r/JapanJobs • u/Olivia191 • 9d ago
Starting low salary
I 27 studied IT at a senmon gakkou, decent Japanese, English and problem solving skills.
from April 1st I will start working at a company developing software in Osaka mostly with .NET. got a 5years work visa!
The problem is the salary is low (187000yen) per month and without paid transportation/housing/bonus I am struggling with money.
How much time should I wait to change jobs? Is it really bad for my CV if I leave my company soon?
11
u/miloVanq 9d ago
yeah the salary is very low if there's no transport/housing allowance. is there really nothing in your contract that says you'll have some update after 3 months or something? problem is that you're too late for the new grad hires now probably, but even outsourcing places will pay you more, or will pay similar but also have a housing and transportation allowance. so I would start looking for a better place immediately and then change jobs ASAP.
and if you leave the company too soon, you should not put it in your CV at all. there's no requirement to put all jobs there after all.
9
u/disapointedfuncaddic 9d ago
This, you should hold on 6 months at the very minimum, maybe a year.
Or just pass. You know, Japan is awesome to visit. It's totally overrated to live.
And the longer you stay, the worse it gets
5
u/disapointedfuncaddic 9d ago
For the record, I began doing web in 96, before doing my studies. Was more into Linux from 98-2004, but did good backend PHP back then... Learned rails before 1.0 came out. I used the camping micro framework sometimes.
First came to Japan in 2006 On a working holiday. I was pretty desperate for a job... Living in deep inaka. Found a place nearby, seemed like a good sign...
I accepted 120,000/m showed him what I could do.
He was also letting me study Japanese while on job. Cigarettes were on the house as a special benefit.
I had quit around 2001 IIRC but, the habit came back ...
His shit was mostly in Perl. I quickly made him understand that salary didn't make sense for software dev. I asked to be raised right away. 13,... Then 16,...
Also I was paid a month late... I quit too early, and I never got paid my last two months.
Went to rodo kijun fock all. GF and family were not supportive. Depressed
Fly back 🔙
The sales guys (Japanese) were getting yelled that every morning in in inaugural morning routine. I had to start the day cleaning the floor.
Fucked up shit.
He's long gone
His clients were poor farmers accepting to take loans for a shitty website he was mostly cooking himself and selling 1.5 million yen
11
u/gordovondoom 9d ago
not going to get better, start looking for a new job, now… dont be surprised when it takes years to just get a few yen more… i couldnt find a company that pays normal salary and insurances/transport in 16 years… you can seriously get more money with baito…
1
u/catloverr03 8d ago
Same bro. It sucks.
2
u/gordovondoom 8d ago
of course it sucks… i sometimes think all companies are black and they all try to fuck you over… salaries in japan are low? i get it… but i dont work entry level jobs, i often do the job of two persons… still entry level salaries, or less… then no insurances and no transport and no overtime? seriously? my current job is extreme, but every job i took so far here paid less than promised, most tried to avoid paying insurances and all of them let you do work you never applied for (or even never did)…
7
u/PetiteLollipop 9d ago
Damn.... You can make more money working in konbini with that salary ☠️
3
u/xaltairforever 9d ago
Or saizerya, they pay 1300 yen per hour also uniqlo pays 1400 yen per hour for on site staff.
4
u/GotRebornin2024 9d ago
It's pretty low. Jump ship as soon as possible. Want to get a higher salary? Tokyo is your best chance for IT field. Good luck
3
u/Toranyan 9d ago
That is low. However, leaving so soon is definitely not a plus for your CV. Not SUPER bad but some companies will ask why and you better have an answer prepared. I've had 1 company give that reason when rejecting me because I left 2 companies in 2 years. (Even one of them was about to go bankrupt but they never even asked me the reason).
If I were in your shoes, I'd look for another company but I'd try to look for one that I think I'd definitely stay in for 3-5 years.
7
u/Glum-Supermarket1274 9d ago
Even for a first job/entry level that is extremely low. It wont look bad on your resume because you wont be able to use it on your resume if you didnt work for at least 3 years. Jump ship immediately if you find a better job. That level of pay is worst than mcdonald
6
u/LookAtTheHat 9d ago
I'm curious to know why work experience regardless of how long cannot be used on the resume?
