Hi, I’m Paul, the founder of TokyoDev. Our mission is to help international software developers begin and grow their careers in Japan.
To achieve this, we:
- Manage an online and in-person community of developers in Japan.
- Research and write original articles on navigating life in Japan, from starting your own company to estimating your living costs to bringing your pets from overseas.
- Commission guest articles from developers with valuable experiences to contribute, such as getting a business manager visa and taking an exam that qualifies you for an engineering visa.
- Interview developers working at our client companies, to get the real scoop on their working conditions.
- And finally, cultivate a selective job board to help match Japanese companies with international applicants.
As developers in Japan ourselves, who’ve been through the same process, we care a lot about improving your job-hunting experience. Some of this is reflected in the design of the site itself, but much of what we do to optimize the user experience is behind the scenes.
So you can better understand our role in your job search, I will explain how we make money, why the positions we list are selective, the steps we take to improve our positions for you, and how we can help you become a better candidate.
How TokyoDev makes money
First, it is helpful to understand the relationships we have with the parties involved, and how we make money as a job board.
The companies posting to TokyoDev are our clients. We have a contract with our clients which specifies that we receive a fee should someone be successfully hired via our site.
Charging on a success basis has several benefits:
- Everyone’s interests are aligned. We only make money when companies and job seekers match.
- It’s low risk for the company. As they don’t pay anything until they succeed with us, they can try us out without too much worry.
- There’s more money for us. The postings we make are quite successful compared to other job boards—our clients have often compared us favourably to other sources. Thus, by operating on this success-based model, we’re able to earn more revenue per posting than we would if we charged a fee just for posting.
However, it also has some drawbacks:
- Companies leave up postings. If there was a cost associated with maintaining a posting, companies would only advertise positions they were aggressively recruiting for. Our model has no built-in disincentive for leaving up postings they’re no longer actively hiring for, so we have to take other measures to ensure all TokyoDev job posts are valid and active.
- We don’t always receive a fee when we should. While companies generally declare hires to us, there have been cases where they haven’t. Usually this is because of a poor communication process on their end, rather than them willfully trying to cheat us.
How TokyoDev curates the companies and positions on the site
At TokyoDev, one of our primary goals is helping international software developers get jobs in Japan. Especially when you’re looking to start working in Japan, if you don’t have Japanese abilities, an exceptional resume, or substantial work experience already, your options may be quite limited.
While we don’t want to post opportunities at companies that are horrible places to work, we also don’t want to put limits in place that would mean we don’t list “stepping stone” positions that can help people get into the country.
This is especially true because, while Japanese developer salaries may seem low to someone coming from the US, positions in Japan can be a step up for people from developing economies. There are also other, more intangible benefits to working in Japan, such as safety, healthcare, and quality of life.
What makes us special is that we are niche, so if we listed every available position on the site, TokyoDev would lose its value. With that in mind, here are our criteria:
- English is used within the company to some degree. Even if a company communicates primarily in Japanese, they should have some reason to be seeking out English speakers (our main audience). If we were to list companies that only communicated in Japanese, we’d be no different from other Japanese-language job boards.
- At most, “fluent” Japanese is required. Our main focus is positions that require no Japanese skills, but as some in our audience have Japanese abilities, we don’t want to exclude positions that might match them. However, as we want all jobs to be at least theoretically attainable by our audience, we don’t list any positions seeking native Japanese speakers.
- The position is related to software development. Again, our value derives from our focus, and we don’t want TokyoDev to be a general “jobs in Japan” site. However, some in our audience straddle the boundary between a development role and something else. Because of this, we’ll list any position that’s part of a “product team.” So in addition to development roles, things like engineering management, UX design, and product management fit, but things like sales, customer service, or HR do not.
- The company sponsors visas, or at least the renewal of residency status. While ideally the company accepts overseas applicants and will sponsor visas, that’s not going to be feasible for every business. However, developers already living in Japan often require the support of a company to renew their residency status, so we require companies to at least support the renewal of an existing residency status.
