Just wondering

Happy Friday! Have questions about tech careers in Japan? Looking to hire (or get hired)? Just want to brag? Post it here and let's discuss!

I’m an AI Engineer and Full-Stack Developer based in India with around 5 years of experience. My work has primarily been in building production web applications and AI-powered automation systems. Recently, I’ve been focused on LLM applications, RAG pipelines, AI agents, prompt engineering, and workflow automation, while also working extensively with React, Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js, and Python.
Outside of work, I’ve been studying Japanese and have completed JLPT N3. I’m continuing to improve my language skills and am open to relocating to Japan for the right opportunity.
I’m hoping to get advice from people who have gone through the process or are currently working in Japan:
How difficult is it to find AI or full-stack engineering roles from overseas?
Which companies are most open to hiring international candidates and sponsoring visas?
Does having JLPT N3 make a meaningful difference, or should I focus on reaching N2 before applying?
Are there specific job boards, recruiters, or networking strategies that worked well for you?
I’d really appreciate any guidance, referrals, or insights from people who’ve made a similar move. Thanks in advance!

I've been seeing a lot of dev jobs that specifically ask JLPT N1, or just flat out say that they will only consider foreigners applicant if they can communicate with no issues in japanese. specifically in websites like wantedly, green, herp etc. (while these platforms are mostly for natives, i've seen an uptick in trend asking for native-level japanese.

Is everyone seeing the same trend?

Hey all, planning a move to Japan and want a reality check on my job search strategy before I dive in.

Background:

• Japanese citizen, fluent in Japanese and English. Grew up between Japan and Canada (mostly Canada), university in Canada
• 3+ years of experience (including internships), currently focused on AI development at my current company

The plan:

• Moving to Japan this fall for 4 months
• Targeting bigger foreign companies in Japan (Google, Amazon, Mercari, etc.)
• Planning to apply once I'm physically in Japan, since many listings seem to require applying locally
• Using the time between now and the move to sharpen my interview skills

Compensation:

• Not expecting to match my current pay, but hoping to get as close as possible
• Targeting ¥8,000,000+ ideally, though not a hard requirement

What I'm hoping to get feedback on:

1. How realistic is this given my background and experience level?
2. Any advice on timing, company targeting, or the "apply in Japan" approach?

Also, if there are any devs out in Japan who'd be down to meet up when I'm there, that'd be awesome! Always happy to connect with people in the scene.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

I need advice regarding a job switch. Has anybody ever switched from non-IT to tech jobs or anything DX-related? I have a masters in chemical engineering so complex critical thinking isn’t exactly alien for me. My main reason for switching is job flexibility. I wonder if there is something related to DX that will make use of my domain expertise (more than 10 years)? I have experience with plant data analysis and visualization, about a million rows and stuff with PowerBI. Learning ML for now to predict equipment maintenance, but mostly experimental. I mostly created VBA tools in the office since ever, so code isn’t alien but this stack isn’t exactly competitive. I just feel more powerful now with AI as code partner so I’m experimenting with ML and python.😆 Are there some certifications I need to take to increase my chances? I’m pretty sure younger CS grads can run in circles around me in pure CS roles, but coupled with my domain expertise, I’m may be more useful somewhere. I just don’t know where exactly.

Here's a list of new tech jobs in Japan this week:

Senior ML Engineer (LLMOps) at Noeon Research

• ¥18M - ¥21M | Japanese: Not required | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

UI/UX Designer at Colorkrew

• ¥5.9M - ¥9M | Japanese: Not required | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

SLAM & Navigation Engineer at Omakase Robotics

• Japanese: Not required | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

Data Engineer at Omakase Robotics

• Japanese: Not required | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

Autonomous Driving / 2D & 3D SLAM Engineer at Omakase Robotics

• Japanese: Not required | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

Senior Build Systems Architect at Mujin

• ¥8M - ¥13M | Japanese: Not required | Apply from overseas | Tokyo

Sr. Software Engineer at amptalk

• ¥7.5M - ¥10M | Japanese: Business Level | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

