Stories from international developers in Japan
I've spoken with international software developers working at some of Japan's most interesting tech companies so that I can share with you what it's really like working there.
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How RESTAR's engineers grow together
with Luis TorresTwo years after graduating from university, Luis joined RESTAR as a full stack developer. He shares his experience working there, and talks about the company's culture of growing together as a team.
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How to retain a high-performing engineering team
with Wil AndradeSince joining Givery’s HR Tech division as an engineering manager two years ago, Wil Andrade has helped scale their engineering team from nine to twenty-four engineers. Wil shares how he's not only grown a team, but provided an environment where no one wants to quit.
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YC Founder, Engineer at Uber, and now MeetsMore
with Eugene YaroslavtsevAfter founding an IoT Platform that was backed by Y Combinator, and building the fare system at Uber, Eugene relocated to Tokyo to join the marketplace for local professionals, MeetsMore, as their second engineer.
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Building an app without a reference point
with Michael PetrieAs an iOS developer at ZOZO, Inc., Michael has worked on products like a 3D body measurement suit and a 3D foot scanning mat. These products are like nothing that have come before them, so building them requires innovation both from a technical and UX perspective.
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Growing your career by asking for you want
with Ashwini MeshramAshwini leads one of PayPay’s payment sub-teams. She got there by doing something she’s done throughout her career: identifying something she wants to do and asking to do it.
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Software development at TenTen
with Laura EckLaura tells her story of coming to Japan and joining TenTen as a developer. She talks about some of the technical challenges she faced, and how the company takes a collaborative approach to development.
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Joining Mercari as a tech lead
with Jieqiong YuJieqiong shares her experience of joining Mercari and working as a tech lead. She explains their engineering culture and provides tips for potential applicants.
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A culture of open communication at Autify
with Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson shares his experiences of working at Autify, where he does a mix of SRE and backend engineering. He explains how their product and working environment make it an attractive opportunity.
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From Intern to Frontend Engineer at HENNGE
with Ray WongRay Wong interned at HENNGE while he was in university. He had such a good experience that he joined them as a frontend engineer after graduating.
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Developer culture at Drivemode
with Javier BlancoJavier Blanco talks about what it’s like being an Android developer at Drivemode, including the international culture, flexible environment, and the ability to shape the direction of the product.
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Rapidly scaling to tens of millions of users
with Shilei LongShilei started working on PayPay before it launched, and has seen it grow into a product used by tens of millions of users. He explains how diversity has helped them overcome challenges, and what PayPay is looking for in candidates.
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Refactoring PayPay’s Android App
with Adrian MariadasAdrian came to Japan to join PayPay as an Android Engineer. As the app has grown in scope, refactoring the codebase to ensure development can continue at a rapid pace has been a big part of his job.
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Working from Europe for a Japanese startup
with Zac DavisonZac Davison is living in Berlin but works for the Japanese startup MeetsMore, as tech lead of their Foundation team. He explains what the team does, and how he enables them to be more productive.
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Life as a team lead at HENNGE
with Lukas ReinekeLukas Reineke is a team lead at HENNGE, where he splits his time between engineering work and management tasks. He explains how the freedom he has at HENNGE makes it a great working environment.
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Hacking Android at Drivemode
with Tompee BalauagTompee Balauag describes what it’s like to work as an Android developer at Drivemode, where he and the other developers regularly push the limits of Android devices.
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iOS Development at PayPay
with Yoseph SaviantoYoseph joined PayPay after being attracted to their mission of making Japan a cashless society. As an iOS Engineer, he originally joined their iOS feature team, but now works on their platform team, creating an internal SDK for their iOS and Android apps.
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Becoming an international developer
with Ryoko KawashimaRyoko started her career as a typical Japanese office worker, but went through a dramatic career change, joining Givery as a Frontend Engineer where she speaks almost exclusively in English.
