[etherael]

I recently started a full time job after getting recruited to a company in Tokyo, the wages are pretty damned good, and the cost of living is very low. By comparison I've worked in Sydney where the wages were comparable, potentially a little higher (less than 10%), and the cost of living was about three to four times higher. And done the digital nomad thing where cost of living was slightly cheaper still than Tokyo, but not by a lot, and average income was (variable, admittedly, but generally speaking) enormously smaller.

It does appear to be an optimal combination for both good wages and low cost of living in my experience having traveled and lived extensively all over the world.

The single caveat I'd make on saying this is that the way that I prefer to live might be uniquely suited to Tokyo, and uniquely unsuited to Sydney. That being; I hate commuting, I want somewhere small and comfortable but otherwise as cheap as possible to live, but as close to work as possible so I can just walk to and from every day. In Sydney working in the CBD this means you'll be stuck with some status signalling lifestyle apartment coupled with the already significant premium on rentals in general which is applicable to all Sydney real estate, and it's stupidly expensive (average 2250 - 2500. You could probably get away with a rundown roach palace for a little cheaper, but the floor on Sydney rentals in my experience is just absurdly high.

By comparison I got a no frills apartment that is perfectly useful, comfortable and serviceable within 300 meters walk to my office in Shibuya no problem at all, 1100 USD per month, and everything else on top of that with the bountiful microwave dinners, amazon, and roadside eating joints by the dozen, extremely fast and cheap internet (gigabit for < 40 USD pm) doesn't increase the price by much at all.

[baursak]

I'm curious to find out more about looking for and getting a tech job in Japan, as well as the overall working environment. Did you look at specific jobsites? Do you speak Japanese? Are tech companies in Japan similar in culture to your usual stereotypical long hours salaryman jobs in mainstream corporate Japan?

[etherael]

Regarding jobsites, no, I was contacted on LinkedIn for a specialised project that I happened to be uniquely suited for. I was not in the country at the time, and my employer handled immigration and the relocation and everything associated on my behalf.

I did not speak any Japanese at all at the time I started, and I am slowly learning it now but don't have a lot of time to dedicate to the project. I intend to gain fluency in it eventually. Unlike many of the places in the world I've lived, I would say if you intend to comfortably exist here long term, you will need to learn the language both spoken and written. It's not like a lot of places these days where English is almost an official second language or there's extensive proficiency amongst the local population.

This is my first and only time working in Japan so I have no basis for comparison to other companies here. My impression of the culture is there can be an overemphasis on hours worked rather than output produced and the quality thereof, but they're conscious that is an issue at least where I work and they're mindful of it and try to address it. They also have things that seem strange to me as a foreigner but I am more prone to just accepting and trying to do things their way (when in rome).

All in all, I'm finding it pretty good, it definitely helps that this particular field has pretty much devoured all my energy, life and thinking since I really immersed myself in it a few years ago, so working in a global hub central location where it's really having an explosive impact on a core related piece of infrastructure is pretty much a dream job for me.