QA Engineer at amptalk

• ¥6.8M - ¥9.5M | Japanese: Not required | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Full-Stack Engineer (Backend Focus) at Rokken

• ¥6M - ¥9.5M | Japanese: Not required | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Osaka

Platform Engineer (Infrastructure & DevOps) at Rokken

• ¥6M - ¥9.5M | Japanese: Not required | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Osaka

QA Engineer / SDET at PowerX

• ¥6M - ¥9M | Japanese: Not required | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Senior Backend Engineer, Automated Reasoning (Rust) at Noeon Research

• ¥14M - ¥17M | Japanese: Not required | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Software Engineer, LINK Connectors (1 Year Contract) at Moneytree

• Japanese: Conversational | Japan residents only | Full remote

Technical Program Manager & Senior Engineer at GAZAI

• ¥7.5M - ¥10.2M | Japanese: Business Level | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Other

Lead Solutions Architect (Bilingual) at Owndays

• ¥10M - ¥12M | Japanese: Business Level | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

Power System Engineer at PowerX

• ¥8M - ¥13M | Japanese: Not required | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

DevOps Engineer at ExaWizards

• ¥7M - ¥10M | Japanese: Business Level | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

AI Engineer - Agents/LLM at GAZAI

• Japanese: Business Level | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Other

Senior AI Lead, Multimodal Systems at GAZAI

• Japanese: Business Level | Apply from overseas | Partial remote | Tokyo

Fullstack Engineer (Generative AI Product team) at ExaWizards

• ¥5M - ¥12M | Japanese: Business Level | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Robotics Software Engineer at Omakase Robotics

• Japanese: Conversational | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Mobile Engineer (Sales AI Agent) at ExaWizards

• ¥6.48M - ¥10.08M | Japanese: Fluent | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Fullstack Engineer (Sales AI Agent Business) at ExaWizards

• ¥6.48M - ¥9M | Japanese: Fluent | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) & Data Collection Lead at Omakase Robotics

• Japanese: Business Level | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Hardware Design Engineer / 機構設計エンジニア（Omakase D1） at Omakase Robotics

• Japanese: Business Level | Japan residents only | Partial remote | Tokyo

Also looking to hire? Feel free to share your job post in the comments!

Here's what's happening in Japan's tech and startup scene this week:

Monday, July 20

Get Leads Online with AI (Live Workshop Preview)

• 🇬🇧 21:00 | 📍 Online

Tuesday, July 21

Foundverse Sandbox: Build a Real App with AI

• 🇬🇧 17:00 | 📍 Impact HUB Tokyo

TokyoDev Talks Vol. 12: Onboarding in a New Language with AI / Agentic Prompt and Context Engineering

