
Working at a Japanese Company (2015) - damian2000
http://rubyronin.com/the-truth-about-working-at-a-japanese-company/
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jzelinskie
The working culture is the thing I hate the most about Japan. I've read the
history. I'm interested in the culture. I've spent time learning the language.
I consume lots of Japanese media. I've visited for a short time. However, I
just don't think I could ever make the dive into living in Japan unless I was
working remotely for an American company (and getting paid like an American)
and somehow still maintained a visa to be in Japan.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Same, although I'm keeping open the possibility of an internal transfer within
my current company. I figure a Japanese office of an American multinational
won't be as bad, right? Right??

~~~
nandemo
It depends on the company. Some "foreign" companies closely follow the
structure and culture of their HQ (Goldman Sachs, Google). Some are
essentially Japanese companies that happen to be owned by a foreign entity and
share their brand (e.g. Yahoo Japan years ago -- now Yahoo isn't even the
major shareholder). Some are in between (e.g. IBM Japan).

Also, nowadays salaries at foreign companies tend to be more in line with the
market.

I've been living in Japan for a decade and I've always wanted to work for a
foreign company. But I never managed to get an offer from Google, Amazon, etc.
One year ago I interviewed for a senior developer position at a certain
American company, went thru 4 rounds and finally got an offer... of around 60k
USD.

~~~
threeseed
Working in IT in Japan is a bit of a joke in general.

It is about 2-4x LESS than what you would get pretty much anywhere else in the
world. They have long overtimes and in many places quite a conservative
attitude toward decision making i.e. not fun. And the startup culture is
really poor.

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minamisan
Beats me why anyone would want to work for a Japanese company anyway, since
the situations described in this article have been common knowledge for
decades now. I did the contractor/English teacher thing in the deluded hope
for a full-time, more rewarding position. But it will never happen (ESPECIALLY
if you're an English teacher, which ranks somewhere below toilet cleaner on
the Japanese social scale). Eventually I got tired of the full-time position
offer which always seemed to get postponed another 3 months, quit, and got the
hell out of there.

~~~
EliRivers
_Beats me why anyone would want to work for a Japanese company anyway... I
did_

So why did you? Given that the situations in the article have been common
knowledge for decades?

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pwim
While there are many companies in Japan where people do work a ton of
overtime, there are also companies where people work little to no overtime.
For instance, I'm currently doing consulting for a Japanese start up where
most people leave around the official clock out time, and I've been one of the
last to leave an hour after it.

Software developers in Japan have traditionally been undervalued, as it has
been seen as a job as anyone can do with a little training. This has meant
while there have been some really great Japanese software developers, there
have been many more totally incompetent ones, bringing down the average level
of software developers here.

In recent years though, there's been a mini-boom of startups here. These
startups realise the value of talented developers, and are trying to attract
them through hirer salary and better working conditions. While the pay isn't
as good as the US (the weak yen makes them look even lower) and the working
conditions aren't as good as Europe, things are defiantly heading in the right
direction.

If you are someone who's been wanting to work as a developer in Japan, I've
put together some resources here:
[http://www.tokyodev.com/jobs/](http://www.tokyodev.com/jobs/)

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cfcef
Very similar to patio11's writeup. Note the same caveats apply, more or less:
this is working at a big Japanese company, which is far from all of them.

~~~
patio11
FWIW: I'd describe it as "traditionally managed" rather than "big." There
exist many Japanese companies with, say, 50 employees. Some of them are
managed like young American software companies. Many are not.

This is not merely anecdata: the most obvious external evidence of traditional
Japanese management is work hours by professional staff and that metric is
_inversely correlated with size of business_ when you average it across all
firms in the country. Firms with 100 workers work longer days than salarymen
at megacorps (again: on average). This is one reason they're seen as rather
less desirable to work for.

~~~
level3
I agree with this. Big companies in Japan do tend to be more established, and
thus more likely to be "traditionally managed," so it's tempting to generalize
to all big companies.

As one of the anecdata at a company of around 70 people, almost everyone is on
flex time, aside from specific departments like customer support. There is no
pressure to work overtime, though many end up doing so in order to meet
specific deadlines. In addition, everyone freely uses vacation and sick time.
In fact, I have previously been told that I should use more of my vacation
days.

Edit: I should note that there are only a handful of people here who would
meet the description of a typical salaryman.

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blackkettle
> Working with a Japanese company may seem like a good fit if you speak
> Japanese, but with the vastly contrasting work cultures and the fact you’re
> a foreigner in a Japanese world–you might want take a look at other options.

If you honestly think you speak and understand Japanese, but you don't
understand or are not already better and more completely aware of what is
being discussed in this article - then you don't actually speak or understand
Japanese as well as you think you do (or as well as the many 'nihongo ha jouzu
desune!' acclamations might have led you to believe.)

~~~
gizmo686
Japanese is a language. If you can communicate using it with a native speaker
with minimal difficulty and confusion, then you can speak and understand the
language.

