Many people say that to find a software engineering job in Japan, you need to be here first. The most common ways into Japan without a job are to become a student, arrive on a Working Holiday visa, or use the J-Find visa — all of which mean spending a lot of money just to show up and still not be sure it will work out. When I was a university student in India, I knew very well that getting hired as a junior software engineer in Japan while still overseas would be difficult. It makes sense, as companies here hire on trust, and trust is hard to build at a distance. But Japan is also a country staring down a shortage of hundreds of thousands of IT workers by 2030, with foreign workers already at a record 2.6 million and still climbing. The door is harder to get through, but there’s a whole line of people worldwide standing in front of it, and the country actually needs them to come in. Now I’m a tech lead at a Japanese startup, where we help people find and buy abandoned homes (空き家, akiya), which made up a record nine million properties in the government’s 2023 survey. I’ve lived in Japan for just over a year. I know there are a lot of people out there chasing the same Japan dream, working hard for it just like I was a few years ago, so I hope they can get a few ideas from someone who has already done it. How I got hired as a junior software engineer from overseas What I’ve learned working as a software engineer in Japan How to get a junior software engineering job in Japan Conclusion How I got hired as a junior software engineer from overseas I came to Japan despite many hurdles. Let me lay out everything that happened, and everything I did, to close the gap between me and what I wanted My starting point I started a four-year computer science degree in 2020, and it was the first time I was studying something I actually cared about. My grades sat around 8.9 out of 10 each semester and it barely felt like work. That taught me something I still believe, which is that the hard part is never the studying, it is finding the things worth studying. For me, one of those things was Japan. I’d trained in karate back in India up to green belt, and that pulled me towards the culture. I soon found I also loved the food, the nature, and the level of hospitality. So I set a goal: get my first job in Japan within three years. I also knew the usual route to Japan my classmates took—the mass campus placements, with hundreds hired in one batch—wasn’t for me. I didn’t think I was above it, but I could easily see myself disappearing into the crowd. Instead, I went looking for another way in. Finding a door to Japan What I needed was a connection, a thread that could somehow link me from South Asia to Japan. I started finding LinkedIn groups that let you work as an intern at Japanese startups. These startups were usually run by big players in Japan, often international residents, who could be the CEO or founder of many smaller companies. These are the English-friendly ones I joined back in the day: Internship opportunities in Japan Internship Japan Business in Japan They’re all pretty slow now, but in 2021 they were bustling, almost crazy with activity. The first two are internship-focused ones: students post their skills and resume, and managers share openings you can apply to directly. The Business in Japan group is different, and more of an entrepreneur crowd, but I joined it because those are exactly the people who can hire you. The one that worked best for me was Internship opportunities in Japan, because that’s where I found my first connection. I strongly recommend that group to anyone wanting an internship. Whether they start paying you depends on the company, what stage they’re at, and how much trust you’ve built with them. Preparing for a Japanese internship When I joined the groups, my resume was super odd, and I couldn’t have gotten a job or an internship with it. Still, I joined and added my Japanese-style self introduction in English. After a few days, one of the group admins messaged me about whether I wanted an internship, and then asked for my resume. It was really bad, but I sent it anyway, and we came to the mutual conclusion that I could come back later with a better skillset. Later that year I started building my skillset on my own. Honestly, you have to be a few steps ahead of your university, since they won’t teach you exactly what you will end up building at a company. At that time most people I knew went the Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) route, which means you grind a lot of DSA, crack the interview, and figure out real building later. I went a different way. I started with learning how design actually works, and it turned out to be less difficult than it was time-consuming: you have to build a real taste for what goes where and what pairs with what. You can’t slap a Roboto font on an established news site. That went into my portfolio, which I started early and have rebuilt many times. Alongside it I shipped small personal projects to make life easier for me and the people around me, because even a silly MBTI test you play with friends is a real product if you know what you’re building. I also joined online hackathons (my mailbox was always full of stickers from them). My first real shot at a job in Japan About eight months later I went back to the admin of the internship group with these new experiences, and this time I got the chance to work with a few people from Japan Travel. The CEO of Japan Travel, Terrie Lloyd, is also the founder of Daijob, one of the country’s most well-known job platforms. Lloyd’s a Kiwi