TokyoDev

A Look Into NaviDial, Japan’s Legacy Phone Service

2026-04-16T13:17:38+09:00

Earlier this year, TokyoDev founder Paul was at his local library when noticed a poster for a “Foreign Language Human Rights Hotline.” He was pleased to see that—until he noticed the phone number printed on the poster. It started with the number 0570.

The problem? Even when used to access public services, 0570 numbers are not toll-free. When dialed from a mobile phone, they cost the caller 33 yen per minute.

That may not sound like much, but it adds up to 1980 yen per hour, which is significantly higher than Japan’s average minimum wage of 1121 yen. This means 0570 numbers can be a financial burden for those people who need help the most.

If you live in Japan, you’ve almost certainly run into 0570 numbers before. They’re typically used on customer support pages for banks, airlines, utility companies, etc. As Paul discovered, they’re also sometimes used on posters advertising services for people in need.

What’s the story behind these pricey 0570 numbers? Why are they so widespread, and why were they adopted in the first place? Most importantly, if you need to call one, how can you avoid racking up a huge phone bill?

History: From FreeDial to NaviDial
The problem for consumers
Why is NaviDial still around?
A comparison with other countries
Practical advice for you

History: From FreeDial to NaviDial

The service behind these 0570 numbers is called NaviDial. To understand it better, we first need to understand its older sibling, FreeDial.

Toll-free calls in the 1980s

For many decades, Japan’s telephone infrastructure was run by a state-owned monopoly called Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation. In 1985, it was privatized and became the NTT that we know today. Later that year, NTT launched FreeDial, their service that uses the 0120 prefix.

As the name suggests, FreeDial is a toll-free service, likely inspired by the 1-800 numbers that were standard in North America. It also provides major technical benefits, being the first large-scale service in Japan to utilize an “Intelligent Network.”

With a normal phone call, you simply dial a number and get routed to a fixed physical terminal—nothing more, nothing less. When you call a 0120 number, it accesses NTT’s Intelligent Network, which intercepts and routes the call before connecting you. The routing is based on factors like your area code, the time of day, or how busy the lines are.

For example, a company might set up rules such as, “If it’s before 6 p.m., route the call to the Osaka branch. If it’s after 6 p.m., route it to Tokyo. And if both are full, put the caller in a queue and play hold music.”

FreeDial was a hit, and for good reason. The technology behind it was genuinely impressive for 1985, and it gives businesses several practical benefits like:

A single national number instead of separate numbers for each regional office.
Geographic routing that detects the caller’s area and routes them to the nearest call center.
Load balancing across multiple call centers so no single one gets overwhelmed.
Queue management, so that if all lines are busy, the caller is placed on hold with music instead of hitting a dead end.
Providing useful data to operators, such as call volume by region/time, average wait times, etc.
Vendor support and SLA guarantees from NTT, a massive corporation and highly-established brand name.

This was a big deal for large companies with offices scattered around the country. Businesses operating during the mid-80s economic bubble had the cash and were more than happy to cover the cost of customer calls. Having a 0120 number came with a bit of prestige too—it was a way for companies to signal that they were well-established.

That being said, the costs were no joke. Thriving economy or not, FreeDial was expensive to operate at scale, so only large corporations could afford it. Then the bubble burst.

Enter NaviDial

The 1990s marked the start of the Lost Decades. Companies no longer had the same financial means, and wanted to cut costs without giving up the technology they had become accustomed to.

In 1997, NTT launched NaviDial, a new service using very similar technology to FreeDial, and delivering all the same benefits to businesses. The major difference is that with NaviDial, the caller pays instead of the business.

For companies trying to reduce expenses, it was perfect. They could continue using the same technology as before, and keep the NTT branding and vendor support. NaviDial also had the added benefit of reducing the total number of incoming calls, by discouraging complaints from dissatisfied customers, prank, and spam calls.

The problem for consumers

The “caller pays for the call” rule might not sound that bad, but it has some negative consequences that aren’t immediately obvious.

When you dial a 0570 number, the call begins with a pre-recorded message saying “Connecting via NaviDial”, followed by an explanation of the calling rates. As soon as the message ends, you start getting billed.

This means you are paying for the entire duration of the session, including the time you are on hold, and the time you spend navigating automated menus with your number keys.

If you have access to a landline, calling from it costs 9.35 yen for every three minutes (about 3.12 yen per minute), which is perfectly reasonable. But if your only option is a mobile phone (which is the case for most people), the calling rates are 11 yen per 20 seconds, or 33 yen per minute—over ten times more than a landline. If you are put on hold and wait 20 minutes for an operator, that’s 660 yen before you’ve started speaking to a human.

Call centers certainly aim to answer as quickly as possible, but this can be unrealistic during peak hours. On Monday mornings or weekday lunch hours, it’s absolutely possible to be placed on hold for 20 to 30 minutes.

On top of that, even if you have a mobile plan with unlimited calling, that plan does not cover the costs of NaviDial calls. NTT sets the rates, and mobile carriers can’t include it in their plans even if they want to. So there’s no escape—if you need to call a 0570 number, you will be charged.

Just to make things a little worse, the rate will increase to 22 yen per 30 seconds in October 2026. That means a 60-minute call will cost 2,640 yen, more than double the national average minimum wage of 1,121 yen as of April 2026.

Unsurprisingly, Japanese consumers aren’t huge fans of NaviDial. Here are a few (paraphrased) comments I found on Japanese social media:

“When I called to sign up for a service, it was a FreeDial number. Later when I called to cancel, the only option was a NaviDial number. It was super annoying, especially when they could have just provided an online form for cancellation.”
“I called a customer support center that only provided a 0570 number, waited for 20 minutes, and they hung up on me.”
“I understand that businesses want to lower costs and prevent spam or prank calls. And I don’t mind paying for the call. But it sucks that we have to pay for the time we spend just waiting for an operator.”

As mentioned earlier, NaviDial isn’t only common among businesses. It’s also used by public services, such as:

Gas companies: “If you notice a gas leak, please call this 0570 number immediately!”
Tokyo Labor Bureau Consultation and Support Office: This is a key contact point for workers having issues with work conditions, etc.
Women’s Human Rights Hotline: This hotline uses a 0570 number despite handling serious issues like domestic or gender-based violence.
Tokyo Suicide Prevention Hotline: I hope I don’t have to explain why this is problematic.

To be fair, public services operate on tight budgets and limited staff, and almost certainly aren’t using these numbers to be malicious. It’s still unfortunate that services designed to help vulnerable people are kept behind a paywall.

Why is NaviDial still around?

This is the big question. Alternative, open-source solutions like Asterisk and FreePBX have existed for decades, and have gained traction in other countries.

More recently, services like Twilio and Vonage help businesses set up routing and call center functionality by simply using their API’s, without needing any complicated hardware or contracts.

Even so, there are many reasons why Japanese companies haven’t replaced NaviDial.

Inertia

Companies and government organizations have built their workflows around 0570 numbers for decades. Those phone numbers are printed on physical documents, displayed on websites, and embedded in customer databases. Switching to a new system would require time and effort, not to mention technical expertise.

Solutions like Asterisk and FreePBX are used in Japan, but more by tech-savvy startups than large enterprises. Setting them up properly can be tough for Japanese enterprises due to the ongoing shortage of technical talent.

Conservative enterprise culture

Large enterprises tend to prefer systems backed by a vendor who can provide technical support, and be held accountable when things go wrong. NaviDial checks those boxes as it’s backed by NTT, the massive corporation that essentially built Japan’s modern phone infrastructure.

On the other hand, an open-source or API-based setup with no clear owner is often perceived by enterprises as risky.

Preference for trusted phone numbers

Cloud solutions like Twilio and Vonage do operate in Japan, but usually provide VoIP numbers using the 050 prefix. This is partly due to regulations set by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), which make it difficult to acquire “standard” phone numbers (such as land line prefixes like 03 for Tokyo or 06 for Osaka, or mobile prefixes such as 080 and 090).

The issue with 050 numbers is that they’re perceived as less trustworthy. Because they’re relatively easy to acquire, change, or delete, they’ve unfortunately been abused by telemarketers and scammers. Some banks and services even refuse customers trying to register with 050 numbers.

To use non-050 numbers, a business generally has to meet stricter numbering and carrier requirements than it would for a 050 number. Due to the heavy setup required, a large enterprise trying to get a standard number might find it more logical to just go straight to NTT.

050 numbers have gained traction among younger companies and startups, but many older enterprises still avoid them in favor of more established numbers–0570 being one of those.

Not enough pressure (yet)

Until fairly recently, Japanese consumers were dealing with an entirely different issue: brutally expensive mobile plans. Three companies—Softbank, Docomo, and AU—completely dominated the market and charged consumers between 7,000 to 10,000 yen per month for mobile contracts. Cancelling or switching to different carriers also incurred hefty fees. This was the norm until the late 2010s, and was likely a more pressing issue for consumers than NaviDial was.

The pain was widespread enough that the Japanese government introduced regulations to cut down the costs, and a wave of inexpensive MVNO services priced in the 1,000 to 3,000 yen range entered the market. Nowadays, consumers can choose from cheaper services like IIJmio, mineo, Ymobile, UQ Mobile, and Rakuten Mobile.

NaviDial hasn’t faced as much scrutiny yet. Consumers are indeed vocal about it, and some companies have responded by voluntarily publishing alternative 03 or 06 numbers alongside their 0570 lines. But there hasn’t yet been a movement with organized and sustained pressure to make things change.

A comparison with other countries

Japan certainly isn’t the only country to use paid numbers like 0570, but it normalized those numbers for mainstream use to a greater degree.

In the US, toll-free numbers using the 800 prefix were established in the 1960s and swiftly became the norm. Paid 900 numbers gained traction later on, but were mostly used for non-vital services like checking sports scores, horoscopes, weather updates, and fan call-in lines for TV shows.

Those 900 numbers started facing heavy regulation after a number of scandals in which children would call the numbers and rack up outrageous phone bills. Widespread access to the internet also made many of these services redundant. Eventually, 900 numbers became associated with only dodgy services like psychics, gambling tips, and adult chatlines.

The key difference here is that North America never normalized paid numbers for essential services, like banks and government agencies. Toll-free was always the expectation.

The UK initially operated more like Japan. 084 and 087 numbers were like NaviDial: used by businesses and paid for by callers. Those numbers were excluded from mobile minutes, and became widely used by both corporations and public services. Sounds familiar, right?

The difference is what happened next. In 2014, following a EU Consumer Rights Directive, the UK government banned the use of 084 and 087 numbers for customer service lines. Similar regulations were extended to banks and financial services in 2015. This forced businesses to switch to standard numbers.

Customer backlash was one of the major factors that triggered this decision. Japan hasn’t had an equivalent moment yet, which is why NaviDial remains common and unregulated.

Practical advice for you

If you’re an international resident in Japan and want to avoid paying NaviDial fees as much as possible, here’s what you can do:

Keep an eye out for the 0570 prefix. Any number starting with that prefix, or any number labeled ナビダイヤル (nabi daiyaru) means you’ll be charged. You’re likely to see it when calling your bank, utility companies, airline customer support, or local government offices.
You can hang up. If you accidentally dial a NaviDial number, you’ll first hear the “Connecting via NaviDial” (ナビダイヤルでおつなぎします, nabi daiyaru de otsunagi shimasu) announcement. Billing hasn’t started at this point, so you won’t be charged if you hang up during the announcement.
Look for alternative numbers. Many companies are required to provide an alternative number for people calling from abroad, or from IP phones (which use the 050 prefix). If you’re looking at phone numbers on a website or flyer, there might be fine print saying “If you’re calling from an IP phone or from overseas, please dial: 03-xxxx-xxxx.” Assuming you have an unlimited calling plan, that number will be free to call.
Try text-based support first. Many companies now offer support via LINE, web chat, chatbots, or inquiry forms. It’s slower, but if you can solve the issue via text, it won’t cost anything. It’s also much easier than calling if you’re not confident in spoken Japanese. Look for the “Inquiries” (お問い合わせ, otoiawase) or FAQ sections on company websites.
If you have to call, be prepared. Have your customer ID, contract number, and any relevant dates or notes ready before you dial. If you’re not confident speaking Japanese, prepare a simple script or ask a Japanese-speaking friend to help. The goal is to reduce the call time as much as possible.
Avoid peak hours. As mentioned earlier, phone lines get very congested on Monday mornings and weekday lunch hours (generally between 12:00 and 13:00). Try calling outside those hours if it’s an option.
Use a landline if you can. If your workplace has a landline, ask if you can use it for a personal call, and be upfront about why. Not every company will allow this, but it’s worth trying if you’re concerned about the cost of calling from your mobile phone.

My number one tip is to ask for a callback. If you do dial a 0570 number and reach a human operator, don’t be afraid to be direct. Tell them you’re calling from a mobile phone, are concerned about the cost, and would like them to call you back. This is not a guarantee, but customer service reps may be able to accommodate.