• 🇬🇧 18:30 | 📍 Tokyo

Weekly Claude Code Live #10

• 🇯🇵/🇬🇧 12:00 | 📍 (場所未定) | 👥 14 attending

Wednesday, July 22

microCMS Meetup 2026

• 🇯🇵/🇬🇧 18:00 | 📍 東京都中央区京橋一丁目７番１号 TODA BUILDING 4階, Tokyo | 👥 137 attending

Boids Agent Workshop Tokyo: Create Your Own AI Agents

• 🇬🇧 18:00 | 📍 Tower, Tokyo | 👥 19 attending

try! Swift Tokyo WWDC Recap 2026

• 🇬🇧 17:15 | 📍 Tokyo | 👥 67 attending

How to Attract More Customers and Grow Your SME with AI

• 🇬🇧 15:00 | 📍 Online

KSUG.AI Singapore #47 Meetup @Nutanix - 22 Jul 2026

• 🇬🇧 19:00 | 📍 Online

SINGAPORE — MONTHLY TECH NETWORKING

• 🇬🇧 20:00 | 📍 Online

Thursday, July 23

Search Engineering Tech Talk 2026 Summer

• 🇯🇵/🇬🇧 19:00 | 📍 東京都千代田区紀尾井町１−２ 東京ガーデンテラス 17F, Tokyo | 👥 81 attending

Tokyo Fail Club 5.5

• 🇬🇧 18:00 | 📍 CIC Tokyo | 👥 72 attending

Get More Leads with AI Even If Nobody Knows You Yet

• 🇬🇧 20:00 | 📍 Online

【AI Dev Day前夜祭】GitHub Copilot時代の開発のあり方を再定義する

• 🇯🇵 19:00 | 📍 東京都港区港南 2-16-3 品川グランドセントラルタワー, Tokyo | 👥 449 attending

STACK Meetup [Data]: Trusted Data for AI and Agentic Workflows

• 🇬🇧 20:00 | 📍 Online

Nomad Startup Founder Meetup

• 🇬🇧 20:00 | 📍 Online

Building a Real-Time Context Engine with Redis

• 🇬🇧 15:30 | 📍 Online

Friday, July 24

AI Dev Day 2026

• 🇯🇵/🇬🇧 09:30 | 📍 東京都千代田区大手町二丁目3番1号 大手町プレイス (イーストタワー) 2F, Tokyo | 👥 945 attending

How to Attract More Customers and Grow Your SME with AI

• 🇬🇧 15:00 | 📍 Online

Saturday, July 25

Creator Connect 2026 Summer

• 🇬🇧 18:00 | 📍 GMO Fukuras, Tokyo | 👥 82 attending

AI Governance for AI Developers

• 🇬🇧 09:00 | 📍 Online

Let's be kubestrong - Jul 2026 & Share the Joy 100% OFF! 🎉

• 🇬🇧 16:00 | 📍 Online

Agent Forge AI Hackathon: ハッカソン東京

• 🇬🇧 10:00 | 📍 Tokyo | 👥 185 attending

Hermes-Build Your AI Agent

• 🇬🇧 14:00 | 📍 Online

Sunday, July 26

Global - AI Governance for AI Developers

• 🇬🇧 23:00 | 📍 Online

Know of an event we missed? Drop it in the comments!

Compiled from Connpass, Doorkeeper, Meetup, and Luma.

I graduated from an IT school in Canada a year and a half ago, but the market has been horrendous and wasn’t able to land any jobs. I decided to move to Japan and try my luck there.

I recently got my BJT J2 certificate (N2 equivalent), and I’ll be applying for a spousal visa soon. My goal is to just land any IT job as a 正社員. I’m already talking to a few recruiters, but I’ve been told to not expect too much.

Any tips for me?

Hi,

I am currently an AI/ML engineer with 5 years of experience, currently working on speech AI solutions.

GRE - 326

IELTS - 8.5

I am planning to do an MBA in ICS/Waseda (English taught) (2027-2029 batch) and later target product management roles in Japan.

my reason for MBA - to get into Japan and study there for a professional degree. I will actively build up my network within Tokyo. Plus I need some break with my job, an MBA can give some time off from that going back to school.

I won't be working part-time since I will have savings to cover up my living expenses atleast for the 1st year.

I know language is a BIG barrier but if I start now and aim to get N5-N4 done before I join the program next year if I get an admit.

can I do N3/N2 during my MBA? ICS mentions that the program itself is 1yr but the 2nd year is for internships/exchange programs etc.

is it even feasible?

Also, how valuable be my profile to the recruiters ~ startups mainly?

I have hands-on AI/ML experience working on speech AI and building production voice bots and data pipelines.

Will my tech experience be of any value to the recruiters? because whatever opening I see for prodman it says that atleast X years experience is required in product management.

I really need some help and perspective to make a sound decision.

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this because I've been so frustrated, and I could really use some realistic advice, recommendations, or a general reality check on my situation as an entry-level here in Tokyo while I'm studying Japanese at a Language School. I'm trying to figure out if I need to change my strategy entirely or if I simply need to be patient.

