Software engineering in Japan, the deep dive

The 2026 market

Software engineering is the most foreigner-friendly career track in Japan, by a wide margin. The 2025 TokyoDev developer survey of 989 international engineers found:

• Median engineer compensation: ¥9.5M, up ¥1M from 2024.
• 57% of respondents had a compensation increase in the last year; only 6% had a decrease.
• 60% of respondents hold an engineer-track or HSP-track residence status, meaning their work permit is tied directly to a tech job.
• Hybrid work overtook fully-flexible remote work: 43% hybrid (up from 37%), 32% free-choice remote (down from 38%).

The market is in a strong year, bilingual engineers are getting 15–25% raises on job changes, and the FAANG Tokyo offices have aggressively scaled hiring through 2025–26.

Companies actively hiring foreigners

Tier 1, actively hire abroad, sponsor visas, no Japanese required

Tier 1.5, FAANG and big-tech Tokyo offices

• Google Japan (Roppongi Hills), ¥18–35M+ total comp at senior levels with RSUs.
• Amazon Japan (Meguro), slightly lower base than Google but aggressive sign-ons.
• Microsoft Japan (Shinagawa), Azure focus; very international team.
• Meta Japan, Stripe Tokyo, Apple Japan, smaller Tokyo engineering teams but premium comp.

Tier 2, Japanese companies with English-friendly engineering teams

• Cyberagent (large game and advertising tech), N3+ preferred.
• DeNA (gaming + healthcare tech), bilingual teams in specific divisions.
• GMO Group (commerce infrastructure), historic gaijin-friendly culture.
• Sakura Internet (hosting + AI infrastructure), Osaka-based.
• Sakana AI (Tokyo-based AI lab founded 2023), high-end research engineering, English OK.
• Preferred Networks (PFN, deep learning), research labs are very international.

Compensation, real 2026 numbers

The TokyoDev 2025 survey found respondents at companies without a Japan entity (i.e. fully remote international employer) and those at foreign companies with a Japan entity (FAANG Tokyo) both clustered at ¥13.5M median, meaningfully above the ¥8.5M median at Japanese-headquartered employers.

Stacks that actually pay

The premium-paying stacks at foreigner-friendly Japanese companies in 2026:

• Go, Mercari, SmartNews, PayPay all run on Go for core services.
• TypeScript + Next.js, universal frontend stack at most modern Japanese tech companies.
• Kotlin / Java, banking, fintech, established Japanese corporates.
• Python (Django / FastAPI), data, ML, internal tooling.
• Swift / Kotlin for mobile, high demand at consumer-internet players.

Niche but high-paying:

• Rust, small but growing pool; some payments and infrastructure teams use it.
• Cloud security + DevOps, bilingual SREs see 15–30% job-change raises in 2026.
• AI/ML productionisation, taking off the back of LLM adoption; premium tier at Sakana AI, PFN, FAANG.

Almost universally, AWS is the cloud of choice (with GCP a distinct second). Azure is rare outside enterprise/banking. Knowing AWS deeply is a meaningful comp lever.

Levels and progression

Most foreigner-friendly companies use a US-style levelling system rather than the traditional Japanese seniority-based promotion ladder. Roughly:

• L3 / Junior / Associate Engineer (0–2 yrs): ship small features with mentorship.
• L4 / Mid Engineer (2–5 yrs): own features end-to-end; some cross-team coordination.
• L5 / Senior Engineer (5–9 yrs): drive multi-engineer projects; design subsystems; mentor.
• L6 / Staff / Tech Lead (9+): set technical direction across teams; partner with product/design at director level.
• L7+ / Principal: rare; typically named technical-authority on a domain across the org.

Promotion velocity at gaishikei is fast (2–3 years per level on average). At Japanese companies, even the modern ones, expect 3–4 years.

