[suggestion]

This is all great and relevant advice! I have actually considering moving there, any tips with respect to that? For example could I, as a US citizen, work remotely for a US company while living in Japan indefinitely (not necessarily permanently, but at least as an option)?

[elcamino44]

Visas will be your challenge. Unless you’re married to a Japanese person, it will be hard for you to get a work visa without being employed by a Japanese company. Any way to try to get around that is gonna be a lot of work (and a bit of money too).

However, if you wanted to take a 1 year sabbatical, you could get a job as an engineer with a Japanese company, work for a year, apply for fast track permanent residency at the end of that year (you’ll need to meet some education/income requirements), then go back to your old job remotely. There are software jobs that hire people who don’t speak Japanese.

[drderidder]

Basically no. But if your company has a Japanese branch and is willing to transfer you there, then maybe. But be aware that visiting Japan as a tourist vs living and working there are very different experiences, and plenty of expats burn out within a year. Visit first, maybe do the digital nomad thing for a bit.

[suggestion]

Thanks for the advice, visiting first would be my approach, but just trying to gather info as much as I can.

[midoridensha]

>For example could I, as a US citizen, work remotely for a US company while living in Japan indefinitely (not necessarily permanently, but at least as an option)?

NO.

You must have a work visa to live here, and you won't get that unless a Japanese company sponsors your visa. A US company can't do that for obvious reasons, unless it's a company with a Japanese branch office.

The only way to do what you ask is to get permanent residence first, but that means living here for a while on a work visa or spouse visa.

Also, on top of this, the US company may have issues with you living outside the US while working for them, but that'll be the case for any other country. This was discussed within the last week or so here on HN.

[suggestion]

I figured that might be the case, thank you for the information. I think I would struggle to adjust to the Japanese work culture in order to establish residence within these constraints.

I also pretty much exclusively have software experience in government contracting so the jump to commercial would be pretty big too.

[midoridensha]

>I think I would struggle to adjust to the Japanese work culture in order to establish residence within these constraints.

Or you can work at an American company like Google (not sure if they're still hiring though; I thought I read they had a company-wide hiring freeze).

[warabe]

Just out of curiosity, why are you considering moving to Japan?

I am not trying to discourage you, but if you really want to live in Japan, you have to learn Japanese, which is not an easy language to learn, especially for English speakers, even if you live in Tokyo.

edit: wording

[midoridensha]

There's lots of English speakers in Tokyo who never learn Japanese at a conversational level.