Remote work in japan

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Do any companies in Japan allow developers to work remotely? Seems like it wouldn’t be very commonplace, companies here seem to really value facetime. Is it just a culture conflict?

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I know a couple of Japanese developers who are working remotely, so it certainly is possible. It really depends on the culture of the company itself. I’d say smaller companies tend to be more flexible about working arrangements.

Also, for freelancing developers, it’s a much more common thing to work remotely (but I guess that’s true elsewhere).

I also know some people who work remotely for companies outside of Japan. Given the current decline in value of the yen, if I was looking for remote employment, I’d try finding an international company. Timezones is a bit of an issue for remotely working for American companies, but an Australian company would work well from that perspective.

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Short answer is YES. There’re companies that allow you to work remotely, but not so many as far as I know. Traditional Japan companies still want their employees to around the office (for more than 8 hours a day). But I guess this will change eventually.

It’s difficult to find such job opportunities so you have to make connections and try to know more people/companies. I work for two companies (one part-time, one contract) at the moment, and I go to the office when it’s really necessary.

IMO your best chances are small startups/companies who are eagerly looking for high profile developers. If they are owned by westerners or the employees are mostly foreigners, then the odd is even higher.

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Thanks for the responses! I guess networking is really the key to finding opportunities.

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Saw this on github today:

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I also know some people who work remotely for companies outside of Japan. Given the current decline in value of the yen, if I was looking for remote employment, I’d try finding an international company. Timezones is a bit of an issue for remotely working for American companies, but an Australian company would work well from that perspective.

Are you talking about Japanese (or people on a spouse visa/permanent residency)? Do the companies have branches in Japan? I’m extremely interested in how they handled their visas/statuses of residency.