Interview process

At foreigner-friendly Japanese tech companies (Mercari, SmartNews, PayPay), the typical loop:

1. Recruiter screen (30 min), English or Japanese, depending on team. Confirms basic fit, salary expectations, visa status.
2. Technical screen (60–90 min), live coding or take-home. Often using HackerRank, Coderpad, or a custom problem. English OK.
3. System design (45–60 min), for L5+. Whiteboard or virtual whiteboard. English.
4. Team / behavioural (45–60 min × 2–3 rounds), meet your prospective manager and 1–2 teammates. Some Japanese small-talk; technical conversation in English.
5. Bar-raiser / final (30–60 min), senior engineer outside the team. Often the last hire/no-hire vote.

Total elapsed time: 2–4 weeks at gaishikei, 4–8 weeks at Japanese employers. Mercari publishes the time-to-offer median around 3 weeks.

Remote / hybrid reality

The pandemic-era full-remote era is largely over. From the TokyoDev 2025 survey:

• 43% of engineers now work hybrid (up from 37%).
• 32% have free-choice remote (down from 38%).
• 25% are fully on-site (up modestly).

Typical hybrid policies require 2–3 days/week in office. Gaishikei tend to be more flexible than domestic Japanese companies, with notable exceptions: Rakuten requires return-to-office; Mercari is hybrid with strong autonomy; most FAANG Tokyo are 3 days/week.

Getting in from overseas

• Apply directly to companies you've actually used as a consumer. Mercari, SmartNews, PayPay all have English-language careers pages and accept overseas applications.
• Skip the agencies for the first round, most Japanese tech recruiters bias toward Japanese-speaking candidates and skip the foreigner-friendly tier in their outreach.
• Have an English-language portfolio. A clean GitHub, a personal site with 2–3 written project case studies, and an English LinkedIn. Japan's tech recruiters look at all three.
• Visa is rarely the blocker. At companies on the Tier 1 list above, visa sponsorship is the default. The "ability to work from abroad" filter is more useful than the "visa sponsorship" filter, abroad-accepting companies have already streamlined their visa pipeline.
• Join Tokyo Dev Slack before applying. The community-driven referral flow is meaningful, many roles in the #referrals channel never get posted publicly.

TokyoDev 2025–26 survey deep dive

TokyoDev's annual developer survey (989 international engineers in 2025; ~1,100 in early 2026) is the most reliable single benchmark for foreigners in Japan tech. The 2025–26 findings:

• Median total comp: ¥9.5M (2025 survey), trending toward ¥10–10.5M in the 2026 update. Job-changers see 18–25% raises on switch.
• Distribution by employer type:
  • Japanese-headquartered employer: median ¥8.5M
  • Foreign-cap Japan office (FAANG, Stripe, etc.): median ¥13.5M
  • Fully-remote foreign employer (no Japan entity): median ¥13.5M
• JLPT distribution among working engineers: N5/no Japanese 22%, N4 18%, N3 24%, N2 24%, N1 12%. The N3 → N2 jump is associated with the largest pay step.
• Hybrid/remote split: 43% hybrid, 32% fully remote, 25% on-site. Hybrid trending up; pure-remote trending down vs 2023.
• Top employers by satisfaction: Stripe Tokyo, Mercari, Indeed Tokyo, Google Japan, Cybozu, SmartNews (consistent over 3+ years).
• Visa types: 60% on Engineer/Specialist, 25% on HSP, 8% on PR/Spouse, 7% other. HSP track is dominant for senior engineers.
• Average tenure in Japan among respondents: 6.3 years (foreign engineer pool is no longer a "1-year tourist" demographic).

AI infrastructure hiring boom

Three drivers are creating an AI-infra hiring wave in Tokyo through 2025–26:

• Government AI compute program. METI awarded large compute subsidies in 2024 to Sakura Internet, KDDI, Preferred Networks, and Softbank. Each is now scaling AI-infrastructure engineering teams.
• Sakana AI (Tokyo, founded 2023), ex-Google Brain researchers David Ha and Llion Jones; raised $214M Series A in 2024 (Lux Capital + Khosla). Open job pool is small but high-paying, ¥18–35M for senior research engineers.
• Foreign AI lab expansion. OpenAI Tokyo office opened in 2024; Anthropic announced Tokyo presence in 2025; Google DeepMind Tokyo, Amazon Science Tokyo, and Microsoft Research Asia (Tokyo expansion) all scaling.

