My Journey to Japan#

This is a “living post”. I’ll be updating it when I hit another stage. I’ll remove this note when I consider it “done”.

I’ve noticed, as I’m going through this process myself, that there’s a lack of coverage in the English web on the “little” things that happen when investigating working from another country. For all I can tell, it’s a pretty well covered segment in for other countries, but I couldn’t find anything that properly covers this in detail in English/American context.

So the goals:

• To keep a relatively accurate accounting of events.
• To help fill out the void of missing information
• To hopefully entertain and educate.

So where to begin…

Prologue#

Back in 2023, I was laid off from Google. This, unsurprisingly, caused me to have to start looking for a new job. Looking back on the data, I had applied to over 400 positions, interviewed for only a handful, and only got offers for 4.

The actual breakdown was:

• BigID (Remote)
• Medidata (Japan)
• PayPay (Japan)
• Visa (Colorado)

Originally, I got the offer from BigID first. They were an excellent company to join, and I had friends that worked there. For better or worse however, I declined the offer, as I had received an offer letter from Medidata shortly thereafter. This is both a blessing (as BigID ended up doing some layoffs that would’ve likely impacted me), and a curse.

After providing a lot of information to the immigration attorneys that Medidata had retained, they informed me that the attorneys didn’t want to proceed with my visa application. Why? Because I didn’t have 10 years of work experience required for the Engineering Visa. Because of this my offer was rescinded, which, while unfortunate, was within expectations.

Shortly after, I received another offer from PayPay. Testing my luck, I accepted it. Kicking off the process and starting another set of divulging my life history to…. the same immigration attorneys. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled. Talking with PayPay’s HR (shoutout Nobu), we still tried to get the visa, but after a few months, I was again denied.

While waiting for the visa response, I continued applying for jobs, eventually getting interviews and offers from a small, local, company called Visa. This got me out of the financial stress of not having a job.

Again, I received a rejection letter from the immigration attorney, and PayPay was forced to rescind my offer. C’est la vie¹, I’ll pull up my pants and enjoy my work at Visa.

And for a year and a half, that was that.

Visiting Friends#

Skipping forward to December of 2023, I needed some extra spend on my Delta SkyMiles account to hit Platinum status.² What better way to do that than to take a quick 4-night trip to Tokyo for my birthday? A week before the trip.

I landed on December 5th, and a friend I had made from the Xoogler³ Discord server⁴ met up to get some Okonomiyamki from Fugetsu in Akiba. While chowing down on some fried cabbage, we were talking about their experiences in Japan, along with their partner.

A few nights later, I met up with another Xoogler who I had previously worked closely with. Over some drinks, we talked about what happened in 2023. He suggested I should try again, just to see what happens. I left that encounter with a lot of thoughts going through my head, until a hawker tried to get me to come over to a bar with them. I then proceeded to focus on getting back to my hotel for the night.

A few dozen hours later and I was back at home, doing work during the quiet Christmas season at Visa, though I soon would be back in Japan with some great friends later in December. This second trip, while mostly leisure, had me spending a lot of “solo time” wandering the city, one of my favorite activites, and one that I can’t do in the US.

Takeaway: Have a supportive network. Sometimes peer-pressure can be a good thing.

Applying for Jobs#

After returning from my second trip, more than ever I wanted to give it another shot. What’s the worst that could happen? They say No?

Given that Medidata and PayPay gave me a chance last time, I figured I should extend them a similar courtesy and looked for positions under them first. Unfortunately, Medidata didn’t have any positions listed that I would be a good candidate for. Not a huge surprise given the current market conditions.

Looking at PayPay however, there was a position for a Site Reliability Engineer open, the same role I was working at Visa. As with anything, a quick 5-minute questionnaire on PayPay’s career site, and my hat was in the ring. A few days later, I got an interview request.

I had a few other additional companies that I applied to, including Woven (by Toyota) who extended an interview, but didn’t end up extending an offer.

