An Essential Guide on How to Become a Junior Developer in Japan

Introduction

Landing a junior developer position in Japan can be challenging. From writing resumes to preparing for interviews, there are multiple steps you need to take to successfully land a developer job. 

Then there are characteristics of the local job market and cultural norms and language to consider. How does one find a job as a junior developer in Japan? What are some unique aspects of this search that a junior developer should be aware of? What is the best strategy for someone who has no or little experience working in tech in Japan? 

This article is specifically designed for anyone in the early stages of their tech career, including self-taught developers and bootcamp graduates. By reading this guide, you’ll be better equipped to focus your attention and energy on what truly matters during your job search.

Let me clarify here that I am not an engineer. This guide is from the perspective of someone who has been an internal recruiter and a career coach for bootcamp graduates. While technical knowledge is crucial for success, this article will mainly focus on the non-technical aspects of the job search, where I can offer more valuable advice.

Understanding the Role and Self-Assessment 

Being a developer is more than just writing code. According to computerscience.org  “Software developers design, create, and maintain software for applications and systems. [They] analyze, test, and improve software to better meet user needs. They oversee the entire software lifecycle, including designing individual parts, performing maintenance, and deploying upgrades.”

 If you’ve spent the past few months or even a year learning how to code, it’s crucial to identify where the gaps in your experience are and how to address them.  

For example, a developer’s daily activities highlight a range of specific skills, such as: 

• Analyzing the needs of software users

• Designing, testing, and building software programs to meet user needs

• Creating models and diagrams that outline the code needed to create software and applications

• Performing maintenance and testing to keep software functioning

• Documenting the process to provide the information needed for upgrades and maintenance

Do a self-assessment to see which areas of your experience and skill set overlap with the role and areas that don’t. If you have previous experience outside of tech, list out the transferable skills that match with working as a software developer. This step will help you figure out which aspects of your experience to emphasize on your resume. 

Once you’ve found the gaps, come up with an actionable plan to help bridge these gaps. Below are some suggestions:  

• Join open source project

• Build projects

• Take a specialized course

• Do coding challenges

It’s good to keep in mind that these gaps are not signs that you are not qualified for the job. A strategic job seeker is one who is self aware of their strengths and areas of improvement. 

Familiarize yourself with the Landscape and Trends

Before you dive into the job market, take some time to familiarize yourself with the environment. The crucial skill is knowing when to move on. As I’ve written in the past on the Top 3 Tips for job seekers in Japan, this is a common pitfall for early stage job seekers, notably for job seekers getting into tech. 

To do research efficiently, look at popular job boards and at their recent openings. LinkedIn is also a valuable tool to gather information. Follow people who have a presence in the tech scene in Japan. Additionally, there are useful websites like Opensalary, STARTUP DB, 転職DRAFT, SPEEDA that offer insight about what’s going on in the market. Some of them are in Japanese so you can work your way around by using translation tools.

Focus on understanding the following areas: 

• Median Salaries for developers and software engineers

• Current trends in technology in Japan

• Competitive positions, companies

• Significant shifts in the market (Ex: layoffs, IPOs)

It’s equally insightful to learn from personal stories. For example, Cournelius’s personal journey on getting into Tech gives a clear picture of what the journey could be like for you, including potential challenges to take into consideration. 

Work on your Mindset

Perhaps the biggest challenge you will face during your search is with yourself. When others reject you and people say you don’t have experience, will you still believe in yourself? Success in the search starts with believing in your own abilities and maintaining that belief. 

There is no global standard for what makes a developer junior. In Japan, years of experience can weigh heavily in hiring decisions, but this doesn’t define your worth or potential. Instead of looking at the title to see if it’s junior, analyze the job description to understand what the company is looking for. ‘Junior’ is not an identity but a passing phase. 

Mindset Tip: The job search is not an isolated phase irrelevant to your being an excellent developer. The sooner you can apply the mindset you’ve used to get to where you are today, the better focus you will have on how to handle rejections and difficult situations. It will help shift your focus from short term to long-term. If you knew that a rejection today could still be a seed you plant for the future, how would this change the actions you take in your search?

Some people like to gamify the job search to keep their momentum going. Others have looked at how to improve their search like a problem-solving challenge. Your biggest asset right now is your ability to continuously learn and improve. Seek support from mentors, peers, and other specialists to keep the process going.

Strategizing Job Applications: Looking Beyond Junior Developer Jobs

The inevitable obstacle you will face during your search is finding a job that fits your experience level. While it makes sense to look for a job opening where you have the best shot at getting it, being too selective about where you send your application may be counterproductive for someone just starting out. This means two things: You need to make peace with yourself and send out more applications, and you need to go above and beyond to demonstrate your potential.

