What it's like to join a startup in Japan
mygengo.com
What it's like to join a startup in Japan
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#2I was wondering about working in Japan - I'd love to know how the scene/pay/hours/good parts/bad parts/visa acquisition is compared to other countries.
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#3I was wondering about working in Japan - I'd love to know how the scene/pay/hours/good parts/bad parts/visa acquisition is compared to other countries.
the visa part can be (as in many countries - except maybe as eu citizen in another eu country) a bit annoying.
as an engineer (programmer) you either need a degree or (documented) 10 yrs+ of work experience. if ou fulfill that you basically have to stick to the checklist of what to hand in in what form like sticking to an rfc. reason i mention this is that i heard of/from quite a couple of people who did not - going like "i did not have X so i handed in Y which is basically the same...". does not fly...
then you either need a company "sponsoring you' or have proof that you have enough income (ie. several contracts as a freelancer).
in the end it is less scary than many posts on the net make you (made me) think.
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#4I was wondering about working in Japan - I'd love to know how the scene/pay/hours/good parts/bad parts/visa acquisition is compared to other countries.
Bit more background info here (I co-founded the company that the person blogging here is working for, s'pose he'd better answer about the pay :)) http://blog.500startups.com/2011/01/24/how-to-create-a-succe...
Visa: If you have a college degree and/or significant experience it helps a lot but we know people who've managed to self-sponsor with just the experience.
But working for a traditional Japanese company is normally a soul-crushing experience for foreigners. There are not a lot of startups here :)
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#5I was wondering about working in Japan - I'd love to know how the scene/pay/hours/good parts/bad parts/visa acquisition is compared to other countries.
How's working in $YOUR_NATION? A fairly diverse experience, right? You've got scrappy startup programmers and 7-11 clerks and toilet-plunging janitors and people kept on a government payroll for no discernible reason, right? We have those, too. Whatever job conditions you have seen, we almost certainly have someone here.
Concrete for techies, work at myGengo is very different than being a salaryman at a particular Japanese multinational I have intimate experience of. That multinational is different from Toyota. Toyota is very much not Sony. There's a raft of Big Freaking Foreign Megacorps in Tokyo and the experience of working for them is, I'm told, not salarymanesque and also different from their home offices.
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#6I was a little confused, thought there would be more about "in Japan" and less about "join a startup". Helpful confusion for your traffic, though. ;)
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#7Not to be dismissive, but a more correct title is 'How I describe the company I work at from the rose-colored glasses that come with the first few weeks/months of employment at a new place'.
(or if I was more cynical: 'our company is great! come work for us! remember to tell the CEO that I referred you, it may influence my bonus!')
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#8I read the headline and actually laughed out loud at the thought of it.
In my mind* North American Startups probably have the work hours of regular Japanese corporations. So a Japanese startup must be some order of magnitude higher than that... they probably manage to squeeze a 25th hour out of you every single work-day or something.
*completely ignorant mind that is, I've never worked in Japan, just from what I've read.
Hmm... sadly the article has very little substance in terms of the Japanese culture in a startup environment. Disappointing.
Is this just keyword spam for myGengo or something?
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#9coincidentally, this week I used myGengo's services for the first time, after wanting to get a web app translated. Seriously impressed, speedy service, and the strings tool makes life very easy. Highly recommend - and can't complain about the price either :-)
Re: What it's like to join a startup in Japan
#10I was wondering about working in Japan - I'd love to know how the scene/pay/hours/good parts/bad parts/visa acquisition is compared to other countries.
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