Final thoughts

NaviDial is an example of how infrastructure can outlive its original context. In 1997, it was a genuinely innovative service that solved a lot of problems for corporations while keeping costs affordable.

But the world has changed since then. Smartphones have replaced landlines in most contexts, and now that unlimited calling plans are standard, NaviDial’s pricey per-minute billing feels unfair. Plenty of alternative solutions have already been developed.

The problem is simply that NaviDial arrived first, became widely adopted, and had no real incentive to change. The businesses using it don’t want to switch, and aren’t facing enough regulatory pressure from the government. Consumers are certainly frustrated, but haven’t organized to demand something different.

Will Japan see a UK-style moment where the existing system is abolished? Only time will tell. Perhaps the price hikes in October 2026 could be a trigger.

Until then, 0570 numbers are just a fact of life here. The best thing you can do is be aware of NaviDial, and know how to minimize the costs for yourself.

The PIP Trap: Why Performance Improvement Plans Don’t Mean What You Think in Japan

2026-04-13T12:58:41+09:00

When an engineer at a major tech company in Tokyo was called into a meeting and handed a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), his first thought was simple: “I’m getting fired.”

He had seen this before at his previous job in San Francisco. A PIP meant you had maybe 60 days before termination. The document in front of him looked official, with targets, timelines, and manager signatures. It felt final.

But his assumption was wrong. It’s a mistake tech workers make every day across Japan.

In the United States, a Performance Improvement Plan is widely understood as the final step before dismissal. Companies use it to document poor performance and build a legal paper trail before termination. Workers from the US, Britain, India, and other tech hubs naturally assume the same logic applies in Japan. It doesn’t.

Japanese employment law works very differently. Dismissal requires strict legal justification under Article 16 of the Labour Contract Act.

Failing a PIP is considered a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for having your employment terminated. Japanese courts do not treat it as particularly significant evidence when deciding whether a dismissal was lawful.

The real problem is that workers don’t know this. An international worker receives a PIP, assumes termination is inevitable, and either resigns immediately or accepts whatever severance package the company offers.

In Japan, receiving a PIP rarely ends a job. Misunderstanding it often does.

What a PIP is supposed to do—and what to watch for in yours

For the purposes of this article, a Performance Improvement Plan refers to any structured process in which an employer identifies performance issues, sets improvement goals, and evaluates whether an employee can continue in their role. In Japan it may also be called “ability improvement guidance” (能力改善指導, nouryoku kaizen shidou) or “work improvement guidance” (業務改善指導, gyoumu kaizen shidou).

At its best, a PIP ensures that problems are clearly defined, expectations are realistic, support is provided, and progress is monitored over a reasonable period of time. In these cases workers often do improve, and even when they don’t, the process itself may satisfy what courts expect.

However, those are not the cases that usually come through the union. What’s more, we’ve found that even PIPs that look reasonable on paper often fail to meet the legal standards Japanese courts apply when evaluating dismissals for lack of ability.

In consultations with tech workers at the General Union, the performance issues listed in PIPs are frequently subjective: “lacks leadership,” “needs better communication,” “insufficient cultural fit.” These are difficult to measure and nearly impossible for a worker to prove they have addressed.

In other cases, workers are given two or three weeks to demonstrate “significant improvement,” paired with intensive reporting requirements and almost no practical support. These processes may carry the name of an improvement plan, but they fail to function as one.

A recurring feature is the pairing of PIPs with resignation offers. Workers are presented with a choice: enter the PIP process, or accept a severance package and leave “amicably.” Sometimes managers skip the subtext entirely. In one consultation, a manager told a worker directly: “We cannot fire you without evidence, and we need that evidence via a PIP.”

That kind of reasoning is not unusual. I spoke with Sonomi Terao, Staff Executive Officer with the General Union’s IT/Tech sector, and she described what she’s seen repeatedly in PIP disputes: severance offers structured to pressure quick decisions, timelines designed to limit options, and, for non-Japanese workers, visa status issues adding a layer of urgency that has nothing to do with the merits of the case.

She added that the psychological effect is often decisive. Workers placed on a PIP frequently conclude there is no future at the company and resign before the legal question is ever tested—even in cases where dismissal would have been very difficult to justify.

How Japanese courts actually evaluate performance-based dismissals

What Japanese courts examine in these cases is whether the employer provided meaningful guidance and a genuine opportunity for improvement before attempting a dismissal for lack of ability.

Under Article 16 of the Labour Contract Act, a dismissal must have “objectively reasonable grounds” and be “appropriate under social norms.” Courts therefore work through a series of concrete questions:

Did the employer clearly identify the performance problem with concrete evidence?
Did the company provide real guidance, training, or support?
Was the employee given enough time to realistically improve?
Were the goals reasonable, or structured in a way that made success unlikely?
Was the evaluation process transparent and based on objective criteria?
Did the employer consider alternatives such as reassignment?
And ultimately, was dismissal truly unavoidable?

A well-run process can satisfy those requirements. But simply placing an employee on any improvement or evaluation plan—or stating that they failed it—does not. Courts need evidence that continued employment could not reasonably be expected, and that the employer had already exhausted every reasonable alternative before deciding to terminate.

This is exactly what the Japan Hewlett-Packard case (日本ヒューレット・パッカード事件, Nihon Hyu-retto Pakka-do jiken) demonstrates. The court didn’t rely on the label of the process, but instead examined the substance: years of documented guidance and repeated attempts at correction. The company succeeded not because the employee failed a PIP, but because it could show it had already done everything Japanese law requires before dismissal.

Bloomberg L.P. (2012)

Bloomberg placed a journalist on a Performance Improvement Plan beginning in December 2009 and later dismissed him for “lack of capability.” The company relied on the PIP and a set of performance targets to argue that it had given the employee a fair opportunity to improve.

The Tokyo District Court rejected that argument. The court found that the targets imposed under the PIP were unrealistic and that the dismissal could not be justified as a genuine performance-based termination. In effect, the court concluded that the PIP had been used as a downsizing tool rather than a meaningful opportunity to improve.

The dismissal was therefore invalid. The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling on April 24, 2013.

IBM Japan (2016)

IBM Japan used a different approach. Employees were informed that they would have to leave the company within a short period due to “poor performance,” after which they were effectively locked out of the workplace and prevented from returning.

When the case reached court, the Tokyo District Court examined IBM’s internal evaluation system. The company relied on a relative evaluation system, sometimes described as forced ranking, in which a fixed percentage of employees must be placed in the lowest performance category.

Chief Judge Toru Yoshida ruled on March 29, 2016 that the dismissals were invalid. Being ranked at the bottom of a relative evaluation system did not automatically prove that an employee was incapable of performing the job. The court ordered reinstatement and payment of wages retroactive to the dismissal.

One English-language analysis of the decision summarized the ruling with a striking headline: “Tokyo District Court Rules that ‘U.S.-Style’ Dismissal is Invalid.”

Huawei Technologies Japan (2024)

A more recent case involved Huawei’s Japanese subsidiary. A digital marketing manager was placed on a “Business Improvement Plan” in 2019. After a period of resignation pressure, the company terminated the employee in March 2020 on the grounds of lack of capability.

The Tokyo District Court did not object to the existence of an improvement plan itself. What mattered was how the employer used it. The court found that the company had not provided sufficiently concrete guidance or instruction before concluding that the employee was incapable of doing the job. In the court’s view, there was still room for further training and support before dismissal became unavoidable.

Google Japan (2024–present)

Google Japan is currently involved in a similar dispute. An employee was placed on a PIP in 2024 and later dismissed that same year. The worker, supported by the Alphabet Union branch of JMITU, argues that the dismissal occurred even though they had met the goals set out during the improvement process.

In January 2025 the worker applied to the court for a provisional disposition seeking provisional payment of wages and reinstatement while the case proceeds. As of early 2026, no decision has been issued and the case remains ongoing, reflecting the typically slow pace of civil dismissal litigation in Japan.

The dispute highlights a recurring issue in PIP-related cases: when expectations shift after the improvement process has begun, courts often examine closely whether the employer ever intended the process to succeed.

What companies can and cannot do

In Japan companies can:

Provide regular performance feedback
Create internal improvement plans as part of normal management
Offer voluntary resignation packages, as long as they are genuinely voluntary

Companies cannot:

Treat an improvement or evaluation plan as a legally-binding process that creates automatic grounds for termination
Dismiss workers solely for failing targets without meeting the full legal test
Use unreasonable or vague goals as “evidence” of lack of ability
Skip support, training, or reassignment options before deciding on dismissal
Automatically link failure to demotion or salary reductions without meeting the tests for disadvantageous changes

Practical steps for workers

Following are some of the immediate actions you can take if issued a PIP in Japan:

Request specific, measurable criteria for what “improvement” means
Ask for written clarification of goals, support, and evaluation methods
Keep records of all meetings, instructions, and feedback—or the absence of them
Record meetings where legally permitted (Japan is a one-party consent jurisdiction)
Avoid signing documents that assign blame or frame the evaluation plan as voluntary agreement

Most importantly, you should understand that resignation is voluntary, not required. Do not enter negotiations about severance until you fully understand your position. Once you discuss money, you signal willingness to leave and lose all leverage.

Finally, consulting a labour union or labour lawyer early—before signing anything—is far more effective than trying to challenge decisions after the fact.

Closing: PIPs in Japan are often more psychological than legal

Performance Improvement Plans are widely used across Japan’s tech sector, but they are weakly grounded in law. Japanese courts have repeatedly rejected dismissals based on PIP failure when employers could not demonstrate genuine performance problems and a fair opportunity for improvement.

Bloomberg, IBM, Huawei, and the ongoing Google Japan disputes all tell the same story: importing the global tech industry’s PIP-to-termination logic into Japan does not work, because Japanese employment law simply does not allow it.

Japan’s tech sector faces a projected shortfall of roughly 600,000 workers by 2030, while domestic IT investment is approaching 22 trillion yen. Tech workers have real leverage in this market—but only if they fully understand their legal rights in this country.

Raising Bilingual Children in Japan (Without Breaking the Bank)

2026-04-09T13:04:49+09:00

I first came to Japan as a software developer in 2006, and have continuously resided in the country since. Since settling here, I’ve had two children with my Japanese wife. Now ages four and seven, they are on track to be fully bilingual. They use Japanese almost exclusively in their day-to-day lives and with their mother, but are also comfortable speaking English with me and my Canadian family.

This is a great outcome, but it was not guaranteed, even with parents who speak both languages. Research indicates that in potentially bilingual settings like ours, approximately 25% of those children do not become bilingual. Additionally, other studies suggest that the mother’s language is twice as influential on a child’s language exposure compared to the father’s, a finding likely linked to traditional gender roles in caregiving.

In this article, I’ll explain my approach to ensuring my children speak both English and Japanese. Rather than sending the kids to international schools or after-school lessons, I’ve relied on simple methods that encourage them to speak English regularly, via daily habits, family time, Internet resources, and travel.

At home

One parent always speaks English

I’ve always only spoken English with my children. On the other hand, my wife almost exclusively speaks in Japanese to them. She’ll speak in a mixture of Japanese and English to me, and I typically use English with her. My children speak Japanese with each other.

While I’m not a totally fluent Japanese speaker, I do use it occasionally: with their Japanese grandparents, with other parents at school, and so on.

My children know I understand enough Japanese that they could be using it with me, and they’re more comfortable speaking Japanese overall. Despite this, they continue to communicate with me in English.

From the time they were learning to speak, I always used English with them. When they would speak in Japanese to me, I’d sometimes pretend I didn’t understand. Other times I’d give the equivalent English word or phrase and ask them to repeat it. I took a similar approach to grammatical mistakes. At this point, it has become a habit for them.

I try not to be overly pedantic about this; there are times I let errors slide, especially if they’re tired or frustrated. It’s more a question of being reasonably consistent.

Regular one-on-one time

I’m fortunate that, as my children have grown up, I’ve always been my own boss and able to maintain a flexible schedule. This has allowed me to take on many childcare responsibilities, from daycare pickups to doctor appointments.

As a result, my children spend significant time one-on-one with me, which I believe has been a key factor in teaching them English.

If I was a traditional Japanese salaryman who worked long hours and only spent time with them on weekends, I doubt they would have picked up my language so well.

Reading English books daily

Almost every night before bedtime, I typically spend 30 minutes reading English books to my children. I’m not naturally the most talkative person, and this gives them more opportunity to hear me speaking in English.

One advantage of books over other English-language media is that the slower pace of reading lets them ask me questions when they don’t understand a word.

It also gives me a chance to unwind, as I find reading aloud to them relaxing.

Roleplaying games

In my youth I was an avid player of Dungeons & Dragons. I got back into the hobby as an adult during the COVID pandemic, eventually stepping into the Dungeon Master role. Part of my motivation for learning how to run games was that I wanted to eventually play with my kids.

