I’ve got a few questions and I’m hoping I can find a few answers.
In September I’m going to be moving with my girlfriend to Osaka while she takes a Japanese course and works towards getting her N1 in the JLPT. She will be in a two year course and I am hoping to stay with her. I’m hoping to work to pay the bills so I can stay there for the two years as well. I know I can go the teach English route if I have to, but I would rather continue doing development if possible.
I’m having trouble finding resources for finding development jobs in Osaka. Any one here have any information that could help me out? My Japanese is very basic, which I know is a limiting factor but I both have a Computer Science degree and work experience which I am hoping will help increase my hire-ability. I’ve tried contacting a few companies in Japan, but I never get any responses, is this normal? How keen are companies to helping with Visa sponsorship?
On a side note, any one know about if Node JS is catching on in Japan for web development? I’ve been doing more and more of it lately and really enjoying it. If there was any possibility of me doing Node development that would be super exciting.
Something like 75% of development jobs in Japan are in Tokyo. When you’re considering ones that will hire non-Japanese speakers, that probably goes up to 95%. That’s not saying its impossible, and there are some opportunities available in the Osaka area. It seems Kyoto has a relatively vibrant startup community, and companies like Nota Inc which makes Gyazo is open to hiring non-Japanese. As for finding opportunities like that, the best way is coming here and getting involved in the community like HN Kansai or other more Japanese events.
Getting a visa as a developer in Japan is quite easy - so if you find a company willing to hire you, getting one should be straightforward. I don’t know about response rates for companies - I’ve only ever applied to two companies in Japan - one who hired me and the other who didn’t respond.
Node JS is getting relatively popular in Japan, and I’ve heard of a range of companies using it here. One strategy could be to focus on publicly demonstrating your node.js abilities with something like a blog, open source contributions, or giving talks at local developer meetups. If someone can take a look at a website or github account and think, this person knows node.js, it will dramatically increase your hire-ability both where you’re living now and in Japan.
After having a rough time looking around I did find a few leads but nothing developed so I decided to go to a language school first to try to get more Japanese skill and open some more doors.
For Kyoto, you can also try this company http://bertrandco.com/. They sometimes look for developers and mainly work in Node and Javascript for web development. I think English is enough but it’s always a plus if you got Japanese.