukuoka, I now live in a 1LDK built just four years ago, with rent running just over NT$20,000.

Old apartment near Xingtian Temple (left) vs. current apartment (right)

Old bathroom (top); current bathroom (bottom)

Left: Old AC, wall peeling. Right: Separate kitchen, full-size refrigerator.

The space is far larger, with a separate kitchen, a large refrigerator, and a separate bath and toilet. There are no issues with mold or water leaks. Although the rent is around NT$7,000 more, the quality of life has improved drastically, and the allergy symptoms that plagued me cleared up significantly within months of arriving in Japan. Because apartments in Japan are handed over unfurnished, you can design and furnish the space exactly how you like.

When I first relocated, the company subsidized initial lease fees and relocation expenses, so furnishing the place didn’t cost too much out of pocket. According to colleagues, finding a comparable unit in Tokyo (built within 5 years, 1LDK, around 32 square meters) would require living far from central wards with a one-hour commute, or spending hundreds of thousands of yen on rent.

As for food, if you cook at home most of the time and eat out occasionally, the cost isn’t drastically different from Tokyo, meaning the price gap between Tokyo and Fukuoka is less noticeable in groceries.

2. Commute

My current apartment is just a 15-minute subway ride from Hakata Station. Commuting isn’t as harrowing as the Yamanote Line in Tokyo (though taking the JR train during morning rush hour can still be intense). The company covers monthly subway commuter passes. On weekends, I can wander around Nishijin, Tenjin, Nakasu-Kawabata, and other areas all within the pass’s coverage zone, saving quite a bit on transportation.

For weekend trips, as Kyushu’s central transport hub, Fukuoka offers Shinkansen lines heading toward Kyoto and Tokyo, or south toward Kumamoto and Kagoshima. You can take JR lines toward Kitakyushu and Nagasaki, or express buses toward Beppu and Yufuin in the countryside.

Fukuoka Airport is directly connected to the subway system. Getting to the domestic terminal is extraordinarily convenient; for the international terminal, it takes just a 10-minute shuttle bus ride to the domestic terminal, followed by a subway straight to Hakata.

Traveling back to Taiwan is equally convenient. Multiple airlines operate direct flights between Taiwan and Fukuoka, taking only about an hour and a half.

3. Engineer Friendly City

Engineer Friendly City Website Overview

This is a joint initiative organized by the private sector and the Fukuoka City Government aimed at attracting more engineers to gather in Fukuoka. They regularly host technical meetups, nurture communities, and provide venues, backed by sponsorships from major corporations. Even Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima noted:

Fukuoka City offers an outstanding environment where engineers can thrive. First and foremost is its exceptional livability. Attractive urban functionality, delicious food, and nearby nature are all compactly assembled. On top of that, there is an abundance of intellectual stimulation and information. Numerous engineering communities host daily study sessions and exchanges, sparking one chemical reaction after another. Furthermore, with startup support initiatives, administrative barriers are low, and collaboration is vibrant.

Indeed, many well-known Japanese tech companies have established engineering hubs in Fukuoka, including LINE, Mercari, GMO, Rakuten, and Nulab, alongside numerous Japanese startups.

4. Living Expenses

Item	Amount (JPY)	Notes
Rent	¥75,450
Food	¥40,000
Electricity	¥7,000	Varies by season
Water	¥5,000	Varies by season
Gas	¥6,500	Varies by season (I use a lot of hot water in winter)
Gym	¥7,000	Anytime Fitness
Student Loans	¥12,000
Total	¥152,450

Fixed Monthly Expenses

The above reflects my fixed monthly expenses in Fukuoka. Other costs like transit passes and mobile phone bills are subsidized by the company, so they aren’t listed. If you have less stringent housing requirements, you can easily bring the budget down; if you don’t run heating constantly during winter, you can also save on electricity.

5. Hakata Dialect

Kyushu is home to many regional dialects, and the most common in Fukuoka is Hakata-ben (博多弁). It’s said to have some of the strongest regional dialect pride in Japan. Even Fukuoka’s subway IC card is named Hayakaken after the Hakata phrase hayakaken (meaning “because it’s fast”). This fosters a strong sense of local pride among residents (without being exclusionary). On a side note: girls speaking Hakata-ben sound incredibly cute XD.

Does Knowing Japanese Help When Working in Japan?

Yes, but sacrificing technical ability for language skills is putting the cart before the horse.

The core market value of an engineer always hinges on whether your technical chops meet the company’s needs; Japanese proficiency is a value-multiplier, an asset that amplifies your worth. If your technical foundation isn’t solid, language alone won’t secure you a great role. Conversely, if your technical skills are exceptional, even with limited Japanese, you can still land great positions in Japan.

Although I obtained JLPT N1 before coming to Japan, it still took a period of adjustment once I actually arrived.

For a Taiwanese engineer starting from zero Japanese, through natural immersion and company-sponsored language classes, reaching JLPT N2 typically takes one to one-and-a-half years. With dedicated effort, N1 is also within reach. Spoken proficiency depends largely on personal commitment. Currently, many tech companies still use English as their primary language of communication, with interpreters present in meetings. Knowing Japanese is undeniably an advantage, however—at the very least, it eliminates the barrier of needing an intermediary when communicating with Japanese colleagues.

Around six months into the role, thanks to proactive contributions across projects, I was promoted by my manager to Tech Lead (leading a frontend team of 3–4). Most feature discussions, implementations, and communications with PMs were conducted in Japanese. Smooth communication helped me earn the trust and recognition of my colleagues. That said, many other Tech Leads across projects are also foreign nationals who may not have fluent Japanese, but their technical caliber undeniably equips them to guide projects to successful releases.

Another major benefit of strong Japanese skills is integrating into social circles. When Japanese colleagues chat over lunch, conversations happen almost entirely in Japanese. Being able to chat in Japanese not only deepens interpersonal relationships but also allows for much richer conversations. Two of my colleagues and I now occasionally meet up offline to play Splatoon and chat about games.

Things I Realized After Arriving in Japan

As mentioned earlier, I set my sights on working in Japan back in college, and even hoped to settle down here permanently. After living here for a full year, however, I’ve had a few realizations.

First is the food. Dining out in Japan isn’t cheap, as labor costs are substantially higher. Choices can also feel somewhat limited—often cycling between salmon sets, donburi, gyudon, karaage, miso soup, and curry. Even if you treat yourself to yakiniku or hot pot occasionally, it’s not something you can eat every day.

By comparison, Taiwanese food offers incredible variety. Just deciding what to order at a traditional Taiwanese breakfast shop takes some deliberation, not to mention the diverse culinary landscape and relatively affordable prices. Taiwan’s recent trajectory has also been very promising—from its stock market and economic momentum to pandemic management. If the housing environment could see meaningful improvements, I genuinely believe Taiwan would be one of the most livable places in all of Asia.

Update (February 2024):

This post was originally written in 2020. At the time, my thinking was primarily based on how convenient and diverse dining out was in Taiwan. However, housing prices in Taiwan have soared, rental rates are consistently high, and tenant-landlord disputes are frequent—to say nothing of the traffic conditions.

While I still deeply love Taiwanese cuisine, all things considered, I still prefer the overall living environment in Japan.

Off Topic

If you are interested in my journey of job hunting and working in Japan, feel free to check out the related posts below. If you have any questions about job hunting or living in Japan, you’re welcome to reach out on Twitter or leave a comment below:

• A Software Engineer’s Job Hunting Experience in Japan