When my older child was around four years old, I tried playing Hero Kids with him. It kind of worked, but I don’t think he was quite mature enough to fully grasp the concept. More recently, I purchased the Heroes of the Borderlands starter set for Dungeons and Dragons, and have been playing it fairly successfully with both children.

I bought the starter set primarily for the props: physical items such as cards, gold piece tokens, and maps help stimulate their imaginations. I simplify the game by having them tell me what they want their character to do, and then I interpret their game actions for them.

I also usually have my eldest add together his rolls and bonuses, so besides being an opportunity to converse in English with me, it’s also been a good chance to work on math skills.

Resources

Khan Academy Kids

The only eLearning app I’ve used is Khan Academy Kids. It is free and has neither ads nor bugs, which puts it miles ahead of anything else I’ve tried.

The app is a collection of mini-games in English around topics like reading and math, along with a number of audio ebooks. It’s fun enough that my kids view using it as something special, while not being so entertaining that they regularly beg to do it.

English-language videos

We don’t have a TV, and the kids’ only regular screen time is on weekends, when they get an hour or so per day. In other exceptional circumstances, such as long car rides or sick days, we let them watch more.

We don’t have a strict policy around the language of the content they watch, but they tend to prefer English kids shows on Netflix.

I admit, I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps the quality of English shows is generally better? Or maybe it’s because I chose English shows from the beginning, and now they’ve gotten used to them?

Regardless, English language video content has helped expand their vocabulary. Sometimes I’ll hear them use a new word or phrase that I haven’t taught them, and when I ask where they learned it, they’ll mention a show they watched.

English reading lessons

When my eldest started attending Japanese elementary school and learning how to read Japanese, I knew I wanted him to be able to read English, too. I did some basic research and found the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. My eldest and I are now about a quarter of the way through that curriculum.

The book gives you a script to use with your child, and has been easy to follow for someone like myself with no background in education. He’s started reading simple sentences, so it seems to be working.

An added benefit of English reading lessons is that it has given us the chance to work on pronunciation. Since the curriculum asks students to focus on saying discrete sounds, I’ve been able to correct him when he doesn’t get them quite right.

I also started the book with my four-year-old. The first couple of lessons were much more challenging for him, so I’ve decided to put it on hold for now.

Yearly trips to Canada

My children having a connection to my Canadian family and country of birth is important to me, and the only way it will happen is by actually going to Canada. While international flights as a family are expensive, I’m lucky that JAL’s low cost carrier ZIPAIR now offers direct flights to Vancouver for a fraction of what the traditional carriers charge.

My children can communicate fairly well with me—I’m used to how they pronounce certain words, to the not-quite-correct grammar that they use, and to the occasional Japanese word.

Speaking with my family, though, is a bit more challenging for them. I’m finding it’s beneficial for my kids to have to push themselves a bit when they’re visiting my family.

We usually visit Vancouver during the summer, when it’s a pleasant break from Japan’s scorching heat. One added benefit is that my children can attend summer daycamps. I’ve only done this a couple of times, but so far have tried both short, focused programs, such as a two-hour per day arts and crafts camp, and day-long (9 a.m. to 3 p.m.) programs that essentially act like daycare while kids are on summer break. These programs give my children a chance to interact with Canadians their age, and also let me get a bit of work done.

As they’re non-profit programs offered by local community centers they are affordably priced. For instance, I paid about 280 Canadian dollars (32,000 yen as of April 2026) for a week-long day camp. When I looked at one international program in Japan with a similar schedule, they were charging a whopping 132,000 yen. It was actually cheaper for me to fly with my kids to Canada and back, than to put them in the Japanese day camp.

Conclusion

Looking back, I don’t think there’s been any “one simple trick” that has helped my kids become proficient in English. Rather, it’s been a question of putting in the time and finding multiple ways to engage them in the target language.

If you can’t afford (or don’t want to) send your kids to international school, but still want them to be fully bilingual, you’ll have to find your own path that’s unique to your family, your schedule, and their interests. I hope that my list helps you to get started—and based on my experience, the earlier you begin, the easier it is going to be.

Which Visa Makes You Most Attractive to Employers in Japan?

2026-03-16T10:07:43+09:00

Many tech companies in Japan will only hire current residents of the country, and even those that recruit internationally prefer local hires.

On TokyoDev, if a job description states “Japan Residents Only,” you can assume the company will accept applications from anyone with a residency status that will allow them to perform the position full time, such as permanent residents or Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa holders. However, if you have a status that only allows you to work part time, such as a Student or J-Find visa, things do get murkier.

In my experience, companies prefer software engineering candidates with the following statuses, in this order.

1. Japanese Citizenship, Permanent Residence, and Spouse of Japanese National

While some companies prefer native Japanese speakers to international residents, that preference has more to do with ensuring the candidate possesses the needed cultural context to integrate into the company, rather than any concerns about the candidate’s status of residence. Outside of a few edge cases, such as positions in the defense sector, there are basically no opportunities that are open only to Japanese citizens. Any other positions outside of those edge cases are also open to residents who have no need for sponsorship from a company, such as those with Permanent Residency or a spouse visa.

2. Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services

If you were already granted an Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa, and are switching to a position also covered by this status of residence, your new company doesn’t need to do anything visa-related on your behalf until it is time to renew. The renewal does require a bit of paperwork, but otherwise doesn’t cost them anything, and is basically risk free.

The main disadvantage of this status over those listed above is that it requires a company to have a Japanese entity (or be willing to use an employer of record). Some international companies who are just beginning operations in Japan and haven’t set up a local entity yet will only accept applicants who aren’t restricted in that way.

Additionally, I have also known one single company, out of the many that we work with, that does not accept candidates with fewer than six months remaining on their current status of residence.

3. Highly Skilled Professional

While most companies will welcome applications from Highly Skilled Professionals, I have seen a couple of companies who explicitly say they won’t support candidates with this status of residence.

The difference between this and other work visas is that this one is tied to a specific employer rather than to a type of work, and so the company will need to go through a sponsorship process before the employee can get started. While applications for Highly Skilled professionals are given priority, and a change in status is supposed to be processed in only 5 business days, the reality is that the processing may take two months or more in practice. In this sense, a Highly Skilled Professional hire can be equivalent to an overseas hire in terms of lead time.

One other potential issue from the company’s perspective is that the eligibility for this status of residence is based on maintaining a certain number of points, determined by factors like age, experience, and salary, which makes it possible for someone who was once eligible to become ineligible later.

These are the most common statuses of residence for software engineers. The following visas are less common and thus are more intimidating for companies to consider, simply because they may not have the experience or resources to understand if they are legally able to employ you.

4. Working Holiday

Not every company is familiar with the Working Holiday visa program, but as it allows you to work full time without any sponsorship from the company, those that are will usually accept such candidates. However, if it is not obvious that you could also qualify for an Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa—for example, if you lack a related university degree—companies may not consider you. Their concern is that when the Working Holiday status expires, you’ll be unable to obtain a regular work visa.

5. Student, Dependent, J-Find, and others (e.g. Instructor)

While some other common statuses of residency, such as those for students, dependents, and new graduates, permit you to live in Japan and possibly work part time, to work full time as a software engineer you’ll need to go through a sponsorship process. Similar concerns apply to those with a status of residence that permits full-time work in non-engineering positions, like those who received an Instructor visa.

It is much easier to transition to a new status of residency than to get your initial visa, but there’s still some uncertainty about whether your application will be approved and how long it will take, so I know of companies who won’t accept these candidates.

6. Digital Nomad/Temporary Visitor

Both digital nomads and temporary visitors (tourists) are not actually residents of Japan, and so to work for a Japanese company they’ll need to exit the country and go through the sponsorship process to obtain a work visa. Staying in Japan for an extended period of time on these statuses will slightly increase your chances of landing a job, both because you’ll be able to make local connections, and you can point to some evidence that you know what living in the country is actually like.

Conclusion

From a practical point of view, there’s not much difference in the opportunities available to you if you have a PR, Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, or Highly Skilled Professional status of residency. Instead, factors like your professional experience and the quality of your job application matter more.

Other visas can be a great way to get your foot in the door in Japan, but keep in mind that not all companies will consider you a true local candidate.

"Japan Residents Only": Why Some Japanese Firms Won't Hire English-Speaking Developers Internationally

2026-03-11T12:28:46+09:00

TokyoDev’s mission is to help international software developers find jobs at Japanese companies. As a result, all of our client companies are open to hiring international developers—but not all of them want to hire international developers who currently live overseas.

As of writing, 40 percent of our currently-listed positions only want applicants who are already residents of Japan.

Why not recruit internationally?

You might wonder why such companies are unwilling to consider exceptional candidates who don’t yet live in the country. Below, I’ve listed the most common reasons.

They’re not familiar with the process

Sometimes, companies simply do not know what is involved in hiring a developer who lives overseas: visa requirements, what degree of support the new hire will need, etc. While TokyoDev educates companies about the process, these unknown factors can influence a company to only accept in-country applicants.

Obtaining a visa takes time and isn’t guaranteed

Even when a company knows what’s involved, obtaining a visa for a candidate will typically take at least two months—and I’ve heard of some cases where it has taken six months or more.

Because there’s some uncertainty about the processing time, there’s also the risk a candidate will give up or accept another offer before they receive the visa. I’ve seen this happen firsthand.

In addition, it’s possible that the visa request may be rejected outright, particularly if the candidate is qualifying for the visa via “10+ years of experience” rather than with a university degree.

International moves are expensive and risky

Once a candidate receives the visa, they’ll still need to move to Japan. For most people, there’s more to an international move than just hopping on a plane. Wrapping up their life in one country, and preparing to begin it in another, can add weeks or even months to the candidate’s start date.

There’s a fair amount of money involved too—not just plane tickets, but also temporary housing for when the candidate arrives. Furthermore, renting more permanent accommodations in Japan often involves high upfront costs.

While candidates frequently bear these expenses, some companies are deterred by the risk altogether due to the awkward possibility of a candidate spending time and money to move to Japan, only to discover they’re a poor fit at the company.

Even if the new employee is a great fit, though, the employee may discover that living in Japan doesn’t match their expectations.

Newcomers to Japan need additional support

When a person moves to Japan for the first time, they require quite a bit of assistance, even if they speak Japanese. Chances are they’ll need help registering with their local city hall, finding accommodations, figuring out how to pay bills, and more, and they’ll ask for support from their company. Small or early stage businesses in particular may not be able to spare the staff to aid newcomers in these matters.

Too many applicants

Japanese companies that recruit internationally can receive ten times the number of applicants they’d normally receive domestically. While this does give them access to an expanded hiring pool, it also means that more unqualified people apply. Recruiters must therefore spend extra time sorting through resumes from people who are just applying en masse to job openings, and who have no actual interest either in the company or in moving to Japan.

This is quite a different experience from when Japanese companies recruit domestically. Here they often face the opposite issue—they struggle to get anyone to apply at all. This means that Japanese hiring processes are often not designed to deal with a flood of applications.

For example, domestic Japanese Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) charge per application the company receives. That makes sense if you’re only getting high-quality leads, but when most applicants don’t meet even basic requirements, it can quickly become untenably expensive. In fact, some companies on TokyoDev that use such an ATS have asked us to email applications directly rather than use the system, which to my mind defeats the purpose.

Scammers and liars

AI tools have made it easier than ever to invent a job application that makes you look like the perfect candidate for the role. This, combined with the possibility of remote work, makes false applications an increasing issue. Some sources point to North Korea as being a major perpetrator.

As these types of scammers generally live outside of Japan, by focusing on current residents only, companies can reduce their odds of accidentally hiring one. Even if a fake applicant did somehow pass the initial screening, an in-person onboarding process reduces the risk even further.

Why not just hire candidates to work remotely?

Some readers have suggested that, if Japanese companies need international developers but aren’t willing to sponsor their visas and bring them to Japan, they could instead hire those same people to work remotely from their home countries.

The most obvious reasons Japanese companies prefer not to hire remote international workers are to cut down on unqualified applicants and decrease the risk of scammers, as explained above. However, there are a few additional explanations for their reluctance.

In-person culture

In TokyoDev’s annual developer survey, only 12 percent of respondents who were working at a Japanese company also worked at a company that was exclusively remote. Companies that prohibited any remote work were equally rare at 11 percent. The remaining respondents were employed at companies that favored hybrid work schedules of one kind or another.

Additionally, even organizations that work completely remotely in principle may still host regular in-person gatherings that are important for team-building and coordination.

Time zones

All of Japan is in the same time zone, so even if people are working remotely across the country, they can still work in a synchronous manner. Having people work remotely from different countries generally means they’ll be working in different time zones.

While some companies who employ remote workers internationally only do so from certain time zones, even having to make a decision about which time zones are compatible enough can cause companies to hesitate.

Extra legal risks and costs

When you hire someone in another country, you have an obligation to understand that country’s laws regarding things like employment, intellectual property, and taxation. Employer of Record (EoR) services can help mitigate the risks, but they also add extra costs and introduce their own uncertainties.

