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Comment by exhaze | Hacker News Reader

PS Happy to answers any questions about Tokyo life as an engineer/entrepreneur, just reply to my comment.

I get where you're coming from, but you can make the same one-sided joke post about Americans.

Having done both...

- started YC backed startup while in SF and worked at Uber for 4 years - in Tokyo for the past 2 years

I honestly think that the outcomes here in Tokyo are much better than in SF. Yes, incomes are lower, but your QAPP (quality-adjusted purchasing power) is significantly higher, at all income levels - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/08/21/commentary/j...

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Having a hard time finding clients currently as a digital agency in Tokyo targeting foreign companies, any ideas on what to try next?

> I get where you're coming from, but you can make the same one-sided joke post about Americans.

He _IS_ joking about Americans :-)))

Is it true Japanese companies pay software engineers peanuts compared to USA? How much Japanese do you need to speak to get by?

Depends on a company, as everywhere else. Some companies are willing to pay 10M+ annually which is more than enough to live peacefully in not so cheap area.

In general, yes. There are exceptions but in general Japanese tech companies pay very poorly.

For example, Yahoo Japan (still more popular than Google Japan AFAIK) pays collage grads $36k a year starting salary. I think USA Google Interns get ~3x that.

https://about.yahoo.co.jp/hr/job-info/role/0005/#potentialJo...

I know it's just one data point but it's not far from the average. For Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Canon, Nikon, NEC, Rakuten, etc it will definitely be in the same ballpark. You can probably get 2x that if you have 10 years experience but if you're over 35 you're considered too old to code by many companies.

There are exceptions like maybe Mercari as they are doing well. And western companies, Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, pay well.

I have no idea if this is why but I'm guessing one reason is they have a captive market. If your only language is Japanese you can't work anywhere else in the world.

What kind of company move did you make to tokyo? Work at Google and then do a transfer or a Japanese startup?

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