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 significant gap in 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 hunting 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 because I didn’t have the 10 years of work experience required for the Engineering Visa. This triggered my offer to be rescinded, which, while unfortunate, was within expectations.

Shortly after, I received another offer from PayPay. Testing my luck, I accepted the offer, kicking off the process only to find myself 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. The upside was 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, with amusing directness, 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 firmly 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 in High School is generally not permitted. 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#

I’d like to start this section by apologizing to my friend Deanna. I rejected your advice and now severly regret it.

They told me to start preparing to move as soon as I got my CoE. Because I postponed the start of my activities until several weeks after, and thus was put into a situation that severely cut some of the negotiating power in my quest to sell my assets.

Roommate Moving#

Given that half of the house was departing, I had some level of responsibility to at least assist in getting my roommate a new place to live, at least temporarily.

Long story short, a friend agreed to help out, and my roommate was setup for success. They in turn, used that to already become very successful in their own quest for independence.

Resigning#

There were a few people at the office that I had been keeping aprised of my situation, none of them being my boss or team lead. My lead actually finding out first because they scheduled some time with me the day after I got my CoE.

The following week, I managed to get some time with my boss, where we hashed out what departure date and handover looks like, officially submitting my resignation the next week.

My co-workers were supportive, and we celebrated it with a trip to the local Chuy’s.

Finalizing Other Responsibilities#

With the hard part out of the way, I had some other straggling responsibilities:

• Selling Major Furniture
  • Sold most of them via Facebook Marketplace
• Disposing of Everything Else
  • Hired a company to come pick everything up and take it away
• Apartment
  • Amazing landlord, let me out of the lease early with no penalty
• Car
  • Purchased by my sister, since her husband wrecked his

Alls well that ends well. I drove my car off to my sister’s place (16 hours away) and said my goodbyes to Denver.

Takeaway: Listen to your advisors, they know a thing or two because they’ve seen a thing or two. Also, never underestimate the sheer volume of your possessions.

A Small Adventure#

One of the decisions that I made was that I was only bring a small collection of things with me on my move, two backpacks, a large suitcase, and a carry-on.⁹ It would be a very accurate statement that I drove out of Colorado with everything I owned in the back seat.

After driving the day, I spent some time with friends, family, and old co-workers. Chatting and reminiscing (with the occasional jab to come visit me next time) was probably one of the best things to assuage some of the anxiety the move, and distract me from the impending work.

After that, I left my car, and flew to visit my parents for a week. Helping them with some straggling smart-home things, and overall letting them get some “son-time” in since it’ll be a notable decrease from years prior.

With a final goodbye and a hug, they took me to the airport.

Takeaway: Plan to spend some time with friends and family. It helps.

Flight to Japan and Landing#

To nobody’s surprise [read: anyone who knows me], I flew Delta across the ocean. Airline food really has improved over the past few years, and there was only a bit of turbulence over the Strait of Detroit.

Landing in Japan was smooth, but the hardest part was that I couldn’t really find any documentation on what the Customs and Immigration procedures were going to be like. Oddly absent on the English-net.

I was directed into a similar line as the rest of the short-term passengers, and went through the usual fingerprinting. Once I got to an immigration officer, I handed them my passport with the page open to my visa, as well as handed them a copy of my CoE. They tapped away at the computer for a bit, and then printed out a newly minted Zairyu¹⁰ Card; my national identification that officially confirmed I was a different class of weeb.

After that, Customs was the same as if I was any other passenger, and I cleared it within a few seconds.

Outside, I was instructed to head to the Taxi/Limosine area by my relocation paperwork. I met up with my driver, who took me to my Serviced Apartment.

Takeaway: Nothing to worry about, unless you don’t like planes. Just go with the flow and they’ll help you get to the right place.

Day 0: Settling In#

It wouldn’t surprise me if the apartment was originally a hotel. It had automated door locks, a concierge, and a nice italian restaurant. The room itself was kitted out in IKEA furniture (with all of the tags still attached), and the checkin process was identical to something like an AirBnB.

Thankfully, I had been to Japan a few times before, so I quickly stowed my belongings, proceeded to make my way to the nearest konbini¹¹, FamilyMart, and bought some drinks and snacks.

It was already pretty late in the day, so I spent some time wandering around the area, investigating what restaurants, stores, and other ammenities were around.

At around ~21:00, I headed to bed, the jetlag making it a quick process.

Takeaway: Always be ready for snackage. Also, go buy a nice pillow once you land.

Day 1: Registration#

At 11:00, I met up with my handler for the day. Our Destination was the local city/ward office. In a twist of fate, the other employee that I was supposed to go with had… missed their flight, and so we got some quality 1:1 time.

This was realistically where I got my first big handful of Japanese Bureaucracy. Took us about 3 hours, and it was just submitting two forms to notify them that I had started living in the city and that I would like copies of my Jūminhyō¹².

Again, I was left to my devices, so I headed back to the Services Apartment, dropped off my paperwork, then headed back out into the city, looking for some snackage and ending up at nice steak-rice-bowl place in Akihabara.

A bit of wandering, then back to the apartment for some rest.

Takeaway: Always plan for extra time when dealing with the government. They’re very nice but processes take time.

Days 2 - 6: Apartment Hunting#

As part of the “relocation package” that was offered, I was connected with a realtor that spoke English, who would help me find my long-term housing plan.

