From Defense Industry to Robotics in Japan: A Job You Can Brag About

“I just jumped on the opportunity"

That's how Justin explains how he ended up studying abroad in Japan. And this seems to be a recurring theme in his journey.

Today, Justin works as a Backend System Engineer at Mujin, a cutting-edge robotics company in Japan.

We talked to Justin to find out exactly how he went from a defense company in the US to hacking on robot tech in Tokyo.  Here’s how it happened.

By the way, you can also listen to the interview on Spotify!

Profile: Justin is a Backend System Engineer at Mujin, a leading robotics company in Japan, where he works on integrating robots with industrial systems. After starting his career in the U.S. defense industry, he followed his passion for robotics and moved to Japan, combining his technical expertise with a curiosity for living abroad.

A Foray into Learning Japanese

During university, Justin started learning Japanese after he chose it as an extra elective for his undergraduate degree.

Like many people who move to Japan, Justin admits that he didn’t have a “super deep understanding” about Japanese culture. But he had just enough curiosity about living in Japan to try it out. 

Later in his university career, he applied for a study abroad program which placed him in the outskirts of Tokyo for almost a year. During this time, he enjoyed the experience enough to consider the idea of having a career in Japan.

In fact, Justin describes getting to study abroad as a "once in a lifetime experience". But Justin wasn't quite ready to move to Japan full-time just yet.

He lived in a dorm at a Japanese university, and came face-to-face with Japanese culture.  He was already finished with his computer science classes, so Justin was able to focus on Japanese language classes.

Starting a Career in the USA

After graduating from university, Justin went on to work at a US company in the defense industry. And then COVID hit.

Justin says the resulting sudden switch to remote work was “kind of weird for me. I was so used to working in the lab and being hands-on with my projects”. So after spending most of his time working at home, by the time COVID restrictions were finally easing up, he was “ready to make a pretty big change”. 

At the time, he was working at a major US defense contractor, but he decided that he wanted a change.  At this point, Justin also felt that he hadn’t fully closed the chapter of living in Japan, and he wanted to get more experience living and working there.

So he began searching for jobs.

Finding a Great Fit with Mujin

Justin had decided he wanted to move back to Japan, but that meant he needed to find a job.  And when Justin was first looking for jobs in Japan, he was afraid that his interest in low-level engineering would make it hard to find a position.

Justin had a good amount of experience in embedded platforms, Linux kernel development and SoCs.  But he found that a lot of the available developer jobs in Japan were for high-level roles like web and mobile development.

He applied for various positions that matched his background (including some on Japan Dev!).  And he got job offers from a few different companies.

With Mujin, Justin found that his skills matched up perfectly with what they were looking for.  But he says his final decision to sign with them largely came down to two things.

First, he was genuinely interested in Mujin’s mission to provide unique robot solutions for various industries. 

The second was a conversation he had with his future team lead.  Justin recalls that during the interview process, “I just wanted to work with him. I could tell I was going to learn a lot”.

This human connection helped Justin make his final decision to join Mujin.  He’d be making his way back to Japan.

A Job Justin Could Tell His Friends About

One challenge with Justin’s previous job was the secretive nature of the defense industry.  Compared to most tech jobs, there are strict rules when it comes to sharing the content of your work.  That meant he couldn’t talk about his work outside his company.  

Justin found this a little frustrating, especially since he was working on “cool stuff” — he just couldn’t share it with anyone.  In his words, “If you're familiar with the defense industry, eventually they start putting you in windowless rooms.”

Luckily, Mujin didn’t share this limitation. They publicly share info about their tech, work style and more.  So joining Mujin has given Justin a lot more chances to discuss his work outside the office.  He can even participate in interviews about what he’s working on (like this one!).

Also, the software engineering field evolves quickly.  We can see how — from a career perspective — a secretive position at a defense contractor could cause anxiety: It could make it hard to prove your skills as an engineer.  Are you really building transferable skills?  Are you using the latest technologies at work?  Working at Mujin makes it easy to show that the answer is yes!

Speaking of which, let’s take a look at what Justin’s life actually looks like at Mujin.

Life at Mujin in Tokyo

Working at Mujin has allowed Justin to pursue his passion for robots while living in Japan. 

