Sheriff Wrote:Thank you for all the insight provided. It's definitively very interesting. Even though none of the examples include my line of work. If, by any chance, there's someone who knows a little bit about jobs in the field of FPGA/ASIC/circuit design, then any piece of information would be most appreciated.

I'm too looking forward to some info on this field jobs. I feel like electronics engineers in Japan are treated like slaves, lol, dunno why.

Sheriff Wrote:Thank you for all the insight provided. It's definitively very interesting. Even though none of the examples include my line of work. If, by any chance, there's someone who knows a little bit about jobs in the field of FPGA/ASIC/circuit design, then any piece of information would be most appreciated.

While I've never looked or seen anything about this; I can't help but think you might have better luck asking on 2ch's recruit board or job board.

I could try posting a thread on 2ch and seeing if anyone bites. What do you want to know?

fakewookie Wrote:Surprised nobody has mentioned investment banks yet. New hires with no experience get 60-70万 + bonus where I work, plus relatively chill hours (9:30 - 6:30 is pretty typical). No Japanese required.

I don't know what other banks are like though.

I never heard of "investment banks" and "relatively chill hours" in the same paragraph before... back in the UK all the main ones seemed to be 12+ hours a day, 5-7 days a week. :/

Right now my needs are more than met by my 180万/year scholarship... I'd be happy living on this for the rest of my life were it not for being nagged to buy a house and have kids. I guess this is what it means to be 草食系..

Don't buy a house in Japan, or a condo. Stupidest decision you could make. Houses/Condos don't appreciate with time, unlike the US/other places, houses/condos value basically goes down with time.
/derail

vix86 Wrote:I've heard it mentioned by other people, but having almost no idea what you would do at an investment bank, I've never looked into it. Working at a bank too, wouldn't really go very far toward putting experience toward programming so I can get a job at some of the more big name companies like Google.

I meant working in IT at a bank. I am a programmer and do nothing but write code.

corry Wrote:You mean doing Excel + VBA ? Is it a Western firm where you work.

No, I mean doing C++, C#, Java, Python, SQL, etc., depending on what division you work in/what bank you work at (some lean more towards Java, others C#, etc.). Yes, I work at a Western firm.

dizmox Wrote:I never heard of "investment banks" and "relatively chill hours" in the same paragraph before... back in the UK all the main ones seemed to be 12+ hours a day, 5-7 days a week. :/

You're probably not looking at/talking to people specifically about IT. Being a developer isn't being a trader; there's no demand for you to work 12+ hours a day or on weekends or anything. It's not really that different to working at a software company, you just get paid a lot more and get a bonus at the end of the year.

Hyperborea Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:Don't buy a house in Japan, or a condo. Stupidest decision you could make. Houses/Condos don't appreciate with time, unlike the US/other places, houses/condos value basically goes down with time.
/derail

Japan's been in a 20 year stagnation/deflation situation with inflation being zero or negative. Given that housing prices pretty much follow inflation that's not surprising. Plenty of other housing markets have had a net zero or even negative return over the last 10 years. That situation may not get better over the next number of years in the industrialized world given the coming downsizing of the baby boomers. It's a scenario that's similar to what started in Japan about 10 years earlier than the rest of the industrialized world.

I don't know much about it I suppose, but I don't think in Japan it has too much to do with economic stagnation. Japan just has different ideas about housing. People want to rent new apartments, and buy new houses and condos, so older houses and condos have low value no matter what. Houses in Japan aren't really maintened well, and aren't really built to last that long, and are typically just torn down after a family is done with them (rather than selling to another family).

I could be wrong though, since I just got this impression from word of mouth in Japan. I'm sure someone knows more about this than me.

I wouldn't buy a house anywhere unless I was planning on living in it for the forseeable future anyway...

fakewookie Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:I never heard of "investment banks" and "relatively chill hours" in the same paragraph before... back in the UK all the main ones seemed to be 12+ hours a day, 5-7 days a week. :/

You're probably not looking at/talking to people specifically about IT. Being a developer isn't being a trader; there's no demand for you to work 12+ hours a day or on weekends or anything. It's not really that different to working at a software company, you just get paid a lot more and get a bonus at the end of the year.

I was just going by what some guy who worked in operations said, assuming they'd be about the same.

I actually interned in that sort of financial IT job (though at a IT company), but couldn't see any reward in it to take the full time offer. :/ Maybe a bank's IT division atmosphere is more aspirational..

I'm going to start a new thread on the networking and job hunting portion of my answer but I just wanted to share what my salary research turned up. All of these numbers are pre-tax, assume 12 payments a year, and are Tokyo only. This is strictly programming salaries only although other IT salaries appear to be very similar.

Entry: 25万 〜 35万
Mid: 40万 〜 60万
Senior: 60万 〜 90万

In all range categories you can of course do better and worse because ultimately it's up to you to know the market and negotiate your salary accordingly. There is a tendency for Japanese companies to pay all fresh college recruits the same salary regardless of position but after your first year that experience is already worth quite a bit and if your employer isn't interested in giving you a raise then you should probably find someone who will. Also it seems like foreign companies tend to pay better across the board so the top-end of all ranges aren't necessarily possible in a traditional Japanese company, furthermore I have no personal experience with them and have heard plenty of horror stories from Japanese and foreigners alike.

Each company has slightly different job requirements but roughly 3-5 years is mid and beyond that its going to depend on the specific industry and company to decide senior. Also I have a feeling that foreign companies are going to base it more on overall skill and experience where a Japanese company will base it more on overall age and experience.

dizmox Wrote:I was just going by what some guy who worked in operations said, assuming they'd be about the same.

Nooooo, Operations is completely different. They work a lot more hours, for less.

fakewookie Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:I've heard it mentioned by other people, but having almost no idea what you would do at an investment bank, I've never looked into it. Working at a bank too, wouldn't really go very far toward putting experience toward programming so I can get a job at some of the more big name companies like Google.

I meant working in IT at a bank. I am a programmer and do nothing but write code.

corry Wrote:You mean doing Excel + VBA ? Is it a Western firm where you work.

No, I mean doing C++, C#, Java, Python, SQL, etc., depending on what division you work in/what bank you work at (some lean more towards Java, others C#, etc.). Yes, I work at a Western firm.

dizmox Wrote:I never heard of "investment banks" and "relatively chill hours" in the same paragraph before... back in the UK all the main ones seemed to be 12+ hours a day, 5-7 days a week. :/

You're probably not looking at/talking to people specifically about IT. Being a developer isn't being a trader; there's no demand for you to work 12+ hours a day or on weekends or anything. It's not really that different to working at a software company, you just get paid a lot more and get a bonus at the end of the year.

I did this for 5 years or so for Morgan Stanley. Highly recommended!

I'm hoping I'll be able to find something similar later when I move back to Tokyo, although the IB market is pretty tough right now since the markets are still bad in general. Especially since the Asia market is all leaving Japan now to go to HK and Singapore, suggestions of "why not just go get an IB job??" are far easier said than done..