
Patio11 AMA about Japan, Technology, Business and Startups - jason_tko
https://blog.hntokyo.io/patio11-ama-hn-tokyo/
======
new299
"Far better to do it at a startup (or at AppAmaGooBookSoft) than at a
traditionally-managed Japanese company"

From what I've seen at least Google and Amazon don't have much engineering
effort beyond localization in Japan. I'm curious to know if any of these guys
are hiring for Software Engineering or SRE type roles (in Japan).

~~~
patio11
Yes, AppAmaGooBookSoft are hiring for software engineering and SREs in Tokyo.
No, your perception that they do not have much engineering effort is not
materially reflective of reality.

Google's open job reqs:
[https://careers.google.com/jobs#t=sq&q=j&li=20&l=false&jlo=e...](https://careers.google.com/jobs#t=sq&q=j&li=20&l=false&jlo=en-
US&jl=35.6894875%3A139.69170639999993%3ATokyo%2C+Japan%3AJP%3A%3A15.113740824064168%3AADMIN_1&jld=10&jcoid=7c8c6665-81cf-4e11-8fc9-ec1d6a69120c&jcoid=e43afd0d-d215-45db-a154-5386c9036525&jed=BACHELORS&j=engineer&)

That's the public version. If you want the non-public version, take any one of
several thousand people in Tokyo out for a beer.

------
xevb3k
“My agreement with my employers mostly forecloses personal side projects”

Understandable that he doesn’t have time, but the agreement sounds a little
unfair.

~~~
patio11
I'm satisfied with the agreement, which was the result of two relatively
sophisticated parties negotiating spiritedly towards a mutually acceptable
outcome.

Without talking about _that_ negotiation, note generally that if a prospective
employer says "BTW we want all of your attention on the day job so our policy
is $FOO" that you have many, many options for your next sentence, of which "OK
then, if that is your policy." is only one.

~~~
xevb3k
Yes, it’s understandable, particularly if side projects are not important to
you at the moment. But it still reflects poorly on the company (from my
standpoint).

As an aside (while it’s the de facto standard) my understanding was that it’s
illegal in Japan to restrict your work outside of company time. If anyone has
a good reference for this, it would be welcome.

~~~
aidenn0
It's more or less illegal in California for employers to restrict off-hours
work as well, but it's not illegal for them to claim copyright for off-hours
work that is related to their business.

~~~
dschuler
To quote Joel Spolsky (being more succinct than I would be):

"Anything you do on your own time, with your own equipment, that is not
related to your employer’s line of work is yours, even if the contract you
signed says otherwise."

(For California only)

So as usual, it's a bit more complex, but the key is whether it's related to
your employer's line of work. Of course the employer may try to claim
_anything_ to belong to them, but they may not prevail in court. That outcome
is less than ideal for the employee - best not talk about side projects at
work or do anything related to them at work.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-
pr...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/)

------
aplorbust
Also from same author, on the emergence of AWS EC2 and S3:

[https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=194921&cid=15971343](https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=194921&cid=15971343)

"... not going to set the world on fire."

But see (also on front page currently):

[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-com-announces-
fourth-q...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-com-announces-fourth-
quarter-210100782.html)

It seems like AWS is doing quite well.

~~~
aidenn0
To be fair, the slashdot description of it was a grid computing service, but
VMs running on EC2 are _not_ running on a grid in the traditional sense.

~~~
aplorbust
I understand the differences, however, the term was being used to describe
EC2. In another example, I saw Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in an interview refer to
"grid computing" as a synonym for EC2 when describing it to a naive audience.
Indeed the AMA authors comment about "setting the world on fire" was
responding to the first announcement of _EC2_ , not a general discussion of
grid computing. He chose to use that term, rightly or wrongly, because like
Bezos he saw it as synonymous with EC2.

