People often ask me: “Brian, how can I become a software developer in Japan?”
The answer is short: “networking”.
But Brian, I hate talking to people.
Well, you’re not completely out of luck. Recent years have seen the rise of job hunting websites that are available in both English and Japanese. These sites are very popular with start-ups and well-establishes companies that are looking for English speaking engineers.
Wantedly is focusing on a wide spectrum of companies. You’ll find major Japanese companies such as Rakuten there. But also smaller companies like a start-up where I’m working, Adgo.
Justa is focusing solely on startups in Japan. You will find companies like Reaktor, Origami and Stripe.
Craigslist is not a bad way to get a job here. It’s not as easy to find a decent oppertunity on CL as it is on Wantedly or Justa, but beggers can’t be choosers. A good place to start is the Internet Engineers listing.
When I initially wrote this blog post a year ago, I had some snarky comments how LinkedIn sucks. However ever since they added the “Easy Apply” button on their job listings it suddenly became a lot more viable to find jobs in Japan on LinkedIn. For example Line is hiring engineers for their Fukuoka and Tokyo locations.
A little out of the ordinary, but Paul maintains an active mailing list that includes high quality job postings. I have actually used it for Adgo and found some really good candidates. The postings you get are manually curated by Paul.
Yeah you mentioned you don’t like talking to people, but I just want to show you how easy it is to find events here. Most tech events are posted on Meetup, ATND, and Doorkeeper.
If you have any questions on becoming a developer in Tokyo or need some help, feel free to send me a message on [email protected]!