Having a client relationship with the companies gives us a strong connection to them, so we can provide them with feedback about their job postings or hiring processes. Generally speaking, the smaller the company, the greater the impact we can have. When we work with a CTO at a small startup, they’re empowered to unilaterally make decisions; with our larger companies, no one person can make a decision about anything, and it is often unclear who’s responsible for a given task—even to the people involved. Nevertheless, we can and will take action to protect TokyoDev candidates.
How TokyoDev helps with negative candidate experiences
While the overwhelming majority of people have good experiences with the companies on TokyoDev, sometimes people report poor experiences to me. What we do next depends on the severity of the report.
Poor hiring processes
Sometimes we’ll be contacted about a poor experience somebody had while applying to or interviewing for one of our posted jobs. In this case, we’ll ask for their permission to give feedback based on their experience, along with a description of what we plan to tell the company (e.g. is the feedback going to be something general that keeps the applicant anonymous, or will it mention their specific situation and identity). Because we already have a working relationship with the company, this can lead to actual change.
To give an example, I had one person tell me that, the day before their scheduled interview, they were informed it would involve programming in a language that they weren’t familiar with, and which hadn’t been listed as a requirement on the job description. This was obviously a mistake on the part of the company.
I followed up with the company about this, and they were able to identify some internal misunderstandings of the requirements of the position. Ultimately, they concluded that this language was a requirement, and so updated the job description. Additionally, the hiring manager personally apologized to the applicant via a phone call. This didn’t undo the poor experience the applicant had, but it did help prevent future problems for others.
No reply from a company
One of the most common negative experiences people have when applying for jobs is that the company will not send an explicit rejection notice. This is extremely frustrating for the candidate. While we encourage companies to reply to every applicant, we haven’t made it a hard requirement. If we did, some companies just wouldn’t post their positions on TokyoDev, and we don’t think it would be worth denying people a chance at those opportunities.
Instead, we tell people who apply via our site that they can get in touch with us if they don’t hear back from a company within two weeks. Any time we receive an inquiry about this, we reply to it.
To be honest, if we know a company is one that doesn’t send explicit rejection notices, we’ll just tell the candidate this. We still want to receive an email about it, though, because if we receive a sudden surge of emails about a given company, it’s a sign that something has gone wrong, and I’ll follow up with the company about it.
When the company hasn’t told me about a specific policy of not sending rejection emails, we’ll ask them to confirm that they’ve received the candidate’s application. While usually they just haven’t sent a rejection email, there have been times when we discovered they’d accidentally skipped over the candidate’s application, and they ended up reaching out to the applicant later.
Although there’s nothing concrete now, we plan to add a feature to TokyoDev that incentivizes companies to send explicit rejections.
Toxic workplaces
While exceptionally rare, there have been cases when people reported toxic workplace conditions at a job they found via TokyoDev. These could be things like applying deceptive practices, or management verbally abusing employees. Even though these companies could be someone’s stepping stone to Japan, we can’t in good conscience list them on the site.
When we receive such a report, we seek to confirm the facts from multiple sources. I’ll typically do this by reaching out to another developer who is working at the company or has done so in the past, and asking them about their experience and if they’d recommend it. If they tell me about bad practices similar to the ones already reported, I’ll close the positions.
When we tell the company their jobs will no longer be posted, we don’t mention any specific allegations of toxic behaviour, and try to frame the rejection as relating to something else. We do this to avoid repercussions for any individuals involved. We also explain this strategy to those individuals in advance and ask for their permission to move forward.
Judging by my conversations with management at other job boards, this is atypical. When I’ve asked how they handle things like toxic workplaces, they just kind of shrug their shoulders and say it’s not really their responsibility to do anything, as it’s up to the candidate to do their own due diligence on the company. In fairness, I think another factor is that tricky situations like this can potentially open up legal liabilities.
While it would be nice if we could take that laissez-faire attitude, it just doesn’t sit right with me, especially as many of our candidates are taking a huge personal risk by uprooting their lives and coming to Japan, where they’re in an easier position to be taken advantage of.
How TokyoDev proactively improves the experience
We personally review every job posting that’s published through TokyoDev. As a job board, the actual job posting is what we can help the most with, and so we want to optimize the experience for our candidates in this area.