So should you apply to a job listed as ‘senior’?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is it depends on a few things. The first is what the requirements say in the listing. Do they mention a tech stack you have some experience in? Do they use technologies that you have used before? Secondly, look for indications on how aggressively and urgently they may be hiring. You can check for these by researching to see if they recently got a round of funding and if there are multiple job listings. Sometimes an established company will have a new project or service they are recruiting to grow a small team. These situations could also be a chance for junior developers too. 

The idea you want to have is that the position you apply for isn't always the job you’ll get in the end. As a former internal recruiter, I can attest to multiple occasions when an applicant didn’t match with a specific team so they were referred to another team to interview with them instead. I have also coached clients who applied to a position that was more senior and were referred to another position, yet to be published, where they were able to pass the interview. 

Understanding Job Title in Japan

There’s less job openings that say “junior” in Japan because there is no direct translation. Especially for large companies, they use different terms to categorize candidate type - 中途 chuto, 新卒 shinsotu, and 第二新卒 daini shinsotsu. Chuto means mid-career or with experience and shinsotsu means new graduate. You can learn more in detail about these categories in this Japan Dev article. Daini shinsotsu is the most similar term to ‘junior’. You might also come across tags that say ‘No-Experience Welcome’ or 未経験歓迎 mikeiken kangei and this would also be another indication the role is open to ‘juniors’. 

Applying this knowledge to your search, it means you want to use some key words like daini shinsotsu or ‘No-Experience Welcome’. What you’re aiming to do is to find job openings that aren’t extremely competitive where you have a better shot at passing the resume screening. 

Recruiter’s Perspective

So what do recruiters actually look for in junior level applications? The hard truth is for growing tech companies, they’re not really looking for juniors; they’re looking for someone who can get the job done. However, some companies are willing to help a person get there if the resource investment is manageable and there is a strong chance they will be able to perform well soon. 

For non-technical recruiters screening applications, they’re essentially looking for an overlap between your skills and knowledge and the open position. A clear demonstration of your credentials and your educational background helps. 

Subtracting points, which you really don’t want to get, include sloppy resumes with misspellings and easy-to-spot errors, mass spam applications, and no cover letter. If there are enough subtracting points and you don’t have enough years of experience, the likelihood of you passing the resume screening becomes low.

Personal Story: The very first time I laid eyes on a resume sent by a bootcamp graduate, I almost tossed it. Then I had a split second doubt and forwarded it to the technical manager of the team. 

This resulted in us not only conducting interviews but even sending an offer. (The minimum requirement said “3 years of experience,”  by the way.) 

What made me reconsider? The resume did not contain those subtracting points and the cover letter demonstrated good writing skills. The manager also happened to have a non-traditional background and we were having difficulty finding candidates to even interview. 

You don’t need to aim to convince everyone that you are the perfect fit for the job when you apply. Aim for just enough to get them to say, “Alright, let’s see what they’ve got”. 

Language Proficiency

As Eric mentioned in his article, Moving to Japan as a Software Developer: An Opinionated FAQ “you don’t need to speak Japanese to find a job in Japan”. This is still true. However, if you are looking for ways to increase your chances of getting a developer position in Japan, leveraging your linguistic ability is a good idea. 

With the increased difficulty in finding tech professionals, more companies in Japan are shifting their focus from local native Japanese-speaking talent to global non-native talent. The added hurdle is handling visa and other logistic issues that some companies don’t have the bandwidth to cover. This is why if you don’t need a visa sponsorship and speak some Japanese (with the intention to improve) you may have a better shot at getting your foot in the door. 

Using Japanese in your job search is also a good strategy to find opportunities that are less competitive to other English speaking job seekers, helping you stand out from the crowd. The caveat is you need to be able to do the interviews in Japanese but if you’re at an intermediate level already, this may still be worth trying. 

Case Study: On one occasion, I worked with a job seeker who had been living in Japan for a few years. Although their JLPT was N3, their fluency felt higher because they had learned to speak Japanese by living in the rural area, immersing themselves in the culture. 

However,when they began the job search, they did not see their Japanese fluency as an advantage so they quickly got stuck. When we went back to analyze the jobs where they passed the initial screening, they were almost always Japanese companies doing recruitment in Japanese and English. 

Once they were able to gain clarity on this trend, they began to proactively leverage their Japanese proficiency by going to Japanese speaking events and doing casual interviews in Japanese with smaller companies. In the end they secured a developer position where the spoken language was a mix of English and Japanese. 

Networking

The English speaking community for tech professionals in Japan still remains relatively small and many members are foreigners living in Japan. Networking in this environment means joining communities, connecting with individuals on LinkedIn. Here are some short pieces of advice:

• Get your LinkedIn and Github profiles updated.

• Instead of going to many different events, find a community you like and become an active member.