Legal obligations to have employees in Japan

Companies working in industries like finance or defense have told me that they have a legal obligation to require people to work in Japan, and cannot let Japanese employees work remotely even temporarily.

What if I already have permission to work in Japan, but am not living here?

One edge case companies usually haven’t considered is someone who lives abroad, but already has permission to work in Japan. For instance, this person may be a Japanese citizen, have a Japanese spouse, or have an Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services status of residence that hasn’t expired.

In these cases, companies will sometimes waive the requirement to be a current Japanese resident, but not always. Many of the concerns I’ve outlined above still apply: international moves take time and money, scammers can pretend to be Japanese citizens overseas, and the person may still need support when getting established in Japan.

If you’re one of these edge cases, and have lived in Japan before, it can be worth applying for “Japan residents only” jobs. However, understand that you may be filtered out by the company anyway.

Conclusion

While it can be frustrating to be an overseas developer looking for a job in Japan, companies do have legitimate reasons to prefer local candidates.

One silver lining is that, after you clear the initial hurdles and obtain your first position in Japan, those same barriers you encountered will then increase your odds of landing the next one!

If you’re currently looking for a job in Japan, our article on passing the resume screening stage will show you exactly what to highlight in your application to maximize your chances of success.

You can also join our Discord and learn from other developers who have successfully made it to Japan.

Eight Years in Japan: Planting Early Seeds for Long-Term Success

2026-03-11T12:22:21+09:00

“If I could put my advice in one [sentence],” said Senior Software Engineer Ann Kilzer, “it’s, ‘Don’t forget to take time to understand Japan.’”

Kilzer moved to Tokyo in 2018 and intends to stay in Japan for the long haul: “I think of myself as an immigrant,” she told me. As such, she’s devoted considerable time and thought to how international developers can establish themselves in Japan, both professionally and personally.

“ Build systems and tooling for long-term success,” she suggested. “Which means, learn the language. Learn how things work. . . . And it’s a hard language to learn,” she acknowledged. “It’s a different culture than many others. So it is worth putting that time in early.”

Get involved in the culture and with people, because your workplace may change, and your friends might change, but if you want to make it long term here, it’s not sustainable to expect your workplace or your spouse to take care of you. You have to gain independence.

In this article Kilzer goes into detail on:

Why she chose Japan over working with “cowboy coders” in the US
The many ways Japan has changed since then
Her advice for other international developers

A mission of reinvention

“So I arrived in early 2018,” said Ann Kilzer, “on a 90-day Tourist Visa.”

I lived in a Dogenzaka sharehouse with 11 foreigners and a rat. I interviewed and networked every day, and also took Japanese lessons. Within six weeks I had five job offers.

Her actual job hunt may sound smooth, but Ann’s move to Japan was part of a long, extensive reevaluation of her career. Previously, she’d been the primary Release Manager for the search engine backend at a large company in Austin, Texas. “It felt important because it was the core product and needed to be done, but I was in a career rut.

“Doing a lot of manual tasks, cleaning up merge conflicts for cowboy coders (in the sense that this team of 40-plus men regularly wrote thousand-line PRs with no unit tests, but their hobbies were also shooting guns and hanging out at a colleague’s ranch), I was the one woman who would deal with this group and had been recognized as extremely reliable, but it was a ‘glue work’ position and I recognized I’d never get promoted. . . . So I asked to switch teams to try the new SRE role.

“And my skip-level manager, Jack, was this awesome leader who said ‘Hmm, we thought you liked working on the backend, but if you want to move, could you take it to Tokyo, possibly by next week?’”

Days later, she flew to Tokyo for a month-long product handoff. While the handoff itself was stressful, she discovered she quite enjoyed Japan. “I also noticed that Tokyo was cheaper and safer than San Francisco, a place I was considering returning to if Texas didn’t work out. There were English-speaking jobs here, and I also have a B.A. in Visual Art, so I imagined how much art and culture I could soak up!”

In 2017 Kilzer resigned from the company in Texas and took a sabbatical, during which she traveled, addressed her chronic pain, and started studying Japanese.

A funny thing happened when I made this my own mission of self-reinvention: a lot of people were inspired and helped me. People liked the idea of someone who’s not thriving in one environment undergoing this big transformation, and I don’t think I would have succeeded without all this community.

“People told me about Sakura House,” she explained, “and introduced me to people creating startups. People believed in me. Friends took care of my cat when I messed up the quarantine paperwork and had to redo the 210 day process.”

Ramona the cat is still with her and is now 18 years old. “I should do a senior photo for her, with her hugging a tree, and a soft focus, and a senior quote,” Kilzer joked.

By the time she actually arrived in Japan, “The market was pretty strong and I interviewed well. I turned down the high-paying fintech companies to be the first engineer at a new startup. Then I had to do a ‘visa run’ and bounce over to Thailand while the work visa went through.”

That startup was a great place to grow in Japan. I learned a ton because I had to do everything: backend, frontend, hiring, security, mentoring.

“It was quite a ride and I don’t necessarily recommend this as a reliable path to finding employment,” Kilzer hastened to add. “It worked for me, and I’d like to acknowledge that the job market is different now.”

Since that first job with a startup, she’s worked in Senior Software Engineering and Architect roles at three other companies in Japan.

How Japan has changed

Though she’s been in the country slightly less than a decade, Kilzer noted that Japan is changing fast—at least, in some ways.

The promise of remote work

“One big change,” Kilzer said, “is hybrid work styles since Covid. Fewer companies are doing full remote [work], but the ability to spend a couple days working from home and get the deep focus, plus avoiding the bodycrush of rush hour trains, is a real benefit.

“There are challenges and opportunities with remote work and ensuring people stay in sync. I worked at Mercari for two years when it was fully remote, and we leveraged Slack, team meetings, and confluence docs to keep our team in sync. My first team Web Platform was really wonderful in terms of collaboration, and we used tools like VS Code LiveShare to do ‘Mob Programming’ and teach one another skills. However, lengthy video calls also take a toll, and it’s common for organizers (even myself) to forget to include hourly breaks.”

‘Zoom fatigue’ is real, and without being in person, it’s harder to read emotions like disengagement from teammates. In a real office people stand up and take breaks, get a beverage, and socialize. Just because we’re sitting in front of a computer doesn’t mean that people can crank out eight plus hours of pure productivity.

Balancing the upsides and downsides of remote work may be one reason that companies are increasingly moving to hybrid work environments, as found in the 2025 TokyoDev survey.

Unfortunately, sudden shifts in policy can have a detrimental effect on employees. Kilzer told me she’s watched some companies in Japan promise remote work, and then suddenly renege with an abrupt return-to-office policy. “Which I think is disappointing and not really fair to employees, who may invest in a house or make big decisions.”

In addition, Kilzer personally believes that remote work could ease some of Tokyo’s overcrowding issues, and would like to see measures that were adopted during the pandemic taken further.

“Japan was also creating this infrastructure for people to do remote work on the trains, or in little places in the country that have remote work cafes. I think these are really wonderful things about Japan trying to balance the depopulation [of the countryside] with this new work style.”

Consequences of the weaker yen

“There’s a big rise in foreign tourism,” Kilzer said. Not that Kilzer has a problem with tourism in and of itself: “It’s great for people to come visit Japan. We were all tourists at one point, those of us here. [But] some of it is happening in an unsustainable way.”

One major factor in increased tourism is the relatively low value of the yen, which makes traveling in Japan comparatively cheap. As Kiilzer pointed out, this creates complications for Japanese residents. “The weakening of the yen is challenging, and particularly getting priced out of things that I used to do. Going skiing is now really hard to do unless you book it several months in advance.”

There’s this frustration of Japan being hard to enjoy. Things are just becoming inaccessible to people who live and work here, but they’re still accessible to wealthy foreign tourists.

“The weakening of the yen, and not keeping up with the world economy, and the job market kind of cooling, has been a challenge,” she concluded.

I followed up about the job market—has hiring slowed, in her opinion? “The job market is a lot harder,” Kilzer confirmed. Gone are the days when she landed in 2018 and had five job offers in six weeks.

I wouldn’t tell people to just roll up here . . . and hope for the best. Companies are a lot more cautious in hiring.

And yet, things stay the same

In some ways, Kilzer is more interested in what hasn’t changed. “There are so many papers and buzzwords about digital transformation,” she informed me. Referred to as DX in Japan, the idea of digital transformation has been widely embraced by both the tech industry and government—yet the actual results are often disappointing.

“Like when I went to the driver’s license school,” said Kilzer. “They gave me an NFC card, so they have all this technology that’s very cutting edge. And I tap the NFC card, and then it prints out a dot matrix sheet with my name on it and spits out a paper file that needs to be hanko-ed [stamped].”

A lot of the businesses here are kind of just going on these buzzwords and hype. ‘Okay, we did the digital transformation! But we didn’t really change the way we worked. We just put a computer between different parts of the process.’

“The transformational part was supposed to be so we could reduce bureaucracy, not just sell a machine to put in the middle of it. So my worry is that, as Japan tries to keep up with whatever the current trend is, they don’t really rethink the ‘why.’”

“And again, this is painting with broad strokes,” Kilzer added. “There are many things that Japan does well, from hardware to quality to social stability. I sense that some old workplace habits will be around for a while, and it’s why I choose to work at more international companies, because change here can be very slow.”

If you want to live here long term

“There are people who are just here for one to two years to get a new experience,” said Kilzer. “That’s fine and valid too. But if you want to make a life here, start planting those seeds early.”

These are the four “seeds” Kilzer particularly recommends.

Work on being bicultural

While Kilzer herself prefers to work at international companies now, “ I don’t want to say that people should avoid Japanese companies. You can learn a lot by doing it. I worked at Mercari for a couple years and learned valuable skills on collaboration and consensus-building. I recommend setting expectations accordingly, and to know yourself and what you’re signing up for.”

One thing in Japan is there are many imperfect companies and there are long hours, but there is this sense of lifetime employment and companies taking care of people, and there are proper labor laws here. Whereas when I worked in Texas, it was at-will employment.

One of the best benefits of working for a Japanese company is the chance to become more bicultural. To Kilzer, bicultural means not just speaking two languages, but understanding the different operating mindsets of Japanese and American companies. “Right now I’m at a company that is very global, and I’m appreciating that energy, and we have a very Japanese branch of the company. When I interact with them, I am really glad I know more about how that works because it makes me more effective.”

How did she gain some of that bicultural experience? “ My last job was cool—I got to be a software architect and do consulting work with Japanese companies.” One of those companies was Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Kilzer assisted them in developing some railway technology. “One of the reasons they hired consultants was they wanted perspective on a more modern way of doing things, because they had been operating in a Waterfall process.

“That experience highlighted the difference between a traditional Japanese company versus Western companies, and we went on the modernization journey and coded together.”

With one client I asked, ‘Hey, we’re going to upgrade this version of TypeScript. How do you feel about it?’ And then the client was really nervous about making a small update. They were smart engineers with extensive experience, but my sense was that the incentive structure at a lot of Japanese companies doesn’t empower people to make their own decisions.

“The engineer might be afraid he is going to take the fall,” she added, “so he doesn’t want to do something that’s going to get him in trouble.”

It wasn’t just at that company either—Kilzer has seen similar hesitation from employees all over Japan, even outside the software industry. “I wish there was more ability in Japan for people to make independent decisions, but I think it’s a structural thing. If the employees get in trouble for little things or are expected to be perfect, then there’s no room for people to make their own decisions.”

I’d say the upside of that culture is that Japan is really good at quality and precision. But there is a rigidity in [the culture], and particularly in software, which is a field that allows prototyping and quick updates. We can have a little more flexibility and iterate.

By working closely with these companies, Kilzer found easier ways to negotiate for change. For example, in the dispute over the TypeScript update, “I framed it all as a trade-off in discussion. And I said, ‘Okay, we don’t want to do this small version upgrade, however one to two years down the road, we will need to do a version upgrade and it will be a bigger one. . . . We can skip this update, but if we do it now, the risks are listed here. If we wait two years, we might have to do 10 times as much work. So would you rather do a small, incremental piece of work every month, or would you rather have this big risk coming at you?’ Then they were able to make a clearer decision, and I also shared some examples of what I had seen other companies do.”

In general, Kilzer has learned to strike a balance between her own self-described “American-ness” and Japanese company culture. “In Texas I really had to be brash and loud to be heard in a group of those cowboy coders. That’s fine, it was its own context. I really love that I’ve learned new skills for hearing different voices and working cross-culturally.”

I like the consensus nature of Japan and think it’s a strength. I can have my own big ideas, though I try to share them later in a conversation and leave room for others to weigh in.

Being able to accommodate both cultures becomes particularly important as you climb the career ladder. “While you can probably get a good job as a software developer or senior engineer at many companies, if you want to go into leadership and be at a company here, it’s often helpful to be fluent in both languages.

“[Also] having that cultural knowledge . . . of how Western and Japanese employees may react to feedback, and how they may communicate, that is just going to make you more effective.”