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How Givery’s relaxed culture fosters innovation
with John Joe FriedmannJohn Joe, a backend engineer at Givery, explains how the company’s relaxed culture allows developers to drive the product forward, giving them autonomy to pursue tasks like refactoring that don’t directly deliver immediate business value.
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Using the Elixir programming language to fight crime
with Eurico DoiradoEurico is the CTO of Spider Labs, whose ad fraud detection tool handles billions of requests and terabytes of data on a daily basis. The Elixir programming language has been instrumental in helping them reach this scale.
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Identifying and fixing problems at Degica
with Kazunori KajihiroKazunori initially joined Degica as a web application engineer, but by identifying problems he wanted to fix, his role shifted first to VP of Infrastructure, and then VP of Payment Products.
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Growing a career in Japan
with Matthew BaileyStarting as a server side engineer at LINE, Matt is now a software development manager. He shares his experiences of finding a job in Japan, and gives tips on how you can be successful at landing one too.
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Crowd Cast’s strategy of hiring junior developers pays off
with Jeremy MarinJeremy Marin is the engineering manager at Crowd Cast. He explains the challenges and benefits of hiring junior developers, particularly ones who have graduated from developer bootcamps.
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Building a critical service doesn't need to be stressful
with Nigel BaillieNigel was fresh out of college when he joined KOMOJU as a developer. He's now risen to tech lead, where he's helped build out their payment platform while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
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How WOVN provides a flexible and friendly workplace
with Kseniya ZalesnayaKseniya, a backend developer, was attracted to WOVN because it was a place where she could be herself, and wouldn’t be judged by her coloured hair, piercing, or tattoos. She found that flexibility extended to how they work, and people strived to create an emotionally supportive workplace too.
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Joining LINE from overseas
with Li LiuLi was working in Toronto when he was recruited to join LINE as a principal engineer. He tells his story of relocating to Japan.
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Becoming CTO of Degica
with Richard RamsdenAfter graduating from university, Richard came to Japan and found a job as a software developer. Eventually he joined Degica, where he rose to the role of CTO.
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Being one of SmartNews’ first overseas hires
with Robert SpellerWhen Robert joined SmartNews as a software engineer, most of his colleagues were Japanese. Since then, it’s grown into an international organization where English is predominantly used.
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From English Teacher to Backend Developer at WealthPark
with David RobertsonDavid Robertson talks about how he taught himself programming to pivot his career from teaching to programming, and what it's like to work as a Backend Developer at WealthPark.
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Joining LINE as a QA Engineer
with Swapnali KoliSwapnali had been working at a Japanese company as a QA Engineer. Looking for a new challenge, she joined LINE, where she’s led their private cloud API automation project.
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Why Octopus Energy is an award winning workplace
with Polly SutcliffePolly Sutcliffe came to Japan on the JET programme. After working as a translator, she pivoted her career through a coding bootcamp. Now she's a frontend developer at Octopus Energy, where she works on their consumer-facing portal.
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Hundreds of requests per second, two developers
with Jerome MarhicJerome joined WOVN as a backend engineer. Keeping things performant was a big technical challenge, as they have hundreds of requests per second and billions of records in their database. To top it off, for a time it was just him and one other developer responsible for the backend.
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Engineering freedom at SmartNews
with YuCheng ChenYuCheng is a senior software engineer at SmartNews. He explains the freedom he enjoys at SmartNews: not only from a technical perspective, but also the influence he can have over the direction of the product.
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Engineering management at SmartNews
with Cortland KleinCortland recently joined SmartNews as an engineering manager, where he leads a six person team. He talks about what drew him to the company, his role as a manager, and how they use matrix management to maximize their engineers’ success.
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From Developer to Product Owner
with Torkel BerliAs a developer, Torkel liked making improvements to processes for things like documentation and meetings. So when he was asked to become a product owner, he seized the opportunity to improve how WOVN develops software.
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Going from the only developer to the manager of a team of thirteen
with Jeremy MarinJeremy Marin was the first full time developer to join Crowd Cast. Five years later, the development team has grown to thirteen, with him becoming the engineering manager.
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