entrepreneur who landed in Japan back in 1983 on a Working Holiday visa, at 24 years old, with no degree and no Japanese, and still went on to build company after company. I was getting my chance from someone whose own story was proof that an “impossible” path was possible. We were building an idea called O2O Stays, basically a marketplace for accommodation nights. Hosts could sell nights in bulk upfront at a discount, and buyers could use them, resell them, or trade them—kind of like the short-term rentals you already know, but more flexible. I took it even though it was unpaid, for a simple reason: I had never worked at a real technical firm, and this looked like no risk and high reward. You can teach yourself to build websites, but the things that actually matter—like system design, Core Web Vitals, and the real-world problems you encounter—you only learn once actual people start using what you built. That was worth more to me than getting paid right away. My task was to build an informational website. This honestly felt huge to me back then. It was also my first real deadline and I underestimated it. The timeline slipped more than I wanted, but I was lucky to be on a team with genuinely good people, so we figured it out and shipped it. At the end I got my first letter of recommendation from my Internship, and that one letter opened the door to multiple internships after it. Building while learning A lot of that early internship experience was unpaid, and I was fine with that, because when you have no track record, even the experience itself is worth a lot. But then things started to change. In my third year at university, one of the best places I worked with was MarkoKnow, a Delhi-based startup. That’s where I built my first real application and a few admin pages, and gained a lot of firsthand knowledge. By the end I felt like I could build anything (though that was probably just the adrenaline rush). Those experiences made me want to learn more, about whatever I could do with just me and my laptop. I put a lot of time into researching Web3 and even built a project out of it that got published on IEEE with one of my university classmates. I dabbled in VR, AR, and IoT too, but the one that mattered most in the long run was machine learning, which would end up helping me a lot further down the line. I also made sure to stay in touch with people I’d met during my internships. I sent them updates on what I was building, shared my portfolio and resume each time they got better, took genuine interest in the work their companies were doing and where tech could push it further, and stayed visible by commenting on posts and checking in. Turning a connection into a job at AKIYA2.0 By August 2023 I was 20 years old, my final year of university was approaching, and my main motivation was to get a job fast. The usual path would have been an internship that converts into a pre-placement offer, and landing one in my home country is a real achievement. But the thing was, I still wanted to be in Japan. I went back to the connection I’d kept warm and asked for a new opportunity. That follow-through was what kept the door open, and this time it opened onto a great one: Terrie was on the verge of co-founding another company. It had something to do with abandoned homes, and they were offering a paid part-time job. My first task was to understand the abandoned home market and build a small scraper for a single municipality, using Tesseract OCR to read through documents, since AI still had a really bad name back then. It wasn’t pretty: on that early setup, our scraping accuracy sat around 60-70%, and validation was lower still. Later we migrated the whole thing to Gemini, which pushed scraping close to 99.5% and cut our costs by around 96%. I loved the work, and almost without noticing I drifted into much more than just software engineering. Being at a startup, I was soon hiring interns and part-timers, leading projects, and building new services and tools on my own so that nobody had to manage the extra pieces I was adding. By the time they brought me on as a full-time software engineer in March 2024, the title just formalized what I was already doing. Finally, Japan I’d just graduated that spring, and I wanted to spend a year living with my family, since I’d spent most of my life in other cities at boarding school, hostels, and university. The job with AKIYA2.0 allowed international remote work, so I had the option to stay home with my family for a year, and that was something I didn’t want to skip. Then, in April 2025, I finally moved to Japan. The move itself was surprisingly simple, because my company handled most of the paperwork. I just sent over some documents and they filed for my Certificate of Eligibility (COE). It took exactly two months, and it arrived on my birthday, while I happened to be in Singapore. I had to return to India to get the visa process started. It went smoothly and I got a three-year Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa. What I’ve learned working as a software engineer in Japan In my three years at AKIYA2.0 so far, I’ve built three websites: https://www.akiya2.com/ https://www.singchamjapan.org/ https://www.hinokistays.com/ I also built an AI scraper covering all 47 prefectures in Japan, and became genuinely good at SEO, GEO, and system design, while managing a bunch of interns and part-time engineers. And I’m still chasing more—I want to be great at all of it. ^The mindset that got me here is simple: don’t think only about survival. Think about making your presence so bright that it becomes hard to ignore you. That