Like Matt Gillingham, she’s a fan of the book The Culture Map. “It talks about working with Japanese as well as different global cultures.” This is especially important when working with international developer teams.

“The international offices usually have large blocks of Europeans, Americans, Indians, and people from Southeast Asia, Australia. . . . Books like this can really help with navigating these deeply multicultural spaces.”

Become an adult, again

Becoming more bicultural in the workplace is just the beginning of adapting to Japan. “One might start thinking about things like, ‘How does the pension work? How does home ownership work? How does healthcare work?’ Because it often works very differently than in our home countries, and one [needs to] understand that a lot of things in Japan are highly relationship-based.

“For healthcare, someone told me it’s a good idea to build a relationship with your local clinic, and most healthcare is handled by generalist doctors at small clinics, who are fine for small things, and maybe not the most up to date on the newer stuff—but you can’t get that referral to the bigger hospital unless you go through them. So it’s good to build that relationship . . . and that takes time to build and may require learning some specialized vocabulary.”

As we get older, we’re more likely to need healthcare, to need emergency savings. . . . And if you’re here a long time, you’re going to hit ups and downs in life. [You need to] be able to navigate those systems without being dependent.

This isn’t always easy. “ You have to relearn how to be an adult. It’s pretty wild,” laughed Kilzer. But in her opinion, it’s an important part of being an immigrant in a new country.

“ I put myself in the immigrant box because I feel like I am here for a long time, and I think it gives me humility and compassion towards other immigrants who might have less status or privilege. I recognize that I might have more in common with the konbini worker than the rich ambassador living in Roppongi. There’s something there about wanting to make Japan work as my new home, and this country being very welcoming in some ways and confusing in others.”

Learn the language

That confusion lessens if you can learn the language. Kilzer, who takes regular private lessons to improve her speaking and listening, has deliberately chosen what aspects of Japanese to prioritize. “I don’t know keigo [formal Japanese], and it’s not in my plans to learn it, as I believe strongly hierarchical workplaces don’t mix well with Agile Software Development.

“I can see that Japanese will become increasingly important when working with product stakeholders and coworkers, or if I pursue an Engineering Manager path. I love the Yasashii Nihongo [easy Japanese] focus that companies like Mercari advocate. In my recent job transition, I noticed interviewers and hiring managers respected me more for putting in the effort to learn Japanese.”

It’s definitely possible for foreign engineers to live here and not learn the language, but after a few years, what are you doing? If you want to build a life here, put in the effort. Every ward has volunteer classes. There’s so much opportunity to learn, and you’ll get more out of life if you can be part of the community.

Take care with your community

In general Kilzer loves the community focus of Japan. “ There’s more sense of a social fabric and third spaces. . . . Look at all the public infrastructure that we get and that we can use.

“I’m in a Japanese Awa Odori troupe called Edo Kabuki Ren (江戸歌舞伎連). It’s a 400-year-old dance style from Tokushima. And we use all these public centers to exercise. . . . It’s one of the ways I get more immersed in the community. No one there really speaks English, but you know, I show up a couple of times a month, and we practice, and they have the drummers and the musicians and [everyone] from small children to elderly people. It’s a really cool thing to be a part of.”

But Kilzer isn’t just referring to local Japanese organizations. International communities can have a direct impact not only on your personal life, but your career.

The Tokyo tech community, particularly the English-speaking community, is quite small despite the metropolis we live in. Maintain good relationships in the community as it will pay off long term.

“Rumors spread, so avoid over-sharing,” she advised. “That hurt me at one time, and I’m more careful with my professional reputation now.”

In particular, you should also be careful about job-hopping. “It’s worth considering that you develop a long-term reputation here and, while you can change jobs, you might not be able to do it as much as in the USA or Europe. There’s still a stigma around job hopping, and there’s a smaller candidate pool, and a lot of the hiring managers know each other.”

What’s most essential, though, is finding some kind of community. “ Tokyo is an effort, and there’s an isolation that I find a little bizarre, because there are clearly so many people around! But I get it, too. I mean, going through Shinjuku Station or Yokohama Station, you get tired and then you just want to go home and curl up. I just want to chill with my cat.

“But I am a regular at some restaurants and bars where I have someone to talk to, and the service is incredible. Those are support systems I’ve built.” Not that you always have to build your own support systems from scratch.

Join communities and give back. There are a lot of great meetups and events, and they don’t come for free. Someone had to build them and maintain them.

Not easy, but worthwhile

I asked Kilzer if she’d consider returning to the United States. She’d be hesitant, she told me. “My home country is not in a good place right now, between the authoritarian government, rising costs, and the massive tech layoffs. A lot of my former colleagues have been let go. Some landed in new positions quickly. Others are still in transition.”

Not that Japan is always easy by comparison. “The language is intense. I speak German and retain a B2 level despite a long break in my studies. Japanese is a totally different beast. Another hardship is being treated like a new person even after eight years of residence.

“Sometimes shopkeepers yell at me in broken English. ‘The restaurant is closed, please don’t touch that, etc.’ This is only a small percentage of Japanese people, but it’s not a great feeling to be treated like an outsider or talked to like a child.

“I remind myself of all the wonderful and welcoming Japanese people I know,” she concluded. “There’s not one experience here.”

In the USA, I was on a path of cynicism and bitterness. I believe that moving to Japan and restarting helped me reinvent myself and break that cycle. It wasn’t an easy transition, but I’m glad I did it.

Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers

2026-03-03T13:45:01+09:00

If you’re an international developer working at a Japanese company, you’ve probably felt some communication-related pain. Whether your team primarily uses English, Japanese, or a mix of both, chances are there’s occasionally friction.

In a field where poor communication leads to wasted effort, bugs, and low team morale, what can we do? Learning technical and business Japanese is obviously useful, but that’s just one piece of a bigger puzzle.

Having worked in Japan for 10 years as a non-native Japanese speaker, communication is a subject that’s always been on my mind. This was especially true during the six years I worked at Mercari, one of Japan’s first tech companies to adopt an international engineering organization composed of developers from both Japan and from abroad.

I initially joined the company as an English-Japanese interpreter, and later transitioned to a software development position. I worked with a large number of international teams in both roles, and witnessed all sorts of communication struggles firsthand. And although I provided support by interpreting between English and Japanese, I also realized that the challenges went far beyond just language.

Fortunately, I also had the privilege of seeing many of these teams gradually overcome those communication difficulties. Thanks to those experiences, I can confidently say that regardless of your Japanese level or your colleagues’ English levels, there are things you can do right now to improve understanding and confidence on both sides of the language barrier.

I advise people to:

Make your English more understandable
Practice technical terms in Japanese
Create new meeting strategies
Look beyond language

Make your English more understandable

Being aware of your own speaking habits in English is crucial, and surprisingly easy for native speakers to forget.

Consider this: if you’re very comfortable speaking English, but your Japanese teammates are not, how do you think they feel when communicating with you? It’s probably nerve-racking and takes a lot of mental bandwidth. You can accommodate by making your English more understandable.

Making your English understandable does not mean ”speak extremely slowly,” and it certainly doesn’t mean “speak louder.”

Even when done with good intentions, these actions can be condescending, and the unnatural rhythm could ironically throw off the listener even more.

Instead, keep these questions in mind when you speak:

Am I using run-on sentences?
Am I constantly jumping from one idea to another?
Am I using vague or difficult vocabulary?
Am I using too much slang, idiomatic language, or “corporate speak?”
Is my message clear and direct, or am I being too indirect?
Am I pronouncing my words distinctly and clearly, or am I slurring them together?

Scenario 1: A PM is talking to developers about upcoming goals.

Hey, so I was just sync-ing with the stakeholders and we’re thinking we really need to focus on user-facing touchpoints, because there’s too much sign-up friction. Like, we need to 10x the stickiness of the landing page but also keep it lean, and I saw the latest build and the UX isn’t quite there. We might need to pivot the North Star from legacy technical debt to user retention while also future-proofing scalability for the Q3 roadmap.

It’s easy to see why this doesn’t work. Words like sync, touchpoints, friction, and stickiness are not easy to understand. Synergy and North Star are corporate buzzwords. “Isn’t quite there” is vague. While the PM here does have a message to convey, even a proficient English speaker is unlikely to understand it in one try.

How could we simplify this message? A common piece of guidance for bridging cultures and languages is to go low context: be clear and specific. Avoid implications and prefer direct statements.

I just had a meeting with the stakeholders. We noticed that the landing page’s UI is complicated, and many users don’t finish signing up. Because of that, I want to set a new goal for this week. Let’s make the sign-up process more simple, and increase user retention. I know our original plan was to remove technical debt, but I would like to prioritize the UI this week. Is that okay with everyone?

This is much better—the speaker delivers the same core message but with concrete details instead of buzzwords. For example, “The landing page’s UI is complicated” is much easier to understand than “sign-up friction.” The speaker follows by introducing the goals “Make the sign-up process more simple” and “Increase user retention,” both of which are far more clear and actionable than “Pivot the North Star to user retention.”

So I’ve been looking into the bug report from yesterday regarding the user profile save button. I checked the logs and it looks like the Put request is hitting a timeout in the validation layer. I thought it was a permissions thing so I updated the API policy but that didn’t work because the payload is actually missing the auth token in certain edge cases. I’m now trying to trace why the state isn’t persisting but I might have to look at the global store because the reducer might be wiping the data before the fetch completes.

The developer clearly worked hard to investigate, but is giving a “stream of consciousness” update where they assume the listener knows as much about the problem as they do. They give a detailed list of what they did, but it would be more helpful to simply summarize the issue and make an actual plan.

I’m working on the bug where users can’t save their profiles. The save button fails because the app forgets the users’ login info before it sends the update to our servers. It’s happening because the page updates too fast and clears the info. I’m going to try a fix that holds on to the data for a few extra seconds.

Summarizing the issue concisely requires a little more effort, but also makes it easier to understand for everyone, whether English is their native language or not.

Other best practices

Give context. Share the goal/purpose first, followed by the specific actions needed. “The goal is to roll back. Here is why: one, the server load was too high. Two, the API timed out.”
Standardize vocabulary. Native speakers like using synonyms to avoid repetition, but this can be confusing for non-native speakers. For example, release, deploy, and ship are often used interchangeably, but it’s helpful to be consistent.
Use clear transitions. Strong transitions really help the listener know how to interpret the next sentence.
- However . . .
- Because of that . . .
- The problem is . . .
- First, second, finally
Check for understanding. If you share an important message, you’ll want to make sure it was understood.
- But don’t just ask “Do you understand?” because it’s too easy to simply nod and say “Yes.” It also creates pressure to do so.
- Try asking in a way that invites the listener to get clarification, like “Is there any part I should explain again?”
Avoid passive voice. Instead of saying “The code was deployed by the engineer,” say “The engineer deployed the code.”

These best practices will help you in any situation in life, not only when working with international tech teams. Miscommunications happen all the time even between native speakers of the same language, and delivering crystal-clear messages is a skill on its own.

The better your English, the harder it is

At Mercari, I worked with native English speakers, non-native but fluent speakers, and beginner/intermediate speakers. I noticed that native speakers of English were the most likely to have these difficult-to-follow speaking habits, given that they could output words effortlessly and without monitoring themselves.

Similarly, native Japanese speakers often had difficult speech habits in Japanese. In addition to the points already mentioned, honorific and humble speech made things hard to understand for non-native listeners.

One major initiative that helped was the Yasashii Communication Training, which taught employees to be more aware of their speaking habits and helped international team members meet each other halfway.

Understanding technical jargon in Japanese

Even if you’re comfortable with conversational Japanese, technical vocabulary could pose a challenge. On top of that, there are very few resources out there that help software developers in Japan learn technical vocabulary.

Thankfully, companies like Mercari and Wizcorp have compiled lists to help:

These are excellent guides to help you gradually ramp up your Japanese vocabulary. Take it slow and just try to learn a few words a day—no need to brute force it. Combining these guides with natural input from your day-to-day work will help your brain synthesize new language skills.

Katakana: often helpful, sometimes misleading

You’ve probably noticed that a huge amount of technical vocabulary can simply be converted into katakana and used in conversation. Words like debug (デバッグ, debaggu), release (リリース, riri-su), and merge (マージ, ma-ji), for example, are used the same way in both English and Japanese.

Remember that it isn’t always a perfect 1:1 conversion. For some words the English and Katakana versions have slightly different meanings. Like all languages, Japanese has many loan words and shortenings of them whose meanings are based in the time and context they were originally imported.

Here are some examples:

Design (デザイン, dezain)

In English, this can refer to anything, including visible UI/UX design, database design, and system design.
In Japanese, this is used only for UI/UX design. When talking about database or system design, Japanese speakers use 設計 (sekkei) instead.

Fix (フィックス, fikkusu)

In English, this can mean to “rectify a problem/bug” or “set the date” for a meeting/event.
In Japanese, it is generally used only for the latter meaning. Japanese speakers use 修正 (shuusei) or 直す(naosu) to mean “repair” or “rectify.”