Buying a house is almost impossible as a foreigner without significant capital (>30%) as the banks would rather you have some level of attachment to the country. As such, renting is the default option for pretty much anyone, including yours truly.

Prior to even departing the United States, I was in communication with my realtor. I was lucky with mine, as we built up a portfolio through collaborative effort, where I would go online (to places like suumo.jp or homes.jp) and find apartments that interested me, while they would validate the suggestions and confirm whether I needed “conversational Japanese”.¹³

We had scheduled a few to visit, of which none of them particularly were interesting, alas, back to the grind on finding new apartments.

I started work on the 7th day. This, and most other timelines in this post, will obviously vary wildly depending on your personal situation.

Takeaway: Find a good realtor, they make life so much easier.

Day 8: Getting A Bank Account#

Never underestimate how much having the right documentation saves time and hassle.

I met up with Mr. Handler again outside a branch of the Japan Post Bank (Yuucho) at 13:00. JPost has streamlined the process quite a bit, having a tablet available that makes entering all of your information in for setting up an account fairly easy.

Their process simply requested the usual PII, along with touching my Zairyu card to a reader, as well as entering in my US Social Security Number¹⁴, and within about an hour, I officially had an account.

As a note, JPost still issues two cards: A Cash Card, and a Debit Card. The Cash Card is used when interacting with ATMs, and (surprise, surprise) is used to deposit/withdraw from the account. With limited exceptions, it can’t be used at merchants. The debit card can be used at certain ATMs to pull cash out, but it’s more for usage at merchants when paying for things.

If you don’t have the proper documentation, the debit card may take up to 6 months to be issued, but a letter from your employer/school sponsoring your visa is all that’s required to waive that requirement.

Takeaway: Some information on the internet is out of date, some is misleading or inaccurate. Make sure to consult with the branch about what you need to bring or have an advisor help you.

Getting an Apartment#

After a few more half-days at work¹⁵ (and a lot of rejections by me), I had finally got to view an apartment that I immediately fell in love with, excellent view, modern, safe, and (importantly) in my price range. While we were standing in the kitchen, I asked my realtor to call the management company immediately and notify them that we were intending on putting in an application.

A few words later, and we had found out that 15 minutes earlier someone had put in an application and they were no longer accepting applications for the apartment¹⁶, but they happened to have an apartment open on the floor below. It’s not a terrible view, but top floor would’ve been so much nicer.

Fundamentally, it was almost the same apartment; so the realtor submitted my application, and I was tenatively approved pending a final review before signing. We negotiated a bit for some nicities, like being able to install my own internet line in the apartment.

Contrary to what most content creators would have you believe, having a good realtor helps a ton and handles a lot of the hassle with finding/applying for an apartment, and mine even got my gas turned on, and electric services setup.

10/10 - Would Use Again

Takeaway: It’s OK to be picky, but don’t let it take away a good opportunity from you. Be flexible with your options, but within your means.

Registration (Part 2)#

Put Simply: Every time you move, you have to do this part. Really annoying.

Essentially, you return to where you registered the first time, fill out a “Notification of Departure”¹⁷ form, specifying the destination address. Hand it in, and after about 20 minutes you’ll get a form saying that “You’ve left”

You’ve got a few days, but you can take this paper, go to your new ward/city hall, fill out a “Notification of Change of Address” form with your old address, new address, and basic human details, and you’ll submit that form with your paper from the old hall. Another 40 or so minutes, and you’ll be officially registered.

Most larger jusrisdictions will either have an English form, or an English annotated sheet with instructions to follow. If they don’t, Google Translate is your friend! Any errors in your form will will noted and they’ll help you correct them. The staff want things filed correctly the first time, so they’re happy to help.

Takeaway: It’s a pretty simple process, if time-consuming, process. Have some faith!

Furniture and Misc#

So, I learned in short order that washing machines and fridges don’t come with an apartment here. Which…. I can get behind. If you want to save a buck, you can get used applicances from places like Yamada-Denki , or new appliances from BIC, Yodobashi, or even Amazon¹⁸.

I ended up purchasing my fridge used, something I partially regret, given:

• It has a smell, and I don’t know where it’s coming from.
  • I’ve tried a variety of things. Feel free to contact me with ideas.
• It’s way too large for my personal usecase.
  • I mostly eat out because my kitchen is so small.

Following that, I got [my washing machine] from Amazon, which I love and is amazing. I could gush, but that’s for another blog post¹⁹. Tech in Japan is both super futuristic, but ages behind.

Most of the rest of my furniture came from Ikea²⁰. Their website has an English option, while remaining in Japan, something that more sites should take note of. My curtains came from Nitori, essentially “Ikea, but Japan”. They’ve got a worse return policy, so I preferred Ikea.

Outside of that, the only “interesting” thing I purchased was some towels from Imabari Towel from their store in Shinjuku. They’re excellent without too much specific care required, and are amazing after tumble-drying.

Takeaway: There’s a lot of excellent options, but sometimes the ones you know are the best. Don’t forget about the used market!

Final Words#

If you’ve read the whole thing in one sitting, thanks for your time! Here’s a 🍪, just for you.

If you’ve read the updates as they happened, welcome back! 🍰 for you.

And if you scrolled to the end, thanks for visiting my site.

All in all, it’s been an incredibly rewarding experience, and I’ve still got plenty of things to write about in Japan. I should probably make a category or something for them.

Until next time