Standardizing job postings
TokyoDev formats job postings in a standardized manner. We include a description of the position, followed by sections labelled “Responsibilities,” “Requirements,” and “Nice to haves.” Keeping the layouts consistent makes posts easier to compare, and avoids the ambiguity of more conversational headers like “It would be nice if you have . . .”
Also, while companies will frequently put general information about the company into their job description (such as their values, benefits, etc.), we don’t include these in our job descriptions. Rather, we keep this information to their company page on TokyoDev. This makes comparing multiple positions from the same company easier, as there shouldn’t be repeated information that you need to scan past.
Doing this is a mostly manual process, where we reformat the posting on the company’s behalf to divide it into the appropriate sections and remove unnecessary information. If it is a substantial edit, we ask the company to confirm.
Sometimes postings will have both English versions and Japanese versions of the text. In this case, we’ll also remove the Japanese version, so only the English version remains, which makes it easier to read than skipping between Japanese and English text.
Clarifying information
It’s rare to see a job posting that is naturally great. While it’s not feasible for us to perfect every job posting, we do want to ensure that posts come up to a minimum level of quality. This includes things like:
- Correcting typos.
- Suggesting the removal of duplicate requirements. For example, if a position lists “3+ years of Ruby on Rails experience” and “Experience with developing web applications,” it can just list the Ruby on Rails requirement, as Rails is used to develop web applications.
- Clarifying ambiguous requirements. Sometimes a company will include requirements that are hard to understand, and so I ask for clarification from the company as to what they actually mean.
- Requesting more details about what the position entails. It’s unfortunately common for a posting to focus exclusively on what they want from the candidate, and not the reverse.
These edits are done on a best-effort basis, while keeping in mind that speed is essential. The longer we spend working on a single posting, the more likely it is to be posted with our competitors or closed altogether before we’ve finished. We try to strike a balance, and also leave the door open to further candidate questions.
Encouraging the inclusion of salary information
If a position doesn’t include a salary range, we request that the company include one. We point out that this clearly sets expectations and creates a better experience for both parties, that salary transparency helps close the gender pay gap, and that the majority of positions listed on the site contain this information. Sometimes this does lead companies who haven’t shared salary information before to start including it.
Prohibiting potentially discriminatory questions
Since the Japanese hiring process can differ from that of other countries, occasionally a company posting with TokyoDev includes potentially discriminatory questions on their application form. For instance, one of the most commonly used Application Tracking Systems in Japan has gender and age as default questions. Asking about things like this creates a poor experience for candidates, as it makes them wonder if they’ll be discriminated against based on these characteristics that are beyond their control and not tied to their ability to perform the job.
If we see that a company is asking one of these questions, we tell them they need to remove it to post on TokyoDev, and explain the negative implications. As they usually haven’t considered the connotations, and aren’t actually using the data for anything, companies have removed them without pushback.
Answering questions about postings
A job posting doesn’t necessarily include all the information that’s relevant to you personally. To work around this, we have an “Ask a Question” button on all our job postings, which allows you to get directly in touch with me.
As we have a relationship with these companies, we might have additional context which isn’t included in the posting, and I’m also in a good position to get answers from the company.
If the company responds, then we add that information to the posting to improve it for everyone.
Regularly checking that the company is still hiring
As mentioned earlier, since we have a success-based fee, it doesn’t cost a company anything to leave a job post up indefinitely. Most companies will tell us when they close a posting, as they don’t want to waste anyone’s time. But occasionally, these things can slip through the cracks.
To work around this, we manually check in with a company every three months to confirm that the positions are still open. If they are, we put their positions to the top of the job board, and update the “last verified at” date on the posting itself.
How TokyoDev helps you understand what companies are actually like
It can be tricky to find information about what it is actually like working at a Japanese company, especially in English. To address this issue, we write developer stories, which are interviews we conduct with the developers working for our Japanese clients.
These articles give you a chance to understand what kinds of people work at the company, what sort of things they work on, and why they personally recommend their employer. These are done on a voluntary basis in cooperation with the company, and so also demonstrate that the company employs someone who is enough of a fan to act as a spokesperson for them.