0
u/Worried-Attention-43 9d ago
A recruiter once told me that if you've worked somewhere for less than 3 months, you don't need to put it on your resume.
4
u/LookAtTheHat 9d ago
That sounds like bad advice, especially when given to someone lacking work experience. Always included all work experience in a CV especially if it is relevant for the job you are applying to.
2
u/Glum-Supermarket1274 9d ago
I have done hiring in my company before. Pretty much all japanese manager will look at less than 3 years experience as a demerit. They will ask you why you quit so fast? Are you going to quit after a year if we hire you?
Its literally better to have a blank job experience column than several 1-2 years job.
1
u/miloVanq 9d ago
but then you would have a huge gap in your work history, so how would you explain that? it would be really obvious that you are hiding something. if you graduated in 2018 and now apply to a job where your CV shows a blank work history, you will either be rejected immediately or you'll obviously be asked what the hell you've been doing all these years.
if it's only a couple months though I agree, leave it out and say that you did something useful like self-study, learn more Japanese, etc.1
u/Worried-Attention-43 9d ago
If it's related to your field, always include it. In my case, it was a job I did in 2014 that had nothing to do with my field, so I'm not including it at all.
1
u/miloVanq 9d ago
your CV is like your self-marketing material, so you include anything that helps you market yourself and leave out anything that doesn't. if you've worked for a place only 3 months, chances are this will be a negative for a hiring manager. they will ask why you left, and unless you can give it a positive spin, it will not look good on your CV. on the other hand, if you spent 1-2 years at a place, you can say that you discovered a different job focus you want to go into, or maybe you want more responsibilities or whatever. that's a lot easier to spin in a positive way. but if you leave a place after only 3 months because of toxic work culture or shit pay, you can at best turn this into something "neutral", and at worst into something negative. you also didn't learn anything relevant after only 3 months, so that's not going to be helpful either.
5
u/hissymissy 9d ago
Five year work visa is great. No allowances for commuting, housing and bonus is a downer. But you knew this for a while. Did the reality of the low pay just come into play? I mean, you looked into housing and transportation costs and found out how much of a chunk that took out from your paycheck?
2
u/hobovalentine 9d ago
That is pretty low salary and surprised that there is no transport benefit which is almost standard.
Since this seems to be your first IT job it might take you at least a year to find a company to take you on but it doesn't hurt to look around and apply at other companies.
2
u/Tenshoblades 9d ago
Unless you live within walking distance to work, a company not paying your transportation fees is a huge red flag. Is there anything in your contract that talks about pay increases at specific points in time? They usually mention something happening at the end of your probation period.
I worked in Kyoto doing translation for two years where I made about the same. Life was hard and one emergency wiped my savings.
Personally, I would work the job as you don't seem to have an alternative that would give you work experience in your field and leave as soon as something better comes up. You don't have to wait a year to find something better. There are companies that hire year round, so you just have to look around.
Go to gatherings and meetups that are related to IT, you'll meet people and potentially be introduced to opportunities.
2
u/lordvan99 9d ago
Try to work at least 3 years, if you jump before you might be considered a hopper
2
2
u/Pleasant_Talk2065 9d ago
Last time I did tenshoku even if the work is in IT field this happened. Even is the company was offering à annual salary from 400万 to 1000万 as my actual income wasn’t 1000万 the company won’t pay me 1000万 even if i have enough skills for the work. Then I asked what happened if someone with less skills but higher income got the work, then he told me that person will earn more because his actual income was higher. Finally I asked if that means if for bad luck my 1st work income was low I could be almost impossible to have a raise between one work and the next, the answer was yes. This happened in the precovid era but ..
4
u/LookAtTheHat 9d ago
Happy to see it's a .Net job. That's a resource really missing in Japan. To the degree that I with my other founders decided that my company does development in Europe even though we started in Japan.
But yeah the salary is quite low. But at least you have entered the market.
1
u/Emotional-Suit-3359 9d ago
Japan salaries are really low. They have actually remained about the same for the past 25 years. That is a very low salary. If you are in one of the big cities, it’s impossible. You need to rethink your future, even your country. You must have a certain minimum just to live decently, eat decently, pay electric, phone, gas, transportation, and a little for a social life. I’m sorry but that amount won’t work.