There are also some loanwords that have totally different meanings from what you’d expect. These are often used in the workplace, so don’t be confused if you hear them.

Batting (バッティング, battingu)

This means conflict, as in a meeting conflict.
ミーティングがバッティングしている (mi-tingu ga battingu shiteiru), for example, means “The meetings are conflicting.”

Flying (フライング, furaingu)

This isn’t about defying gravity. It refers to doing something too quickly, without having received permission or approval.
フライングでコードをデプロイした (furaingu de ko-do wo depuroi shita) means “He deployed the code without permission.”

Claim (クレーム, kure-mu)

This refers to a complaint from a user or customer.
クレームが入った (kure-mu ga haitta) means “We got a complaint.” Hopefully you don’t hear this too often!

Revenge (リベンジ, ribenji)

This isn’t as scary as it sounds. It just means to “try again.”
If your team tried deploying something but was forced to roll back due to a bug, you might hear someone say リベンジしよう (ribenji shiyou). Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean they want to inflict harm on anyone! They’re just saying “Let’s try [deploying that] again.”

Merit (メリット, meritto) and demerit (デメリット, demeritto)

Despite sounding a bit awkward to an English speaker, these words are very commonly used to mean “pros and cons.”
この設計のメリットを教えてください (kono sekkei no meritto wo oshiete kudasai) means “Tell me about the advantages of this design choice.”
この設計のデメリットを教えてください (kono sekkei no demeritto wo oshiete kudasai) is “Tell me about the disadvantages of this design choice.”

Lastly, be aware that some katakana words are commonly abbreviated differently in colloquial Japanese, often becoming unrecognizable to English speakers. Here are some examples:

Pull request: プルリク (pururiku)
Database: デービー (dei-bee)
Reschedule: リスケ (risuke)
Topic/theme (of a meeting): テーマ (te-ma)
Response (to an email or Slack message) : レス (resu)
Appointment/meeting with a client: アポ (apo)
Smartphone: スマホ（sumaho)
PC: パソコン (pasokon, derived from “personal computer”)

Create new meeting strategies

Whenever you have a team meeting, take a few minutes to plan your communication in advance. You might think it’s overkill, but there’s absolutely nothing weird about gathering your thoughts and even lightly rehearsing beforehand.

If the meeting is in English, and you have a slightly complex topic to share with your Japanese-speaking team members, think for a minute about how you could structure your talk in a way that follows the best practices mentioned earlier. If your few minutes of preparation make the conversation easier for your team to follow, that’s a net positive.

If you’re not one hundred percent comfortable in Japanese but your meeting requires you to speak it, do the same thing! Take a few minutes to think about “How would I say ____ in Japanese?” and plan accordingly. You may realize there’s a word or concept that you aren’t sure how to express. That’s a golden opportunity to look it up, learn something new, and immediately use it in real-life application.

Lastly, regardless of your Japanese level, the most important thing to do at any meeting is check your understanding. The golden phrase to use is この認識で合っていますか (kono ninshiki de atteimasu ka) which means “Is my understanding correct?”

This is a phrase that you should not hesitate to use at every single meeting you attend. After having an important conversation, if you can summarize what you understood and double-check that it’s correct, your communication will be rock-solid.

Fostering a culture of language learning

If you work on an international team, chances are that everyone has some desire to improve at their non-dominant language. I highly recommended fostering a culture where you all help each other learn, and no one is afraid of making mistakes.

One small but effective approach that many teams at Mercari took was to occasionally switch up meeting languages. For example, one team generally held meetings in Japanese, but every Friday was “English Day.” This gave members the chance to practice speaking English regularly without too much pressure.

If your team is up for it, I would recommend giving small experiments like this a try—just keep it fun and lighthearted to start.

Look beyond language

Cultural differences can impact communication just as much as linguistic differences.

Keep in mind that the following are general statements and do not apply to all people from particular cultures. That being said, non-Japanese employees may have certain communication tendencies that differ from those of their Japanese coworkers.

One of those habits common to people from Western countries is being more direct and assertive. Whether it be during meetings, in casual conversation, or through text, many international developers prefer to say exactly what’s on their mind with minimal hesitation. For example, developers from the West see no problem with clearly stating their opposition to a topic and listing the reasons why they oppose it—in many ways, this is seen as good, clear communication. This style can sometimes be jarring to Japanese speakers, who generally prefer to avoid anything that could be taken as blunt or confrontational.

Another difference involves when to speak during meetings or presentations. Japanese speakers tend to “wait their turn” to speak. During presentations, they almost always defer questions and comments until the end, when the presentation is finished. Non-Japanese employees, on the other hand, are more likely to speak up as soon as something comes to mind.

As a result, we have teams where some participants prefer a structured approach to communication, while others prefer a more freeform approach. Neither communication style is necessarily better than the other, but on an international team, it’s not hard for the non-Japanese employees to overpower their colleagues. If you have a strong preference for either style, you don’t need to force yourself to change. Just be mindful that your coworkers may have different tendencies.

It can help everyone in a team to make it clear what the expected communication style and processes are.

If you notice that certain members are very quiet at a meeting, despite seeming like they have something to say, see if you can give them an opportunity. A simple “Does anyone else have thoughts on this?” can go a long way in making sure everyone feels heard.

For a deeper dive on this topic, check out this article about how to improve your communication skills in Japanese.

Final thoughts

You don’t need to be fluent in Japanese or a perfect English speaker to make a difference to your team. Start small: pick one habit from this article to work on this week. Learn three new technical Japanese words. Ask questions at your next meeting to make it more inclusive. Try switching languages at your next standup as an experiment, and see how your team handles it.

Working on an international tech team comes with unique challenges, but it’s also an incredible opportunity. Every conversation you navigate, every new phrase you learn, and every cultural nuance you pick up makes you a more valuable team member—not just in Japan, but anywhere in the world.

Thirteen Years in Japan: Richard Ramsden On Finding Your Company

2026-02-24T13:43:10+09:00

”The original question you had asked,” said Richard Ramsden, CTO at Degica, “was, ‘How do people make a life for themselves here, and start their career right, and not have a bad experience when they come to Japan?’ It doesn’t work out for everyone.”

There are some people that come to Japan, and [their experience] only lasts maybe like a year or two, and then they’re out. . . . I think a big factor is the company that you’re working for.

Ramsden also wasn’t initially having a great experience in Japan, until he found the right company for him. “Eventually I found a really good employer that was a great culture fit, and just ended up being successful here. My career has been good. And my life’s been great because of my career, and the people that I met along the way.”

In this article Ramsden explains his path from Ruby developer to CTO, as well as:

How job-hunting has changed for international developers
What didn’t work for him career-wise in Japan
Why you need a company you can grow with
The difference between being a “great fit” and “fitting in”
How not speaking much Japanese can affect your career and your life
Why Japan is a great place for international developers
How to pick the right company for you

His scavenger hunt

Ramsden was a junior developer when he first arrived in Japan. ”I was maybe a year and a half out of university. When I was young I thought I was a big hot shot,” he joked, “but looking back, I was super junior.”

Despite feeling confident, Ramsden took a slow, prudent approach to starting his career in Japan. His first trip to Tokyo was for a Ruby Kaigi conference, where he also worked to make connections with local companies and people. He’d assumed he would need to speak Japanese fluently to get a job, and was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t the case.

Soon after he applied for a working holiday visa, which he’s eligible for as a Canadian citizen.

I think [because of] TokyoDev and lots of job boards, it’s much easier to find a job here if you’re a foreign candidate. Back 13-something years ago, I had to literally go on a scavenger hunt. I had to come on a working holiday [visa] because I had no idea. I just had a dream.

“I think my original interview I found through an internet chat room,” he told me. “Someone was like, ‘Oh boy, I wish we had a Ruby developer.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, hey, I’m a Ruby developer.’”

Since he was already in Japan, it was much easier for the company to hire him. “I could actually go down to the office and talk with them face-to-face. I think that does help improve [your] odds when you’re actually here and they don’t have to go through all the visa paperwork.”

What didn’t work

Ramsden’s focus on moving to Japan, though, came with a downside: he was so keen to find work with a Japanese company, that he didn’t carefully evaluate which Japanese company would be best.

“ I had to go through a few companies before I found the right culture fit,” he said. “I joined a Japanese company for my first job. However, with the working style of domestic companies here, I felt pressure to work late rather than having the focus be on my output. I stayed there a few months and left to try and start a business.”

Ramsden and his friend collaborated on the attempted startup, but it proved incompatible with remaining in Japan. “Back 13 years ago when I first came here, there was no support for startups at all,” Ramsden said, “and me and my friend just weren’t able to get visas.”

Eventually his friend had to leave the country, and Ramsden accepted another job in order to remain in Japan—one that, again, wasn’t a good culture match.

Finding a company to grow with

Soon after that, however, he joined Degica, where he has remained for 11 years. “I’m now the CTO. And I think the biggest reason [I stayed] was because I met the people and I was more picky about the company I was joining. I wanted to make sure that I was going to be a [good] fit at the company.”

Since I’ve been such a great fit, I’ve been able to grow with the company as I get more domain knowledge, and understand more about the internals of the company and how it works. Eventually, that leads to promotions.

Being a good fit by standing out

Degica has been a good fit for Ramsden because it’s allowed him, and even encouraged him, to lean into his differences.

“Weirdly, I think [being non-Japanese] has been a positive for my career,” he explained, “because it allows me to work a little bit out of the typical Japanese cultural rule set. So I am in the office now in my flip flops and shorts.”

“If you really want to assimilate,” he added, “you get into following all of the cultural norms. And I think some of these norms slow things down—you’re usually being too formal when you want to be candid about something.”

So I think in my career it’s been good, because a lot of the challenges that we have when we really need to grow are from some groups in the company being too risk averse or conservative. And I can come in from the foreign mindset and [say] like, ‘Hey, let’s just do it. Let’s try this, guys.’

“And then [they said] ‘Okay, let’s let the foreigner try to build his payment system thing.’ And I did that, right?” said Ramsden, referring to Degica’s KOMOJU payment platform, which he played an instrumental role in developing. “I threw it out there. And now we’re a successful business . . . because I took a risk. I was comfortable taking a risk.”

Are Japanese skills necessary?

Ramsden self-describes his Japanese ability as “terrible,” but doesn’t believe it’s held him back professionally. “I’ve been working in completely English-speaking environments. At the company, our product engineering is 100 percent English, and it’s been that way since I joined 11 years ago.”

In Japan, weirdly, there’s enough international business that you can grow a career here in just English, which is wild.

Ramsden does sometimes wish he had more Japanese-speaking friends. “I think if I would’ve maybe joined a pure Japanese environment [company], I could have had opportunities to grow some of those friendships and maybe get out of my comfort zone a little bit.”

On the whole, however, he’s satisfied with his social life, which revolves around other international workers. “We have the same experiences. We’re foreigners living in Japan. And I think it’s more relatable to talk to another foreigner that’s living here.”

Not speaking Japanese well can be a stressor in daily life, though. “Unfortunately, for me,” Ramsden joked, “it’s [now] easier to just get by with English in Tokyo. There’s just so much support here because they’ve been dealing with [an] influx of tourism and more foreigners.”

When I came, I was going down to the city office [and it was] all in kanji. Maybe that’s still the case today, but there was no one there to support me. Now, and maybe in my local city office, there’s a foreigner working in the office that comes by and helps me do the paperwork in English.

Why is Japan good for developers?

“The food’s great and it’s safe here,” said Ramsden. “It’s got anime and video games. That was one of my reasons [for coming here] originally. . . . Those are not so important to me at my point in life. But that played a factor in me coming to Japan in the first place.”

Anime may have brought him here, but Ramsden has remained in Japan for some very practical career reasons. “If I’d stayed in Canada, I’d be starting on the same playing field as almost the entire population,” he said.

When you come to Japan, you’re bringing some unique skillset into the country that makes you valuable, right? There is a reason they are importing engineering talent here. They don’t have enough engineering talent. In Canada, in the US, I think you have a lot of talent there, so it’s much more competitive.

Ramsden noted that not only is there an increasing number of international developers in Japan, there’s also more support for them. “ [The industry is] way more open to recruiting foreign talent. The government is trying [too], I know they have more lenient startup visas.”

Does this mean Ramsden intends to remain in Japan for the remainder of his career? “ That’s a good question,” he told me. “And I’ve also talked closely with my spouse, like, ‘What’s next?’”

Primarily, he’d be interested in returning to his home country for two reasons: to start a business, or to raise children. “I’ve been through lots of companies, lots of startups, and I’ve always been working for other people.”

I think if I had my own vision or my own idea, that would be a strong incentive to go set up shop somewhere in Canada and recruit in North America and build a business there.

So would expanding his family. “I don’t have kids yet. Definitely, that would be a big motivation for me to move back, maybe to Canada, or to look at the [Japanese] countryside, because if I had children, I’d probably want to give them the same type of upbringing that I had.”

