Work as a programmer in Japan - possible?

[dj-pajacex]

Hi,

I would like to ask, if it is possible to work as a programmer in Japan as a foreigner.

Currently I work in the UK as a C programmer (at work I also do some performance analysis in assembly). I am not British, I come from another European country. I have no formal education in computer science (I studied physics at the university), but I began to learn programming when I was a teenager and I have worked as a programmer for 5 years already.

If it matters in potential career, I know the following programming languages (in order of self confidence): C, ARM assembly (Aarch64 & ARMv7-A), C++, Intel assembly (IA-32 & Intel64), Python. I also have some old knowledge of PHP and free variants of SQL (MySQL & PostgreSQL).

I would like to retain my standard of living (i.e. earn at least the same after job change in terms of purchasing power; here I mean that UK is expensive, in my home country I could earn a bit less and be able to afford the same stuff). I don't earn much, after paying income tax and NI it is around (yen calculated at current excahnge rate) £4135/~¥785000 per month (or £5720/~¥1085000 gross per month).

I am thinking rather in 2 or 3 years time frame. If it would be possible to get a job in Japan with my self-taught qualifications, I will start to learn the language to be prepared to find something interesting.

Any advice would be useful. Thank you in advance

 

[CoolKevin]

I would say look for a job first, and start the preparations and hopefully you might get lucky sooner

 

[dj-pajacex]

I would say look for a job first, and start the preparations and hopefully you might get lucky sooner

I think that the problem would be that in order to work in any given country, you need to know the language spoken there. I don't know japanese at all, and I think that it will probably take at least 2 or 3 years to gain enough proficiency to be able to work. Learning language takes time, and it would be sort of wasted time if I wouldn't be able to work there later. Possible reasons could be: very limited issuance of working visas, not allowing foreigners in better paid jobs, only allowing workers with formal education, etc. I am wondering if any of these apply to Japan.