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XzetaU8
Somehow related

"Tell me what the software engineering industry is like in Japan"

[https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/3q03wk/tell_me_what_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/3q03wk/tell_me_what_the_software_engineering_industry_is/)

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horsecaptin
How do you date someone in Japan if you're always working?

~~~
cthalupa
Well, there's multiple answers to this that I am aware of, and probably more
that I am not, but:

Scenario A, working as a Salaryman at a Large Company:

While you spend most of your time working, it's still not all of it - there is
occasional free time, and anyone that is willing to date a salaryman will be
aware of the demands imposed on you by your career.

Additional, if you have not manager to find yourself a serious prospect or
wife by the time you are nearing the end of your 20s, it is your bosses
responsibility to play matchmaker. This isn't an arranged marriage, but there
some pressures to settle down, and culturally it would be seen as a failing of
your boss for you to make it well into your 30s unmarried.

Scenario B, not working as a Salaryman at a large company: Your work schedule
is much more similar to that of what we see in the Western world. There are
jobs available that are going to be a more typical 40-50 hours a week, even in
professional fields - not everyone has to go work for a megacorp.

And, on the other side of things, sometimes you don't. Marriage and birth
rates are dropping. More and more young men and women do not date at all -
even those that are not working obscene hours. Many NEET (Not Employed, in
Education, or Training) and 引き籠もり (extreme shut-ins, usually an overlap with
the NEET) are not dating either. And while there is still more sexism in Japan
than many other first world countries, women are finally being allowed more in
the way of career progression, and many are choosing to ignore marriage, etc,
and instead focusing on being successful. There are entire industries devoted
to replacing the need for relationships - host and hostess clubs, where you
pay exorbitant amounts of money to just talk with people of the opposite sex
as if they were a romantic partner (with no actual sexual activity), 'cuddle
bars', video games that encourage you to go on date-like activities with a
virtual SO in the game (yes, literally taking your girlfriend on your 3DS out
to eat), etc etc etc.

Dating is a problem in Japan, and not just because of extreme work hours.

~~~
patio11
My experience as a salaryman was pretty much Scenario A. I dated a bit during
those years; the modal date was probably "I'll meet you at 3 PM on Saturday at
the train station, we'll do a late lunch, movie, dinner, and some karaoke.
This will be the only time we see each other this week."

Repeat for virtually the entire relationship. (It took me a few years of
maturity and a little bit of post-salaryman-clarity-of-hindsight to realize
that I was probably as emotionally distant as I was physically not present,
which was something I would not have agreed with if you had told me it at the
time.)

This is not wholly dissimilar to the traditional expectations for amount of
time a Japanese husband is expected to be able to devote to his wife and
children during regular working weeks. (I'm reporting, not endorsing.)

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calinet6
Just curious—is this the same at every company in Japan? Or is this just an
anecdote? Or somewhere in-between?

Reading about the Toyota Way, and the cultural focus at that company, I find
it difficult to believe that Toyota would just let this go unseen in the midst
of 'continuous improvement' and 'respect for people' in other parts of their
operation...

~~~
patio11
Japan is a big country with a diversity of people and companies in it. This
post accurately captures the traditional expectation for work culture among a
segment of the economy, which is largely professional full-time male employees
of an elite fraternity of Japanese megacorps and their corresponding
governmental counterparts. Many Japanese firms are not members of the elite
fraternity of megacorps; many people resident in Japan are not professional
Japanese men who are full employees (正社員) at their company. Salarymen peaked
at about 30% of the labor force and have been declining; if I had to hazard a
guess in 2015 it would be in the 20~25% range, but it depends a bit on how you
define the edge cases.

I'm socially constrained from talking about Toyota in much detail. Can I talk
about Google, instead? Ridiculously profitable company with teams of tens of
thousands of geniuses running around busy inventing self-driving cars and
being basically shadow-infrastructure for literally the entire world. Would
you assume Google is not a total clusterflop? I would assume Google is not a
total clusterflop. But then I e.g. talk to people who tried to interview
there, and my confidence is shaken.

So Toyota. Yeah. Great company full of very dedicated people. Their cars are
fantastic.

~~~
calinet6
Agreed, I tend to assume most companies beyond any complex size (100? 200? a
few hundred) are, in fact, almost completely dysfunctional, operating only on
the chance ad-hoc ties of culture and individual stewardship that have had a
chance to avoid being crushed by incredible complexity and traditional
ineptitude of managing people at scale.

However, Toyota originated lean. Something's not wrong about that.

Why socially constrained?

~~~
sedev
Mr. McKenzie lived in Gifu for many years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifu_City#Industry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifu_City#Industry)
Gifu is about half the size of San Francisco, and presumably the members of
various trades in that city are just as much a small town as various trades
are in San Franciso. Someone as gregarious as Mr. McKenzie certainly did not
spend his time there flying solo. These are things Mr. McKenzie has said
publicly, and they provide plenty of material with which to make a high-
quality guess as to why Mr. McKenzie might be socially constrained and why he
might prefer not to answer that question directly.

~~~
calinet6
I was particularly unaware of the context. Thank you.

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seivan
The only thing that could mitigate long working hours for a payslip is
creative freedom. Though that's probably impossible even outside of Japan.