• If you genuinely enjoyed speaking with someone, send them a message to thank them.

• Always be the last one to finish the chat and show gratitude for their time and attention.

Don’t restrict yourself to just tech events. Take every occasion, including lunch with friends, home parties, language exchanges, to let people know what you’ve been up to. The beauty of networking lies in letting go of expectations to get certain results.

Crafting a Standout Resume and Cover Letter

The very first step to writing a good resume is NOT choosing a template. I’ve seen many resumes written by job seekers transitioning into tech and a common mistake people make is that the resume needs to be flashy to get people’s attention. It may be more relevant if you are looking for a designer role but this is not what increases response rate. 

Legibility is a key factor for a developer’s resume. Like writing code, you can see writing a good resume as a demonstration of your organization and communication skills. 

If your previous experience is not in tech, here are some tips:

• Avoid using industry specific jargon and replace them with words that are more commonly used in tech, where possible.

• Be very careful not to sound like a student. For example, don’t say “In our recent group project” or “my solo project”. 

• If your previous work experience was outside of Japan, use a more appropriate title that reflects local customs.

• Rephrase your previous work experience to demonstrate transferable skills and impact on organization. If you’re not sure what kind of impact you’ve had, think about the following: How did you increase revenue? Improve a system or process? Satisfy clients? Cut down costs?

• Instead of writing all your projects in the project section, choose one or two that demonstrate your technical ability the best.

• Check the content of your resume matches with your LinkedIn profile.  

Cover letters are essential if you are looking for a junior developer position in Japan because it’s embedded in the resume template. When job seekers submit their application in Japanese, there is a section called 志望動機 shibou douki where you write your reason for applying. This essentially functions as the cover letter. For internal recruiters who are recruiting Japanese and English-speaking positions, it makes sense that something feels lacking when the cover letter is missing. 

Here are some essential tips: 

• Do not recycle the same cover letter. 

• Be very specific about the reason why you want to work there. You can show your level of interest by using recent press releases, CEO interviews or employee stories.

• Use the body paragraph to highlight matching experiences and skills that reflect the job description. Always start with the technical skills

Here’s a detailed guide that walks through each step in creating a quality resume and cover letter. Finally, get someone to give you feedback on what you have written. Even if it’s someone not in tech, they may be able to spot a small error or provide a perspective that is useful.

Should you work with Recruiters?

It’s relatively common for people to work with recruiters in Japan. Often,recruiters can feel more like a foe than a friend for job seekers who are getting into tech. Getting ghosted by them or even being told what you’re looking for isn’t possible can downright hurt your confidence. The way to approach working with recruiters is to test how your resume and the way you talk about yourself is working. Of course not all recruiters have the knowledge of tech to give you useful feedback so you should be the first to check if they have the background and experience that demonstrates some knowledge. 

When you’re in an initial consultation with a recruiter, put the investigator hat on. Pay attention to what parts of your resume they are looking at, what kind of follow up questions they ask after you introduce yourself, and what makes them have certain impressions of your technical level. Even if they don’t have any roles to introduce you to, gathering data points by talking to many recruiters this way can contribute to your learning. 

Recruiter Tip: The next time you’re invited to have a consultation with a recruiter, practice your self-introduction first. Steer away from telling a story on how you got into coding, the challenges you faced while you were learning to code. Practice stating the facts. “I have experience in …” Most recruiters won’t believe your depth of knowledge by simply hearing you say that. If a recruiter is communicative and they seem to have more understanding of your potential, you could suggest that you are open to taking any technical tests or projects. 

Conclusion

In this article, I’ve laid out advice for people who are just getting into tech in Japan. Navigating the job search as a junior developer is never easy, but by developing good self-awareness of your abilities, understanding the landscape, installing a strategy, and maintaining persistence, achieving the goal is possible. 

The first is to make sure you have a clear understanding of where the gaps are in your own experience and what companies expect to see in a developer. Once the gaps have been identified, find ways to bridge them. You will also need to see what’s going on in the job market to better position yourself in it. Use online resources to gain maco and micro views of what to expect. Once the context is clear, coming up with a good strategy on finding roles will be a key step. To avoid extremely competitive roles, combine Japanese in your search. Focus on developing your writing and organizational skills for your resume. To add to your strategy, rethink how leveraging your Japanese proficiency can benefit you. 

Once you have the strategy, go out and connect with people. This means engaging with others to set the idea that you are a developer who has knowledge to offer. Be open to the surprises that unfold. Also, have a well-written resume and cover letter to showcase your credentials will fortify your presence as a developer. How well you have created your resume can be checked by talking to recruiters. Talking to recruiter can be beneficial if you know what you’re looking for.

The journey to getting your developer position started way before you began your job search. It started with you believing you can learn and grow. So keep learning, growing, improving, and connecting!