“But I still have a deep love for Japan,” he clarified. “As part of my career, I’ve gotten the opportunity to travel almost everywhere in the world. . . . I have perspective now, and I see the two best places that I would love to live are either in Canada, where I was born, or Japan.”

My career has been going so well. I think that’s been a big reason why I’m still here. . . . And that goes back to your career development, like who you pick for your company. Make sure the company can grow with you.

How to pick the right company

Talk to insiders

Finding the right company for you can be easier said than done. “Sometimes that is difficult if you don’t have a lot of experience yet,” Ramsden acknowledged. “You don’t really know what your fit is.”

One way to screen out bad fits, though, is to speak with the employees at any company you interview with.

Talk to some developers or talk to some people who are on the ground working. Be a little bit wary [when] you’re on a call, but it’s all leadership. They’re putting on a story and they’re literally sales people.

Ramsden made it clear he spoke from experience. “I applied for a company where I didn’t talk to the people on the ground, and guess what, it wasn’t a fit. But during the interview process, everything was like a sales pitch. It sounded super exciting. . . .Then I got in and the developers were like, ‘Oh, man.’”

Take your time

This is partially why Ramsden recommends not rushing to secure a role. “ I think a mistake people make early on in their career,” Ramsden said, “is they take the highest-paid offer. They don’t know that culture plays such an important part of just having happiness in your career.”

If you’re not vibing with the people that you’re talking to, if you’re feeling weird about the interview process, you should follow that vibe. Stop the process and keep looking for a company where you’re going to be a really good culture fit.

Be open to startups

Depending on where you are in your career, the right place could be a startup. “If you’re young, I think you can take on a lot more risk, right? And actually a startup might also be a really good place, even though it might appear a bit crazy and unstable. I do think it builds a good foundation to then go and find your next job.

“It’s a unique experience that you don’t get as you get older. You don’t get that chance to join a chaotic, fast-growing company. . . . And I think those are interesting opportunities to at least bring you in and get your visa.

“Then, once you’re situated, start looking. If that place is not a good culture fit for you, start looking for a really good place where the culture fit is there. Even if that’s a bigger company or like a mid-size or larger entity, that’s going to do wonders for being able to keep your career here.”

Avoid job-hopping

That being said, Ramsden is not an advocate of changing roles every few years. “I work at a company where we hire everyone from all over the world, and I think [some employees] do have a bit of that North American culture, where it’s [job] hop and try to get the best offer. When you try to do it here, it’s frowned upon by the employer. It’s a different value system.

“I don’t want to push that you should just settle for whatever,” Ramsden stressed. “But this is just how I’ve been able to grow.”

It’s also the reality of succeeding long-term in Japan. “I think if you’re able to grow with the company, then you can keep moving up. I don’t want to say it’s just based on seniority. . . . [But] I do think some seniority is needed, because if you join a company, how much are you really going to accomplish in just one year?

“Maybe after one year you have some of the domain knowledge and some of the things that you need to actually start making an impact, right? And then you usually see [in] year two and year three, you’re making a big impact. [So] you don’t want to be hopping, right? Where you just get all the knowledge, and then you leave.”

Nonetheless, as Ramsden reiterated throughout the interview, what matters most is that you like where you work.

> At the end of the day, if you don’t like where you’re working, you’re not going to last very long here. I think one thing people say about Japan is that it can be a great place as long as you have a good work environment.

Permanent Residency vs Naturalization in Japan: What Does the Data Tell Us?

2026-02-16T13:20:46+09:00

When we first published this article, I had a knot of anxiety in my stomach, afraid that I had misread something or mixed up some numbers. No number of peer reviewers (in this case, at least three) ever makes that feeling go away for me.

We previously published an earlier version of this article with a mistaken interpretation, which led us to an incorrect conclusion regarding the data. This only serves to highlight one of my main points: you are best served by looking at the actual statistics, rather than someone else’s interpretation—no matter how well-intentioned they may be!

A commenter on LinkedIn alerted us to a problem: the table I referred to on the Ministry of Justice website as representing the number of naturalizations per year is actually referring to the acquisition of Japanese nationality under Articles 3 and 17 of the Nationality Law, which includes by acknowledging a child, reacquiring nationality, or “other cases.”

My mistake was twofold: I assumed “other cases” included naturalization by application, and I also overlooked the Japanese, which specifically lists naturalization (帰化, kika) as a separate category. This misinterpretation is entirely my fault, and I apologize for misleading folks.

I have updated this article to add this clarification, and to correct my mistakes.

We also considered completely retracting this article, but I think it’s better to correct it and leave it on the site as an example of how, despite the best intentions of authors and editors, data can still be misinterpreted. I hope this article will introduce more people to publicly available Japanese data sources!

If you pay attention to news site headlines and videos from various influencers, then you’ve probably heard some of these claims involving international residents in Japan:

Nobody stays more than a few years
Permanent residency is impossible to get
Citizenship is easy to get
Japan doesn’t let people naturalize
Foreigners are taking over Japan!
Foreigners aren’t being allowed in Japan!

Are any of these true, though? Are they all true?

The answers lie somewhere in the middle. Finding them requires cutting through the hype to locate good data, and then contextualizing those statistics appropriately.

At TokyoDev, it’s important to us that we provide fact-based information rooted in valid contexts, so we’ve also published data-backed articles about salaries, permanent residency application rates, and our own surveys of international developers living in Japan.

Where can you find official data?

Instead of getting your information from sources with their own agendas, it’s possible to go look at the official statistics and judge for yourself. Various branches of the Japanese government are quite open with their data, whether it’s about visa renewal and processing times, the types of highly-skilled professional visas granted and where the grantees are from, or the number and home countries of international residents in the various municipalities of Tokyo.

The Japanese government collates the statistics they collect and makes them freely available on an official data-driven site: e-Stat.

Since e-Stat provides data sets in Excel and CSV format, you can build your own data visualization tools; for example, in the past people used data sets from e-State to track and visualize Covid-19 infection rates.

Especially relevant to this article are these three sets of statistics published and maintained by the Ministry of Justice:

Trends in the numbers of applicants for naturalization
Statistics on foreign residents (divided by residence type)
Statistics on status of residence applications (filterable by year)

What does the data tell us about naturalization in Japan?

It’s critical to understand what you’re looking at and whether you’re comparing like to like. Let’s start with the trends in the numbers of applicants for naturalization.

Trends in the number of people applying for naturalization

The chart presents, for each year:

Number of applications received
Number of applications approved
Number of approvals from China, Korea, or another country
Number of applications denied

The biggest anomaly present is that the columns don’t seem to add up. Some additional context helps make sense of this chart:

applications can take more than a calendar year to process
approvals and denials will often arrive in a different calendar year than the application

This means it’s difficult to figure out an accurate “approval rate,” as we don’t know which approvals and denials are linked to which years. However, we can aggregate multiple years together to get a broad estimate of the acceptance rate. Let’s use the Reiwa era (2019–2024) as a cutoff point for our rough analysis.

If we add up the number of approved applications (50,421) and divide by the number of applications (59,799), we can get a rough estimate of the overall application success rate: about 84.3%.

What does the data tell us about permanent residents in Japan?

e-Stat has a table of international residents and their statuses of residence as of June 2025. There are two columns for permanent residents: permanent residents (永住者, eijuusha) and special permanent residents (特別永住者, tokubetsu eijuusha).

Special permanent residents are those who were displaced after World War II, as well as their descendants. They are typically people who have been born and raised in Japan and may culturally identify as Japanese, but in the eyes of the law are not Japanese citizens.

They are legally distinct from those who immigrated to Japan and later became permanent residents, so we will not include them in our analyses.

How many permanent residents are there in Japan?

To start with, Japan’s population is over 122 million people. Permanent residents number only 932,090 people, which makes them about 0.76% of the population of Japan.

The chart also tells us that there are 3,956,619 international residents total, so we can also conclude:

Permanent residents represent roughly a quarter of the international population
International residents represent around 3.24% of the population of Japan

What other statistics exist for permanent residency?

We can look at the statistics for status of residence applications for 2024, which includes data on permanent residence (永住, eijuu) applications specifically at the very right end of the chart. There are three rows of interest for us in the permanent residency section:

applications from the previous cycle (受理_旧受, juri, kyuuju)
applications from the current cycle (受理_新受, juri, shinju)
applications successfully accepted (既済_許可, kisai, kyoka)

Using this data, we can compare apples to apples: there were 116,919 ongoing applications for permanent residence during 2024, of which 48,362 were carried over from the previous cycle, and 68,557 were new. Permanent residence was granted to 36,766 people during this period, and denied for 17,282 people.

As we already know the application rates for citizenship, we can safely say that permanent residency appears to be an order of magnitude more popular than citizenship among international residents.

Why is permanent residency more popular?

The preference for permanent residency is probably attributable to a few objective factors:

The multiple paths to permanent residency, which include continuous residence, the highly skilled professional points-based system, and the spouse visa
Lower Japanese language requirements, since the permanent resident application process does not include an interview, test, or specific language ability requirement
Less onerous bureaucracy, because there’s no requirement to give up other citizenships
Flexibility, as permanent residents may relocate to other countries at any time

There are also subjective factors, such as emotional attachments to previous nationalities, or worries about the finality of “being Japanese” and never returning to live with family or friends.

However, citizenship also grants a few privileges over permanent residence:

Citizens may vote in elections
Citizens do not lose their citizenship if they commit a crime
International residents are required to carry their residence card; there is no corresponding requirement for citizens
Citizens receive and can be recorded on family registers (戸籍, koseki)
Citizens have fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution, while permanent residents can have theirs curtailed; for example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, permanent residents faced travel restrictions that citizens did not

The numbers seem to indicate that these privileges are not well-known or compelling enough to persuade international residents to naturalize, even if it is an option for them.

What else can we learn from this data?

The table shows that many international residents in Japan are from East Asia. Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese immigrants alone make up about 35.5% of the international residents recorded in 2025. This likely can be attributed to geographic proximity, but also to cultural and economic similarities.

People from the US (68,022) or Europe (104,426)—not to mention those from Australia (11,845), New Zealand (3,770), Canada (12,441), and England (20,532)—account for less than 0.2% of the population and only about 5% of the international residents of Japan, making them a minority within minorities.

If you’re wondering why you can’t see information for some of these countries, make sure to scroll to the bottom of the chart and click the down arrow to move to the next page of information!

One possible explanation is that salaries in Japan can represent a practical barrier for people moving from higher-salary or more expensive countries. Even if they intend to live and retire in Japan, financial or personal obligations in other countries can be prohibitively expensive on a Japanese salary.

There are viable paths to permanent residency and naturalization

The data makes it clear that international residents who choose to do so are able to find more permanent means of living in Japan. Though there are some systemic barriers to naturalizing, in this case they do not arise from the Japanese government rejecting applications or discouraging immigrants from applying.

If you want to learn more, we have articles on permanent residency statistics and a developer’s personal experience with the process, as well as on the career arcs of developers who have settled long-term in Japan.

Tech Conferences in Japan

2026-01-30T16:43:06+09:00

Attending a conference in Japan is one of the best ways to connect with the local tech community. Whether you’re a long-time user, a beginner, or just looking to dip your toes into the subject, these events are an opportunity to enrich your understanding and explore new areas of interest. In addition, many developers struggle with networking, but by speaking with other professionals about shared passions and enjoying the after-parties together, you can naturally build relationships in a pressure-free way.

Unfortunately, not every conference is for everyone. The price to attend ranges from completely free, to tens of thousands of yen. Conferences in Japan also offer varying levels of language support—some conferences are only in Japanese, some are mostly in English, and others are a mix.

Following is a list of the most popular developer conferences in Japan, with all the information you need to attend: location, languages, price, popularity, and dates.

The list does include conferences that haven’t yet announced their next event, but which will likely be held again in the future. If you see one you’d like to attend that doesn’t have a date for 2026, check out their website or social media for notifications.

Agile, Scrum & Engineering Management Conferences
Cloud, DevOps, SRE & Platform Engineering
Developer Relations Conferences
Development Framework Conferences
Mobile Developer Conferences
Game Development Conferences
Multi-Topic Developer Conferences
Niche Developer Conferences
Programming Language–Specific Conferences
Security Conferences
Software Quality Assurance

Note that smaller, more regular tech meetups in Tokyo are covered in a separate article.

Agile, Scrum & Engineering Management Conferences in Japan

EMConf Japan

EMConf Japan is a conference for those aspiring to or working in engineering management.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese
Price	1,000–8,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	Nearly 500 (in 2025)
First held	2025
Most recent	March 4, 2026

Regional Scrum Gathering Tokyo

Organised by non-profit organization “Scrum Tokyo,” Regional Scrum Gathering Tokyo is a gathering for Scrum practitioners and those interested in Agile to learn, enjoy talks and workshops, and share ideas and experiences.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	66,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	742 attendees (in 2024)
First held	2011
Most recent	January 7–9, 2026

In addition, there are many other regional Scrum fests held around Japan, such as ScrumFest Osaka, ScrumFest Fukuoka, ScrumFest Okinawa, etc. You can view the calendar of ScrumFests from 2024 here!