How TokyoDev builds and supports the community
Being part of Japan’s international developer community is what led me to starting the site in the first place. Having a space where you can support and receive help from your peers is quite valuable, so we’ve set up our own online and in-person options, as well as supporting communities beyond our own.
The TokyoDev Discord
To help both veterans of Japan’s software development scene and newcomers alike, we created a Discord server. In the two years since we started it, it has grown to over 6,000 members.
Keeping this server a friendly place that’s welcoming to people of all different backgrounds was a new challenge for me. Luckily, I haven’t had to tackle it alone, since I appointed Scott Rothrock as our community moderator.
One of the most rewarding aspects of running this server has been seeing people’s journeys to Japan first-hand: from applying for jobs while overseas, to getting an offer, and finally making the move to join us here in Japan. Not just me, but the entire community, gets to support these experiences together.
In-person meetups
Beyond the Discord, we also host meetups in Tokyo. This started with a gathering of about a dozen people from the Discord, but events have grown tremendously. Our most recent event had about 50 people register for it, and tested the limits of our venue’s space.
We’ve held casual meetups and networking events with lightning talks. We even hosted a rooftop barbeque with a custom order of about 60 hot dog and hamburger buns, while Scott supplied the meat and manned the grill.
We’ve also partnered with companies. DeepX has hosted our more recent networking events, and WAY Equity Partners sponsored a beer garden get-together. We’re looking at more opportunities to hold events that benefit both the community and our client companies.
Not only have these events been a valuable way for our community members to make more real connections, they have also directly led to attendees getting jobs.
Sponsoring communities
Besides our own community, there are plenty of other wonderful developer communities in Japan that we want to support too.
We started by sponsoring those that empower women in technology in Japan. This was a small step we could make to help close the gender gap that exists in Japan. It was especially effective as these communities are usually underfunded: for several of them, we were their first sponsor ever.
We’ve also been sponsoring more general developer conferences in Japan, including JSConf.jp, RubyKaigi, and Tokyo Test Fest. Sponsoring RubyKaigi in particular was an incredible experience for me. Attending the conference in 2010 was the impetus for me to start blogging on TokyoDev in the first place, so it was nice to finally close the circle and support them directly.
How TokyoDev gives you more information about being a developer in Japan
Understanding the situation for international developers in Japan can be tricky, whether you’re already based here, or looking to move to Japan. The overwhelming majority of software developers in Japan are Japanese, but the typical experience for an international developer is different from that of a Japanese one. Furthermore, there’s relatively little English information available about the topic.
TokyoDev is the job board it is today because I wrote an article about my own experience of finding a job as a software developer in Japan. As it was the only English-language article at the time on the topic, many readers sent me further questions about life as a developer here, which in turn caused me to write more articles.
Initially I was the only one writing articles, but I soon realized that my own background limited my perspective. I brought on other authors to cover perspectives that I don’t have first-hand knowledge of, such as living in Japan with a disability, or working as a female software developer in Japan.
Since then, we’ve posted guest articles on a wide range of subjects, all of them drawing on the authors’ personal experiences: examples include making use of recruitment agencies, finding a job as a junior developer, and obtaining permanent residency. We’ve also started working with a professional editor who has helped our amateur authors shine. By not churning out reams of low-quality articles for SEO purposes, but focusing on writing high-quality articles with original research and content, I think TokyoDev has become one of the most trusted sources for information on working as a developer in Japan.
Beyond our articles, we also conduct an annual developer survey. The most recent edition had over 700 responses from international developers living in Japan, who shared detailed information about their salaries, working conditions, and technologies used. This survey gives solid, quantitative information about what international developers can expect when working in Japan.
Conclusion
Running TokyoDev is a lot of work, and is something I personally spend a good chunk of my day on. However, I think it’s well worth it. Not only can we improve the job search experience for TokyoDev candidates, but we’ve also had a positive impact on the hiring processes of companies more generally.
If you’d like to support this mission, please join our Discord. We’re continuing to build a community of helpful professionals, and would love to have you there. Besides that, using our job board when searching for a developer job in Japan would be truly appreciated, as every person who gets a job through TokyoDev makes a huge difference and helps us keep going.