mindset still matters after you arrive, because moving to Japan doesn’t make everyday problems disappear. You still have to build a life here, and how difficult that feels depends a lot on who you are and what you’re used to. For a lot of people, that adjustment is the hardest part, sometimes even harder than landing the job in the first place. The daily friction adds up in ways you don’t expect. You might have dietary restrictions, feel suffocated on a rush-hour train, spend the entire weekend recovering from the working week, or simply feel lonely. For me, the adjustment wasn’t especially difficult. I had always wanted to live independently, and after years in boarding school and hostels, I was used to being away from home. What Japan unexpectedly gave me was a real sense of freedom, because I could work during the week and travel on the weekends. That has honestly been the best part of my experience, particularly the peaceful countryside, beautiful nature, and countless shrines I’ve come across along the way. If I had the chance to start again, I would get properly good at Japanese before moving. Living here without it is possible, but knowing the language opens up far more of the country: events, friendships, relationships, jobs, and the connections that might eventually lead to a startup opportunity or even a course at a Japanese university. When you’re already living in Japan, it feels like a shame to miss so much of what is happening around you. How to get a junior software engineering job in Japan Where to find junior software engineering jobs in Japan from overseas In my experience there are two kinds of people who don’t make it: the ones who never get an opportunity, and the ones who get one but give up. The ones not getting opportunities are usually just not searching in the right places, or not building a network. How do you find opportunities? You look for them online and in communities. TokyoDev lists junior developer jobs, and is one of the best examples of how much networking matters in this career, and LinkedIn is a great tool too, if you learn how to use it. There are CEOs, CTOs, and COOs from startups and big firms sitting right there on LinkedIn and X. So what’s stopping you from a cold email? Build a portfolio that gets you noticed But a tool only gets you in front of people; after that you have to impress them. As a software engineer, the only real way to impress someone is by building something for them. And to earn that chance, you first have to get good at the basics. ^About 95% of what companies build isn’t niche or original. It’s the same kind of product that already exists across many businesses, and often in open source too. Only a small slice, maybe 5%, is truly novel. Don’t run for that 5% yet, not while you’re starting out. Get genuinely good at the 95% first, because that’s what almost every real job actually involves. After all, working in Japan isn’t niche either. The competition is huge, and being a real professional is what sets you apart. Being a professional shows in the specifics. If you’re a frontend engineer, don’t tell me you know React or Vue, middle schoolers know them by now. Show me the components you built that made your own life easier, your page load times, your Core Web Vitals, and how your SEO holds up. If you’re a backend engineer, talk about the choices you’d make for a given product, the alternatives you actually know, how you cut costs, and how you fill the gap between a developer who just writes code and an engineer who takes responsibility. That attitude is exactly what I look for when I interview interns, part-timers, or engineers. Learn what software engineering skills are in demand in Japan Another tip is to study your market and see what’s booming right now. AI is the obvious hot topic, and Japan is pouring serious money into it lately. The government has committed over 10 trillion yen (around 65 billion US dollars) in public support for AI and semiconductors through 2030, and for the coming fiscal year it nearly quadrupled its chip and AI budget to about 1.23 trillion yen (7.9 billion dollars). AI startups often get founded by certain kinds of people—Japanese citizens returning from abroad, PhD holders from Todai or Waseda, and sometimes international residents as well. Sakana AI is a good example, founded by David Ha, Llion Jones, and Ren Ito. Some of these companies even have English-speaking roles. Conclusion So target thriving sectors like AI, but keep a backup plan. And seriously, start studying Japanese, because looking at the market now it matters more and more. However, I moved to Japan in April 2025 with no Japanese at all, so there’s always a way. Don’t lose hope. If you have the right mindset, can find the places where opportunities live, and are as persistent as you possibly can be, then with time you’ll look up and realize you already have everything you were chasing. Honestly, if I can do it, I’m sure anyone reading this can too, so keep trying.