What this means for foreign engineers:

• The premium for AI-infrastructure skills (CUDA, TPU/HBM-aware Python, large- model training pipelines) has materially increased in Tokyo. Roles that paid ¥15M in 2023 routinely pay ¥22–28M in 2026.
• The supply is small. Tokyo has perhaps 200–300 engineers with serious large-model production experience. Companies bid hard for this pool.
• Remote / hybrid is more common in AI roles than in typical Tokyo tech, Sakana AI, OpenAI Tokyo, and Anthropic offer significant flexibility.

Nikkei vs gaishikei, the engineer's choice

The Tokyo engineering universe splits into nikkei (Japanese-headquartered) and gaishikei (foreign-headquartered) employers. The trade-offs:

Interview prep, concrete resources

Algorithms / coding

• Neetcode 150, the standard problem list for FAANG-style coding interviews.
• Cracking the Coding Interview, classic reference.
• LeetCode, 2 problems/day for 8 weeks brings you to FAANG interview level.

System design

• System Design Interview Volume 1 & 2 (Alex Xu), the most-cited prep book.
• "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" (Martin Kleppmann), deep technical foundation.
• ByteByteGo newsletter, bite-sized system-design content.
• Hello Interview, modern system-design prep platform.

Japan-specific

• TokyoDev articles, detailed company guides; interview reports.
• JapanDev career blog, company-specific deep dives.
• Japan-Refactor, salary negotiation tactics.
• Reddit r/japanlife / r/cscareerquestionsJP, recent interview experience reports.

Japanese language for interviews

• Bunpro, grammar SRS; very effective for N3–N1.
• WaniKani, kanji SRS; pairs well with Bunpro.
• iTalki Japanese tutor, 1–2 hr/week for speaking practice.
• Common technical terms in JP, work through "Japanese for IT Engineers" (J-OS Press).

What changes after 2 years in Tokyo

The first 2 years and the years after are very different. Practical guide to what to expect at each stage:

• Year 1: establishing tax residency, getting a hanko, opening a bank account, getting health insurance, finding apartment, learning the commute. JLPT N4–N3 if studying.
• Year 2: first job change (typically +20–30% pay). Considering HSP visa. JLPT N3–N2 if studying.
• Year 3: HSP visa applied. Some engineers apply for PR via HSP fast track (1 year at 80+ pts). Buying property becomes realistic.
• Year 4–5: PR application processing (3 years at 70+ pts is common path). Senior promotion if at a good company.
• Year 5+: PR granted for most; mortgage rates improve to Japanese-resident rates (1.0–1.4% for fixed 30-year). Career inflection point, Staff or Tech Lead promotion, founder potential, deeper community engagement.

Contractor / freelance / consulting tracks

The independent-contractor path is meaningfully harder in Japan than in the US/UK but it exists. Key facts:

• Visa. Freelance work requires either Engineer/Specialist with employer sponsorship, HSP with self-employment activity permitted, PR, or Spouse visa. There's no general "freelance visa" but HSP and PR both work.
• Tax setup. Register as kojinjigyou (個人事業主) at your local tax office (~30 minutes, free). File annual blue/white tax return (青色申告).
• Rates. Bilingual senior engineers contract at ¥8,000– ¥15,000/hour or ¥1.2–2.5M/month for full-time engagement. Higher rates for AI/ML specialists.
• Standard platforms / agencies: Lapras, Levtech Freelance, Geechs, Tech Stock, ProConnect, MidWorks. Foreign-friendly: Octo, MGS, JapanRise.
• Direct contracts. Most lucrative; usually word-of-mouth. Mercari, PayPay, smaller Japanese SaaS regularly hire foreign contractors direct.
• Consumption tax. If revenue exceeds ¥10M/year, you become taxable for consumption tax (currently 10%). Plan accordingly.
• Health insurance/pension. Switches from employer-based Shakai Hoken to National Health Insurance + National Pension. Net cost typically lower for senior earners.