Cloud, DevOps, SRE & Platform Engineering Conferences in Japan

CloudNative Days

CloudNative Days is a conference on cloud native technologies. It began in 2018 as a conference named “Japan Container Days,” before changing their name to CloudNative Days in 2020.

Location	Somewhere in Japan
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	15,000–30,000 yen, with student discounts available (in 2025)
Attendees	Around 700 in person and online (in 2025)
First held	2018
Most recent	November 18–19, 2025

CloudNative Kaigi

CloudNative Kaigi is a conference that’s a collaboration between three other ones: CloudNative Days, Platform Engineering Kaigi, and SRE Kaigi.

Location	Nagoya
Languages	Japanese
Price	Free (in 2026)
Attendees	Around 500 in person and 500 online attendees (in 2026)
First held	2026
Most recent	May 14–15, 2026

DevOpsDays Tokyo

DevOpsDays Tokyo is a community conference that focuses on topics surrounding software development and IT operations, including automation, testing, security, and organizational culture.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	15,000–25,000 yen
Attendees	249 (2025)
First held	2013
Most recent	April 14–16 2026

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Japan

KubeCon started as a kubernetes-focused conference in San Francisco in 2015, and over the years has grown, broadening its scope to focus on cloud native computing and holding conferences in Japan, Europe, China, India, and America.

Location	Yokohama
Languages	English
Price	100–725 USD (in 2026)
Attendees	1500 (in 2025)
First held	2026
Most recent	July 29–30, 2026

Platform Engineering Kaigi

Platform Engineering Kaigi has a focus on DevOps, Cloud, and platform engineering.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Mainly Japanese
Price	2,000–4,000 yen (in 2025) (under age 25 tickets available)
Attendees	997 (2024)
First held	2024
Most recent	September 18, 2025

SRE Next

SRE Next is a conference for developers interested in reliability practices.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Mainly Japanese, some English talks
Price	3,000 yen (in 2025) (student tickets available)
Attendees	Over 1,000, offline and online (in 2024)
First held	2020
Most recent	July 10–11, 2026

Developer Relations Conferences in Japan

DevRelKaigi

DevRelKaigi is an international conference that covers topics like developer relations, developer marketing, developer education, developer community, developer experience, developer branding, and more.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	0–8,000 yen
Attendees	600 (2025)
First held	2017 (As DevRelCon Tokyo)
Most recent	October 2–4, 2025

Development Framework Conferences in Japan

FlutterKaigi

FlutterKaigi covers topics related to Flutter and Dart.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	6,000-8,000 yen (student ticket available)
Attendees	500 (2025)
First held	2021
Most recent	November 13, 2025

Kaigi on Rails

Kaigi on Rails is Japan’s biggest Ruby on Rails conference.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Mainly Japanese, some English talks
Price	8,000-12,000 yen (student ticket available)
Attendees	700 (2024)
First held	2020
Most recent	October 16–17 2026

Laravel Live Japan

The first official Laravel community conference in Japan.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese, English
Price	8,000 - 15,000 (student tickets available)
Attendees	500+ (expected)
First held	2026
Most recent	May 26-27 2026

Vue Fes Japan

At Vue Fes Japan, leading developers from around the world gather, ranging from core team members of well-known OSS projects like Vue.js, to engineers bringing real-world insights from the field.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	12,000-15,000 yen (in 2025) (under age 25 tickets available)
Attendees	750 (2024)
First held	2018
Most recent	October 25, 2025

Mobile Developer Conferences in Japan

DroidKaigi 2025

DroidKaigi is an annual conference for Android developers to share knowledge and connect.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	12,600–30,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	1,150 (in 2024)
First held	2015
Most recent	September 10–12, 2025

iOSDC Japan

iOSDC is a three-day conference focused on iOS technologies.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese
Price	8,800–16,500 (under age 23 tickets available)
Attendees	2,685, in person (in 2024)
First held	2016
Most recent	September 19–20, 2025

try! Swift Tokyo

try! Swift is an international conference that has also been held in New York, Bangalore and San Jose. Experts from all over the world gather to give talks on Swift, iOS, and other related topics.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	17,000–25,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	Over 700 (in 2025)
First held	2016
Most recent	April 12–14, 2026

Game Development Conferences in Japan

CEDEC

CEDEC (Computer Entertainment Developers Conference) is an annual three-day hybrid event for developers to share video game technology and knowledge. Talks cover topics from engineering, production, visual arts, business & production, sound, game design, and academic/fundamental technology.

Location	Yokohama
Languages	Japanese (English translations on stream)
Price	17,600–62,700 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	9,586, in person and online (in 2025)
First held	1999
Most recent	July 22-24 2026

Indie Developers Conference

Indie Developers Conference is a conference for indie game developers. Talks cover topics relevant to game development, such as technical knowledge, marketing, publishing, and post-release support.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese
Price	3,400–4,400 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	324 (in 2024)
First held	2021
Most recent	November 15, 2025

Multi-Topic Developer Conferences in Japan

Developers Summit

Hosted by the Shoeisha’s CodeZine editorial department, Developers Summit (デブサミ) is one of the largest conferences for software developers in Japan. It features a variety of talks covering topics and trends that are relevant to developers today.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese
Price	Free (in 2025)
Attendees	2,000 (in 2024)
First held	2003
Most recent	February 18th–20th, 2026

CodeZine also hosts other conferences such as Women Developers Summit, Developer Summit Osaka, and Developer Summit Fukuoka.

Open Source Summit

In 2017, LinuxCon (which had been running in Japan since 2009), Container Con, and CloudCon merged to form Open Source Summit, a conference aimed towards open-source code and community contributors.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	English
Price	175–799 USD (Academic, Hobbyist and Yen Advantage pricing available)
Attendees	786 (2023)
First held	2017
Most recent	December 7–9 2026

Niche Developer Conferences in Japan

Vim Conf

VimConf is the world’s first and only conference about Vim regularly held by a community.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	16,500 yen (in 2024)
Attendees	139 (in 2024)
First held	2013
Most recent	November 11, 2025

Programming Language–Specific Conferences in Japan

FP Matsuri

Succeeding ScalaMatsuri, FP Matsuri was held for the first time in 2025, and it widened the focus from just scala to functional programming in general.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Mainly Japanese (some English talks)
Price	1,000–8,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	408 (in 2025)
First held	2014 (as Scala Matsuri)
Most recent	July 11–12, 2026

Go Conference

Go Conference, which is humorously shortened to “GoCon,” a homonym for a type of group blind date, is a conference for users of the Go programming language.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	Free
Attendees	450 (in 2025)
First held	2013
Most recent	September 27–28, 2025

Additionally, there are smaller regional Go conferences that are held regularly such as Go Conference mini in Sendai.

JSConf

JSConf is an annual conference focused on JavaScript that aims to be a bridge between Japanese and international web developers.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	Unknown
Attendees	350 (in 2024)
First held	2019
Most recent	November 16, 2025

Kotlin Fest

Kotlin Fest is Japan’s main conference about the Kotlin programming language.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese
Price	4,000–9,000 yen (student tickets available)
Attendees	486 (2024)
First held	2018
Most recent	November 1, 2025

PHP Conference

PHP Conference is an annual conference that welcomes both beginners and experts to PHP, with sessions suitable for different levels.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Mainly Japanese, some English talks
Price	Free
Attendees	1166 (2024)
First held	2000
Most recent	June 28, 2025

In addition, there are many regional phpcon held throughout Japan. You can see a list of them for 2026 here.

PyCon

PyCon JP is Japan’s largest Python community event, where Python users gather to exchange ideas and connect with each other.

Location	Mostly Tokyo, Hiroshima
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	15,000–50,000 yen (in 2024) (student and U25 tickets available)
Attendees	651 (in 2024)
First held	2011
Most recent	August 21–22, 2026

RubyKaigi

RubyKaigi is held annually and is Japan’s biggest Ruby conference. Consisting of three days of talks, it highlights the achievements and interests of those contributing to the Ruby Programming Language. This report highlights my own experiences at the first RubyKaigi I attended.

Location	Somewhere in Japan (changes annually)
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	15,000–30,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	Over 1,000 (in 2025)
First held	2006
Most recent	April 22–24, 2026

Additionally, various other regional RubyKaigi are held around Japan every year, with one of the biggest being Kansai RubyKaigi. You can see a list of them here.

Ruby World Conference

RubyWorld Conference is a Ruby conference focused on the use of Ruby for business applications.

Location	Matsue, Shimane
Languages	Japanese, with some English
Price	6,000 yen (2025)
Attendees	884 (in 2025)
First held	2009
Most recent	December 3-4 2026

YAPC::Japan

YAPC::Japan, standing for Yet Another Perl Conference, is a traveling conference dedicated to the Perl programming language. It is the successor to YAPC::Asia Tokyo, which was held annually in Tokyo starting in 2006.

Location	Somewhere in Japan (moves annually)
Languages	Mainly Japanese
Price	5,000–10,000 yen (student tickets available)
Attendees	448 (in 2024)
First held	2016
Most recent	November 14–15, 2025

Security Conferences in Japan

AVTokyo

AVTokyo is a gathering of hackers and security geeks that is held at a nightclub and has a day of talks over drinks.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	9,000–19,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	Unknown
First held	2008
Most recent	November 23 2026

Code Blue

CODE BLUE is an annual security-focused conference that invites security experts and researchers from both Japan and abroad as speakers.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Japanese and English
Price	18,000–128,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	460
First held	2014
Most recent	November 17–18 2026

TenguCon

TenguCon gathers hackers, researchers, and security enthusiasts from around the world to participate in talks, hands-on workshops on industrial control systems (ICS), automotive, medical, and marine security, and a Capture the Flag (CTF).

Location	Tokyo
Languages	English
Price	1,000–3,000 yen (in 2025)
Attendees	Unknown
First held	2024
Most recent	November 21-22 2025

Software Quality Assurance Conferences in Japan

Tokyo Test Fest

Tokyo Test Fest focuses on software quality assurance and testing, as well as creating an opportunity for Japanese and English-speaking tech testing communities to connect.

Location	Tokyo
Languages	Mostly English, some talks in Japanese
Price	12,000–28,000 yen
Attendees	460
First held	2024
Most recent	November 12–13 2026

TokyoDev

A Look Into NaviDial, Japan’s Legacy Phone Service

History: From FreeDial to NaviDial

Toll-free calls in the 1980s

Enter NaviDial

The problem for consumers

Why is NaviDial still around?

Inertia

Conservative enterprise culture

Preference for trusted phone numbers

Not enough pressure (yet)

A comparison with other countries

Practical advice for you

Final thoughts

The PIP Trap: Why Performance Improvement Plans Don’t Mean What You Think in Japan

What a PIP is supposed to do—and what to watch for in yours

How Japanese courts actually evaluate performance-based dismissals

How Japanese courts have evaluated PIP-related dismissals

Bloomberg L.P. (2012)

IBM Japan (2016)

Huawei Technologies Japan (2024)

Google Japan (2024–present)

What companies can and cannot do

Practical steps for workers

Closing: PIPs in Japan are often more psychological than legal

Raising Bilingual Children in Japan (Without Breaking the Bank)

At home

One parent always speaks English

Regular one-on-one time

Reading English books daily

Roleplaying games

Resources

Khan Academy Kids

English-language videos

English reading lessons

Yearly trips to Canada

Conclusion

Which Visa Makes You Most Attractive to Employers in Japan?

1. Japanese Citizenship, Permanent Residence, and Spouse of Japanese National

2. Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services

3. Highly Skilled Professional

4. Working Holiday

5. Student, Dependent, J-Find, and others (e.g. Instructor)

6. Digital Nomad/Temporary Visitor

Conclusion

"Japan Residents Only": Why Some Japanese Firms Won't Hire English-Speaking Developers Internationally

Why not recruit internationally?

They’re not familiar with the process

Obtaining a visa takes time and isn’t guaranteed

International moves are expensive and risky

Newcomers to Japan need additional support

Too many applicants

Scammers and liars

Why not just hire candidates to work remotely?

In-person culture

Time zones

Extra legal risks and costs

Legal obligations to have employees in Japan

What if I already have permission to work in Japan, but am not living here?

Conclusion

Eight Years in Japan: Planting Early Seeds for Long-Term Success

A mission of reinvention

How Japan has changed

The promise of remote work

Consequences of the weaker yen

And yet, things stay the same

If you want to live here long term

Work on being bicultural

Become an adult, again

Learn the language

Take care with your community

Not easy, but worthwhile

Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers

Make your English more understandable

Scenario 1: A PM is talking to developers about upcoming goals.

Scenario 2: A developer is sharing what they are working on.

Other best practices

The better your English, the harder it is

Understanding technical jargon in Japanese

Katakana: often helpful, sometimes misleading