What is the best way for me to get a job in Japan?

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Hello,

My name is Felipe, I’m 23 years old Brazilian Information Systems student, i’m going to finish my Bachelor’s Degree by the end of 2018 and I am planning on living in Japan after that, somehow.

I can read and write Japanese to an intermediate level, and I am transitioning into speaking in an intermediate level too. I exepct that by the time I am planning to go to Japan I might be somewhat closer to conversional, but not there yet.

My tech skills are:

Web Java (university + work).
.Net(c#) (university + work).
Node Js (self taught).
Angular js (self taught).
Php (University)
Sql (Oracle, mysql, SqlServer, etc)
Ibm Cognos BI (work).
Microstrategy BI (work).
SAS (work).
(I’m not very good with raw design, but can work pretty good with frameworks like bootstrap and so on).

I plan learning RoR and some new web techs and also building a portfolio on github with all the web techs I know in the coming year.

As for experience, I’ve been working as a Developer/BI analyst for almost 4 years now in an international Bank which now turned into a National Bank (big one here).

The problem here is that my country does not offer working visa holiday, so there are only few ways how I think I could get a position.

1 - Go to Japan for a 1 year japanese language course and then trying to land a job by the end of the course. Which sounds good, but demands lots of money, and I don’t know how good would be my chances of landing a job. (maybe trying conversational english schools meanwhile)

2 - Go to Japan as a Research Student (MEXT program) for 2 years and then trying to land a job by the end of the program. Sounds good and all because it does not demand as much money and gives me time to get really good in japanese, but there’s no garantee that I’ll actually pass the program entrance, so…

3 - Land a job overseas. Heard that is very unlikely though.

Sorry for the long post, let me know if I should approach it differently next time I open a topic, and thank you in advance.

I’d like to know what are my chances likely to be, based on my Profile and if there are other options that I should consider.

Again, thanks!

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I talk about this more generally in Getting your first programming job in Japan. It’s hard for me to offer any more specific advice.

I’d think about how important being in Japan is to you, and how much risk can you afford to take. In my case, I was fortunate enough to graduate university without any debts, nor anyone depending on me for money. I also had enough savings that I could get by for a year in Japan without working. So when I came to Japan initially, I was prepared to live here for up to one year without any work. My worst case scenario was that I didn’t find a job, and had to go back home. I was confident that I could quickly find work in Canada, and having spent a year in Japan wouldn’t have effected my career prospects significantly. I though I wouldn’t have regretted the experience living here, so no matter what happened I’d be satisfied.

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Thanks for the answer!

That’s probably the best mindset when going into a situation like that!

I wonder, if I enter Japan as a Japanese Language student and try to look for some positions later on… The fact that i’m a student there would be bad for me? Or, as soon as I state that I’m about to finish the language course and want to keep working in Japan after that, it is all good?

Also, I got an opportunity in my company to choose what path I will take here when it comes to data.

I’m already an web developer, and as I mentioned before, I have worked as a data analyst and BI data analyst. They gave the option of either (besides web programing) becoming an Data Analyst and Data Miner with SAS and Data Lake or becoming an BI Data Analyst, using tools like Microstrategy, Oracle, etc. By BI Data analyst, I mean that i’d do everything from building the database structures, to creating the ETL and creating queries in Microstrategy.

Which hability would be more useful in Japan?

Thanks a lot!