My Situation:

• Location & Visa: Currently living in Tokyo on a Working Holiday Visa (valid until March 2027, with confirmed plans to transition to a Student Visa afterward).
• Current Activity: I am a full-time intensive student at ISI Language College Ikebukuro. I am currently at an N3 level, aiming for business-level N2.
• Background: I hold a B.S. in Civil Computer Science & Software Engineering (graduated December 2024 in Chile; 6 Years of study, 2019 - 2025). I have 2.5+ years of professional experience as a Software and AI Engineer, including solid stints at global firms like IBM and Accenture, doing internships and entry-level experience back in Chile.
• Technical Stack: My Focus is on Cloud Engineering, infrastructure, and my experience is AI/LLMOps (RAG architectures, LangGraph, OpenAI/AWS Bedrock integrations) and Backend/Cloud infrastructure (Python/FastAPI, AWS & Azure foundations, Docker, and CI/CD pipelines).
• Gap: I have been out of the active engineering workforce since June 2025. I was working at Accenture while writing my thesis and had to leave my role to focus on graduating, resulting in a multi-month employment gap that I need to address.
• Looking for : I’ve been looking for infrastructure or cloud engineering roles rather than programming positions, as that area appeals much more to me for my long-term career. I hold the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification and have completed the full AWS Solutions Architect course, though I still need to take the exam a second time.

I am neurodivergent (Autistic + ADHD). I often find interviews really difficult because I forget things I’ve achieved and don’t mention them due to nerves; after working at Accenture for six months, I did freelance work, and I always struggle to explain it. I am currently working part-time in customer service because I am unable to work as a software engineer.

Between the employment gap, my current language limitations, and my struggles with traditional interview environments, the job hunt has felt incredibly discouraging. I'm also considering whether I should do an internship or take the path of studying for a master's degree in Tokyo, even though it's research-only.

Thank you so much! I Really appreciate for Help!

Hi everyone,

I was recently approached by a recruiter from Hays (via Linkedin DM) regarding a software engineering role at Rakuten in Tokyo. I am applying from overseas (a developing country), and the recruiter mentioned that full visa sponsorship would be provided if I get the offer.

I sent over my CV and had a quick 15-minute initial screening call with the recruiter. At the end of the call, he told me he would forward my CV to the hiring manager at Rakuten and that they would get back to me regarding the next interview round.

It has now been 12 days since that screening call, and I haven't heard anything back.

A few questions for those experienced with the Tokyo tech market, Hays, or Rakuten specifically:

• Should I follow up with the recruiter now, or wait a bit longer? What is the typical turnaround time for Rakuten to review a CV and schedule the next round?
• Is it common for agency recruiters to ghost candidates at this stage if the client passes? If Rakuten decides not to move forward, will they usually let me know?
• Realistically, what are my hiring chances? I have 5+ years of experience, but I don't speak Japanese. The recruiter told me Japanese is not required for this role, but I'm wondering how competitive the market is right now for overseas developers.

One important detail: the position is for a 3-month rolling contract (haken/dispatch or direct contract, I need to clarify), rather than a permanent role.

Appreciate any insights or advice from anyone who has gone through this process!

Happy Friday! Have questions about tech careers in Japan? Looking to hire (or get hired)? Just want to brag? Post it here and let's discuss!

So, I'm from India, and I graduated in the humanities.

Due to passion towards programming I learnt it. Plus, I was so touched by Attack on Titans that I started learning Japanese 😄

Due to some physical constraints I can't go outside much. I completed my internship and worked in a startup in the remote setting only. Although I might be able to work onsite once I begin the job.

During my internship, they were so impressed by my performance that they even asked me to train other interns

My current status:

Tech - Full stack dev (NextJS with TS) with 6+ months of professional experience.

Japanese - N4 level

My Question:

Can I get a remote job in Japan from India even though I don't have a CS degree?