Takeaway: Everyone’s job search will be different, but I tend to explicitly apply directly to a company’s website, rather than use something like LinkedIn’s Quick Apply option.

I don’t have any hard evidence, but it seems to work out pretty well.

Interviewing#

Timezones, timezones, timezones. They are the absolute bane of my existence. It does however work in my favor that business hours in Japan are after business hours in Colorado. All of the interviews that I had generally happened after 9PM. Not having to take time-off to interview was nice.

As for the interviews themselves, while I can’t actually tell you what’s in them, they adequately covered a lot of bases on what would be expected in the role. Every interviewer, amusingly direct, wanted to make sure I was aware I wouldn’t be getting a US-like salary in Japan.. A straight conversion wouldn’t tell the whole story. (More on this in the next section.)

PayPay and Woven both make sure to have English Interviewers available, which helped as I know very little Japanese⁵.

Takeaway: It’s not that much different than interviews in the US. Though again, YMMV.

Getting the Offer#

A final “interview” was scheduled with me in early March, where I would recieve the final offer letter, along with what the expected pay, bonus, and relocation package. Again my actual numbers are under NDA, however they included things like relocation, starting bonus, and pay that was great for the location, especially given their “Work From Anywhere (in Japan)” Policy⁶.

A docusign (or three) later, and I had another employer under my belt.

Takeaway: Do the math for yourself and check your cost of living difference. Keep in mind the value of the yen (or other currency) and what your housing/life expenses may be.

Ducks in a Row#

A few days after signing, the initial process of information gathering kicks off. In PayPay’s case, they have an external provider which handles the initial background check.

It’s mostly around where you’ve lived and who you’ve worked for. In my particular case, they wanted to reach out to my current employer to validate my status, which I promptly declined until I could validate that I was getting a visa. They seemed amenable to that at least.

Takeaway: Make sure that you have documents proving your employment from every place that you’ve worked. It’ll be useful for both background checks and immigration.

Immigration (and the Attorney)#

Background check completed, on to getting permission to work in the country.

As I noted in the Prologue, this is where I ended up getting denied the last time. For those that are unaware, Japan’s Engineering Visa requires 10 years of work experience in the field that you are actively applying to. This was particularly rough in my case, since a portion of my experience was as a Broadcast Production Engineer while I was in High School.

In Japan, working a full-time gig while enrolled is generally not possible. Many schools don’t allow even part-time work. All in the pursuit of education, I guess. This fact works against me as Immigration wasn’t willing to accept the work, as full-time experience required to be eligible for the Engineering Visa.

This time around, I knew their hesitations, and brought receipts. Reaching out to old instructors, managers, and co-workers to get letters of recommendation, and attestations of my work. I attempted to build a convincing case that this was acceptable work.

The “negotiation” in this phase was by-far the most time consuming segment with several weeks of back-and-forth between me and the immigration attorney, and between the immigration attorney and their contacts at the Immigration Agency. Most of it was focused on making sure that my work was properly accounted for and contributed to my total work-experience.

Eventually though, the decision was made to bundle it all up and send it over to the Agency to make their determination. The timeline I was given was 3-6 weeks; delays could extend it to months.

Takeaway: Don’t give up! Even if you don’t necessairly meet the exact requirements, include as much detail as you can without lying. Oh, and keep everything.

Visa#

After about 2 weeks, I got an email from the attorneys’ office. My Certificate of Eligibility⁷ (CoE) was approved and it was time to get my visa, which was a relatively straight forward process.

You go to your local Embassy or Consulate website⁸, fill out the visa application form, grab your CoE and passport, and head in to the office. Drop everything off and sign your life away. Hopefully in a few days, they’ll call you and tell you that your visa is ready for pickup.

Once you get the call, swing back by the office, and pickup your passport. Honestly, this was the most painless part of the process. The timelines were clearly laid out, all of the information is available online, and it’s mostly just procedural.

Takeaway: Not too much to add here, just make sure you have everything on the first try. They don’t like wasting time.

Moving#

We’re currently at this section. More to come!