Anyone here know how much a typical (I know its hard to qualify a 'typical' programmer) gets paid in Japan compared to the US?
Imagine your skilled with a riffle because.. you like to shoot stuff out on the farm. Sign up for the army and you will be shipped to bootcamp where they teach you how to shoot "correctly", polish your shoes and make your bed and most importantly chain of command.
Note: commanding office says jump, you say how high.
You have your platoon where everyone entered at the same time, your all buddies, get shat on by the peps one year ahead of you and everyone progress at the same pace.
Note: skill as a good shot has no relevance to your rank and pay.
After you have put in time you can advanced in rank and thus pay. Get married / kids theres additional benefits.
Note: your rank and pay are directly related to years of service.
Unlike the army, you will not get any medals, heroics of jumping on a grenade to save the team are frowned upon. Its better to hold a meeting with the team, to clarify what the grenade is, check all possible outcomes, investigate every tiny detail by which time everyone is dead. Key point is everyone, the dead part is largely irrelevant.
After some time, your buddies seem to like you and your leading the platoon. Congratulations you have now advanced your career to the fast track lane. Moving slightly faster than your peers as they are "workers" and not management.
Note: fast track has nothing to do with your shooting skill.
.. and so on and so on.
source: lived and worked Tokyo for 10+ years.
This was also my experience working for a US subsidiary of a Japanese multinational.
They do things very very deliberately. Which in some fields is a good thing. But that doesn't work all that well when competing against companies that "move fast and break things". Or even against companies that operate at a non-glacial pace.
Occasionally I would have loved to scream: "JUST MAKE A FUCKING DECISION!" But that's not generally part of their culture.
To be fair, there were also maverick groups within the company that did move fast and were able to compete quite successfully. But they were the exception.
Thats the theory, sometimes it works in practice, sometimes other shit screws it all up.
Platoon, Company, Battalion 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.
Of course the goal is to get into Division 1, as its the most prestigious.
But it's entirely from an individualists perspective.
Maybe your 'shooting skill' at the end of the day is not as important as your life-long commitment to the cause?
You know the African proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go as a group"
Well, building a nation is 'going far' and can't be done on the basis of individuals all competing to out-do each other.
When it comes to 99% of things, surely some are a little better than others, some work harder than others, but really, 'we're all a commodity' in the long run. Even those who are spectacularly talented require legions of supporting people.
I'd also argue that they are not putting completely morons in charge, and that in the end, probably the better hands are getting promoted ultimately.
Also recognize that even the most nimble and entrepreneurial organizations are inherently pyramid-ish, and it gets really narrow at the top. There's not a lot of room for promotion - and that it might be considered selfish and bombastic to be demanding 'special recognition' for your efforts, if everyone is 'putting in effort'.
Consider that it (was) also a Japanese trait to not lay people off: this was shameful. Instead, your dignity was respected on some level, and you got to do a 'nothing job' all day at least to keep up appearances and keep your salary.
This is not so much an authoritarian structure as it is communitarian one.
Japan is a tiny island with few natural resources and yet somehow is one of the wealthiest and most advanced nations on earth, I suggest that these types of social structures are exactly why this is ... which comes at the cost of individual aspiration.
- Lead developer for social mobile game company in 2010 - $3,500/mo
- Brief stint at another game company in 2012 for a few months - $4,200/mo
- (Remote work for non-JP companies)
- Lead infrastructure and technical leader for mobile game company in 2016 - $6,000/mo - although I was arguably able to push that high (that is considered relatively high here) due to both the technical and Japanese speaking experience I built up over the years.
The rule of thumb is typically: (age * 100) + 500~1000 "you must be a creative thinking foreigner" bonus
Non-game industries are slightly better paying, however, here is the catch: The entire IT industry has organically standardized on 10am-7pm work hours. Depending on your company and how much you are willing to not play the overtime game, there are expectations of up to an extra 45 hours per month of unpaid OT, so if you don't hold your ground you could be coming home on the last train.
The actual experiences were great. Loved the people I worked with, learned a lot. However, if you are coming from somewhere that pays US-level salaries, prepare to be surprised at your offer.
Generally, your wage will start out low at any company since you're expected to stay forever and your loyalty eventually earns you a living wage after ~10 years.
In international companies, as purely a software engineer, you can go above 150k total comp.
If you want to make more, you want to go toward sales/marketing/etc. In that aspect, it is a bit like Europe where staying technical locks you very quickly. A good sales/marketing person can make 200k+, but that would of course require excellent Japanese skills.
[edit] Source: I am managing a machine learning group in a startup in Tokyo and manage the hiring of my team.
I actually don't think it's the salaries that are the problem- I think it's harder to fit into the culture of a Japanese firm than the lower salaries.