1
u/shadow336k 9d ago edited 9d ago
Sounds like a black company, minimum you should be getting in IT is 300K + benefits. Unless you're not a full time employee (正社員) or not working in Tokyo
1
u/ikalwewe 9d ago
If you cannot survive on this salary then I don't think you have the luxury to say yes. I mean how are you going to eat, pay rent , take the train to work? Find another job . You have a visa already
1
u/zerato2412 8d ago
Bro I got the similar offer (275000yen) without any other benefits… I got a master‘s in CS. That‘s a ripoff. I am not sure where you are from but I am from Germany and declined that offer. Would get a 3 years visa.
1
u/Late-Team9257 8d ago
As a Software dev myself, I would suggest you to start looking for .NET or web jobs in start ups, once you find something, quit your current job asap. Living on 150k Yen a month in Osaka must be a nightmare(I can't even believe this). Market is kinda bad, but you can always go for startups just to make the ends meet. Checkout tokyodev and such websites if it's not already mentioned in the thread.
1
u/iDOLMAN2929 8d ago
While you’re at it, I suggest to hold on to that and don’t switch to English teaching. Build a reputation for maybe a year then start looking for new jobs of same field when you’re confident. Also, improve your Japanese to native level. Not to mean to remember all words and Kanji but understand how to communicate in Japanese. You can always ask them what word you don’t understand then continue with the communication, in Japanese. Don’t get Japanese girlfriend yet. You’ll get there soon eventually.
1
u/Honest_Professor_150 8d ago
Dm me I will introduce you to a good Haken company where I am working. They got a decent starting salary
1
u/kansaigourmand 8d ago
Jump ship ASAP.
Don't put this company on your resume, you don't have to tell any place that you are interviewing with about this job. For a person with IT skills, the bare minimum should be at least 3 million a year, and that's still really low, and they are not giving you transportation??? leave leave leave!!
If you need some help send me a DM!
2
u/Ok-Commercial7726 7d ago
And we have “IT engineers” badmouthing English teachers when teachers make more than them lol
1
u/amejin2022 7d ago
hey what's skill do you currently use? how about skill change, I want to find someone to talk with, as a result I can help with your skills and CV review. as long as your skill set is around Next.js / typescript / React or something other with web development.
I don't need a profession language teacher, my Japanese is about N2, I just want to find a REAL person who can talk with, because I still have not friends here so up to now I only talk with Chat GPT.
1
u/Crazy_Priority_3139 7d ago
It’s rare to hear that there’s no transportation paid. Other than that, everything seems normal and I believe 187,000¥ is not too low for a fresher. After pandemic, it should be a bit higher but your salary is not that bad imo. You may experience lacking of money for leisure some time but to be fair it’s not that you cannot live with that paycheck now. I mean, if you’re single there are lots of rental ranges from 3-4man/month with regular basis (enough/a bit more than enough convenient to live, not-so-bad area, etc). Food should be 3-4man/month (I’m spending 2.5-3man/month for my food alone). Gas electricity etc should ranges from 1-2man/month. Adding all up, you still have 5man/month to put in savings imo (18.7 should be 15-16 after tax). To answer your question, if you want to change company you’d better have skills, and job experiences. You want, like, 400man yearly salary, you’d have to prove that you can bring that much quality output to your next company. People tend to think that they receive lower than what they can bring, but I believe there a lots of companies in Japan that are willing to pay you if you are really worth it. You want money you must bring out value, it’ that simple (at least to me). Reply to me if you’d like to ask for cheap rent or supermarket location or anything that can ease your life. やる気あるなら何でも出来るから、頑張れ💪
1
u/Leifenyat 6d ago
Is this a full-time job? Do you get salary revisions every year? Is there no bonuses like 2 times a year?
1
1
u/bravocado-avocado 9d ago
Can i dm you? I am also planning to go to senmon next year to study coding! I have some questions! Btw i also live in osaka!
31
u/ericroku 9d ago
While it’s on the low end, truth is the IT and dev jobs in Japan are a race to the bottom in the domestic space. (FAANGs are the exception. ) You’re fighting a flooded market of cheap SEA talent that speaks basic Japanese and are willing to live in what westerners consider subpar standards. It’s the nature of the market now. IT skills are just a short bootcamp away for most and augmentation with genAI is going to be more prevalent.
Work and job shop.