Where the SWE jobs are, named employers

Software is the single most foreigner-accessible professional field in Japan because so many employers work in English. The landscape:

• Japanese product companies that hire in English: Mercari, SmartNews, PayPay, LINE Yahoo, Rakuten (English-official), Woven by Toyota, Money Forward, SODA/SNKRDUNK.
• Foreign-capital / global tech with Tokyo offices: Google, Amazon/AWS, Microsoft, Indeed (big Tokyo eng. presence), Stripe, Datadog, HubSpot, Woven, Autify, Sider.
• Bilingual / startup ecosystem: the TokyoDev job board, Japan Dev, and Wantedly surface English-OK startups.
• Fully remote (no Japanese entity): increasingly common and the highest-paying cohort (see below), global companies hiring you to live in Japan but work for an overseas team.

The comp ladder (2025 numbers)

From the TokyoDev 2025 Developer Survey:

The Japanese-language reality for engineers

Engineering is where "no Japanese required" is most often genuinely true. At English-first firms (Mercari international, the global-tech Tokyo offices, remote roles), JLPT is a nice-to-have, not a gate. At Japanese-domestic companies, expect N2 for collaboration-heavy roles (N3 sometimes survives for pure coding). Two practical notes: (1) even at English-first firms, some Japanese smooths daily life and unlocks the local team; (2) don't grind only for the JLPT certificate, speaking ability is what wins interviews and promotions (see the JLPT guide's "N1 trap").

The interview loop & how it differs

At foreign-capital and English-first firms the loop is familiar: recruiter screen → technical screen (live coding / take-home) → system design → behavioural → sometimes a hiring-manager/values round, often fully remote for overseas candidates. Differences to expect in Japan:

• More weight on "why Japan / why this company" than a typical Western loop, have a genuine answer.
• Some Japanese product companies add a culture-fit / long-term-commitment lens; they're wary of foreigners who'll leave in a year.
• System-design and fundamentals matter; leetcode-style screens are common at the bigger names.

Breaking in from abroad

You usually don't need to be in Japan to get hired, many companies (Mercari and the global-tech offices especially) run the whole loop remotely and sponsor the visa + relocation. The playbook:

1. Target English-first employers directly (careers pages, TokyoDev, this board).
2. Make your English CV + LinkedIn strong, that's all most need (skip the Japanese-resume apparatus).
3. Have a real "why Japan" narrative ready.
4. Expect a 2–4 month COE/visa timeline after the offer, plan your move around it (see COE & arrival).

Which stacks & skills are in demand

Broadly Western-aligned: backend (Go, Kotlin/Java, Python, Ruby still strong at older product firms), frontend (React/TypeScript), mobile (Swift/Kotlin), and platform/SRE/cloud (AWS, GCP, Kubernetes). Data/ML and security are growth areas. English-first firms care about your engineering, not Japanese-specific tech. Domestic enterprises and SIers (system integrators) skew toward Java and on-prem and are less foreigner-friendly, a sector worth knowing exists but not your first target.

Career growth & the IC/manager split

Foreign-capital and modern product firms offer a real IC (individual contributor) track alongside management, you can reach Staff/Principal levels and high comp without managing people, as in the West. Traditional Japanese firms historically funnel seniority into management and seniority-based pay, which is slower and flatter. If technical depth and fast comp growth are your goal, weight modern product companies and global-tech, the same employer-type lever that drives the salary gap drives the growth ceiling.

Career roadmap, levels, pay & how to promote

The guide above is the lay of the land; this is the ladder. Each level shows the typical years, salary band, the skills that define it, how to promote out of it, and Japan-specific notes.

Common pivots from this track

• → Engineering Manager: people-first, ¥15-22M, less coding.
• → Founder: high risk, requires PR or Business Manager visa.
• → Solutions Architect / DevRel: heavy customer interaction, ¥15-25M, sometimes more travel.
• → Independent contractor: ¥15-25M/yr equivalent but no benefits / visa sponsorship.
• → Solutions architect at AWS / GCP / Azure Japan: customer-facing technical role at ¥18–28M with travel.
• → Developer advocate / DevRel: high public-facing role at Stripe / MongoDB / Cloudflare Japan; ¥15–25M with strong personal brand upside.
• → Open-source maintainer-as-employee: rare in Japan but growing (Sakana AI, PFN sponsor maintainers).