“Find a hobby or join a group so you can make friends.” That’s one of the most common pieces of advice people give when you’re wondering how to meet new people, and I decided to take it. I had just moved to Fukuoka after my job hunt as a post-graduate and a friend introduced me to the local Toastmasters Club. I joined in 2020 and remained a member until 2022. Although I knew almost nothing about the organization, I saw it as an opportunity to expand my social circle. I had no idea that what began as a simple search for friendship would introduce me to such a unique community, one where people of different ages, backgrounds, and nationalities could connect beyond Japan’s usual social boundaries. What is Toastmasters, and why is it popular in Japan? How does Toastmasters work? What was Fukuoka’s Toastmaster Club like? Two years of Toastmasters What is Toastmasters, and why is it popular in Japan? Toastmasters is an international nonprofit organization that helps people develop their public speaking, communication, and leadership skills. It was founded at a YMCA in California in 1924 before gradually expanding around the world. What surprised me was Toastmasters’ history in Japan. The first clubs in Japan were established in both Tokyo and Fukuoka after World War II. Initially, membership was limited to U.S. military personnel stationed on American bases. But over time, the organization expanded beyond the military community. It originally started as a men-only organization, with women not being admitted until 1973. Living in Fukuoka, I found it fascinating that the organization’s roots were closely tied to both the city and the postwar U.S. military presence. Because I grew up on U.S. military bases across Japan, discovering this connection made me feel more comfortable joining. How does Toastmasters work? Fukuoka Toastmasters Club followed the standard Toastmasters format: we met every two weeks at the AIREF Building in Fukuoka; each meeting had a theme, and every member was assigned a specific role. Members took turns giving prepared speeches, answering questions on the spot, and evaluating one another’s presentations. The roles rotated at every meeting, giving everyone the opportunity to speak, provide feedback, and help run the club. Meeting structure 1. Opening The Toastmaster welcomes everyone, introduces the theme of the meeting, and explains the schedule. 2. Table Topics Members are asked surprise questions and given one to two minutes to respond. This helps them practice speaking confidently without preparation. 3. Prepared Speeches Usually, one to three members deliver speeches that they have prepared in advance. 4. Evaluations After the speeches, other members provide feedback. They explain what each speaker did well and what they could improve in future presentations. Meeting Roles Each member is assigned a role that helps the meeting run smoothly. The Toastmaster leads the meeting and introduces each section. The Timer keeps track of how long each person speaks. The Grammarian listens for effective language use and grammatical mistakes. The Evaluator gives feedback on a prepared speech. The Table Topics Master prepares and asks the surprise questions. The roles change at each meeting, so everyone has the chance to speak, lead, evaluate, and support other members. What was Fukuoka’s Toastmaster Club like? Although Toastmasters clubs generally follow the same meeting format, it is the members who give each club its own personality. The Fukuoka Toastmasters Club had an unusual mix of members, including retired Japanese men, local Japanese professionals, JET ALTs, international students from Kyushu University, and people affiliated with the Sasebo Naval Base. There were significant differences in age and life experience as well. The youngest member was around 22 years old, while the oldest was over 70. Everyone had joined Toastmasters for a different reason. Some retired Japanese members were looking for a new challenge, while local professionals wanted more opportunities to practice English. ALTs wanted to become part of an international community outside of work, and university students were mainly interested in improving their public-speaking and presentation skills. I joined around the time Covid started. Members could come to the meeting in person or join online through Zoom. Many of the club leaders were older and had never used Zoom before, but they still learned how to set everything up. I thought it was nice to see how much effort they made to keep the club going. Differences in age and life experience Because the members came from such different generations and backgrounds, their speech topics, interests, senses of humour, and ways of communicating varied widely. A university student in her early twenties and a retired man in his seventies naturally had very disparate ideas about what made an interesting or relatable speech. Each meeting the members talked about such a range of topics that you never really knew what the day would be like. The subjects ranged from personal memories and practical advice to finances, politics, and international events. I remember one member giving a speech about how he had spent 40 years working as a salaryman for a paper company, while another gave a presentation about his love of Japanese cuisine, specifically conveyor belt sushi. Other speeches I particularly recall were: “What Is Effective Body Language?” A talk about NISA, which the speaker argued was a political trick A presentation about the Beijing Olympics Honestly, it was not one special speech that made me keep going back. I liked the feeling of the club itself. At times, the differences between generations made it difficult for everyone to relate to one another. However, they also introduced me to lives and experiences that I would probably never have encountered within my normal social circle. The variety of stories and perspectives in the room was one of the main reasons I continued returning. Differences in English levels At first, it felt strange to have my English speeches evaluated by someone who was not a native English speaker, even though I did not believe that being a native speaker should be a requirement in an international setting like