For some background, Mujin's software platform, MujinController, makes industrial robotics systems intelligent. The platform transforms factories and warehouses by giving their automation systems the ability to see the world, decide how to react, and move with precision.

As part of Mujin’s development division, Justin works on a feature called “Robot Bridges”. It allows users to connect robots, sensors, PLCs, and conveyors to Mujin's robotics platform. It also provides a communication layer for all these elements so they can function well together.

Justin’s role within the team is focused on developing the backend system, or as Justin describes it, the “glue for all the components of the system”.

One of his favorite parts about working on this team is that he’s able to get incredibly hands-on with the projects. Working in such close proximity with the robots means that he can debug code and run tests in real time to see how the code directly affects the robots’ performance.

“I can literally pick up my laptop from my desk and go walk 30 feet over to the robots”, he says. 

Since the Backend Team touches a lot of different products and teams, “there’s a steep learning curve, but at the same time, every day is slightly different”. He says, “Being able to interface directly with the robots is pretty rewarding”.

Mujin’s Culture + Cross-border Projects

Another big component of working at Mujin is the opportunity to work on features with dev teams in other countries. 

Mujin has offices around the world including in the USA, the Netherlands, and China. And Justin says there are lots of chances to work on cross-border projects.  This creates opportunities for engineers to work together on the same product for different customer needs.

For example, Justin notes that customers in the US have bigger warehouses than in Japan. So Mujin’s solutions need to take these differences into account.

Or warehouses in one location might have a higher temperature or humidity level than another location. These variables can affect the performance of the system, and present new challenges that require new solutions at a global scale.

In short, there’s a lot of cross-border communication that needs to happen to build a truly global product.

Justin says that he still feels like he’s learning new things day to day even after being at Mujin for 2 years. Whether it’s through deep technical discussions about design with other team members, finding bugs, fixing and testing with the robots, or sitting in on sales meetings. 

The culture at Mujin emphasizes continuously improving the solution and capabilities of the system. And Justin says his team is great at innovating on new processes and leveraging existing knowledge to find solutions so “deployments go a lot smoother”. 

He says this level of adaptability when working on improving the product has been a valuable experience. It also keeps things interesting.

Adjusting to Work and Life in Japan

Though Justin has passed the JLPT N2, he finds himself only using Japanese outside of work. This is because Mujin's engineering team works entirely in English. In fact, they don't require any Japanese skills to join their team.

He says his Japanese skills do occasionally come in handy though. When the Japanese sales team is talking with clients about integration, “I can understand what they’re saying [which] makes things a little bit smoother”, he says.

But with 30 nationalities on the engineering team, most engineers working at Mujin actually don’t speak Japanese. Justin notes that he didn’t face any major cultural barriers at work when he first started working, since English is used internally and it’s the preferred language.

Because of this, the general work culture is also more Western than he expected, and it made the adjustment easy.

Even during the move, Mujin helped out with finding apartments and setting up the necessary documents from the city offices. Justin says they “held my hand [throughout the process]… so that made it pretty easy”.

Still, there were a few challenges.

Justin continues, “But at the same time, I was also really surprised at how difficult it is to get an apartment here”. Compared to back in the States, “I pretty much walked in and then day of, signed off the lease and was moving in the next day”, he laughs. 

Tips and Advice

There are quite a few opportunities to work in Japan at robotics companies like Mujin.

For those who are still in school, Justin recommends joining a robotics club to get an early hands-on experience of how things work. He personally learned a lot through hobby coding and doing low-level development on his own. 

Otherwise, he suggests gathering info and contacting people who are doing the job that you’re interested in to get more insight. And of course, getting familiar with Japanese culture will help with the transition. 

Justin jumped on the opportunity to work and live in Japan, and Mujin was the perfect fit for his own interests and preferred work environment. 

Mujin has truly aligned itself with the global standard with its cutting-edge tech and work culture. Their team of international engineers is always ready to take on new challenges, and they've built a great support system for relocation and beyond.

Do you want to help enable the next generation of industrial robots?

Mujin’s international engineering team offers a chance to do just that.  Mujin will help you relocate from overseas and they don’t require Japanese skills for engineers.  

Check out Mujin's open job positions here!

P.S. Want to listen to the audio version of this interview? Check it out on Spotify below