this. However, I still felt that a high level of English was important for giving clear and useful feedback. Sometimes I struggled to understand the feedback I received, and at other times I questioned whether the evaluation would actually help me improve. This made me wonder whether there was a reason for me to continue attending the club. It was also difficult to give feedback to others, because, to be quite honest, there were times when I simply could not understand what they were talking about. Eventually, the differences in English ability became a topic of discussion among the members. Speakers and evaluators began to be matched more carefully according to their levels, although this was done quietly to avoid offending anyone. I saw this as a very typical Japanese approach to preserving harmony. Evaluations also started to focus less on grammar and vocabulary and more on elements such as confidence, pacing, humour, storytelling, and audience engagement. Sometimes, we also had the chance to give speeches in Japanese, which made the experience more inclusive and allowed members to express themselves more comfortably. This helped a bit, but I still didn’t think it was best suited for what I wanted in terms of improving my own speech skills. However, I began to accept the club for what it was. Instead of expecting every meeting to improve my speaking, I used it as a place to try different types of speeches and interact with people I would not normally meet. I particularly enjoyed listening to some of the older Japanese members. Their English sometimes sounded as though it had come directly from the 1970s. Their vocabulary was formal, old-fashioned, and unexpectedly posh, which gave their speeches a distinctive charm. Breaking down the hierarchy Toastmasters felt completely different from my nine-to-five job. At the time, I worked at a private Japanese all-girls high school, where age, seniority, and professional position shaped almost every interaction. As a young, newly-employed teacher, I was very careful about how I spoke to senior teachers and I would never have openly criticized someone above me; it would have felt deeply uncomfortable. At Toastmasters, however, those relationships could be temporarily reversed. A university student might evaluate a retired professional. A non-native English speaker could tell a native speaker that they were speaking too quickly. Younger members could openly point out weaknesses in the speeches of people old enough to be their parents. The evaluator had to be confident enough to criticize someone who might normally have greater authority, while the speaker had to accept advice from someone younger, less experienced, or less fluent. The rotating roles gave members permission to do this. Once someone was assigned to be an evaluator, giving honest feedback became their responsibility. For those few minutes, the role they had been given mattered more than their age, profession, nationality, or English ability. Still, the usual hierarchies did not disappear completely. I sometimes sensed that a speaker’s reaction depended on who was giving the feedback. For example, one member who was a doctor seemed to value feedback from native speakers regardless of their age, but appeared less receptive when the evaluator was Japanese. Even in a club designed to make everyone equal, status and personal preferences could still shape whose opinions were valued. Toastmasters did not completely erase Japan’s traditional social hierarchy. Instead, it created a temporary space where people could step outside it. Compared with my workplace, where I constantly considered age and seniority before speaking, the freedom to openly evaluate one another felt unusual and sometimes uncomfortable, but it was also what made the club so interesting. Life outside the club At first, I mainly knew people through their assigned roles. Someone was the Toastmaster, an evaluator, or the person who had given a speech that evening. Through dinners, drinks, and other gatherings, we gradually began to know one another beyond those roles. One retired member in his seventies enjoyed farming and invited everyone to help dig potatoes during the harvest season. It was a simple activity, but it was also the kind of experience I would probably never have had with my usual group of friends. They also put a lot of effort into holidays. For Halloween, some members would come dressed in costumes. Every year, the club also held a Christmas party at a small local restaurant. The restaurant usually had a buffet and an all-you-can-drink plan for a reasonable price. We played games like White Elephant, and there was dancing and singing too. These events made the club feel more like a real community and not just a place to practice speeches. These gatherings did not mean that everyone suddenly became close, but they made the differences between us easier to understand. Outside the timed speeches and formal evaluations, we were able to interact more casually and see one another as people rather than simply as club members. Two years of Toastmasters There were plenty of meetings I did not enjoy. Sometimes I could barely understand the feedback I received. Other times, I understood it perfectly but did not find it useful. Not every speech was interesting, and not every evaluation made me a better speaker. Despite this, I continued attending for two years. What kept bringing me back was not the public-speaking practice. It was the strange mix of people I found myself spending time with. Outside Toastmasters, many of us would probably never have met, let alone regularly listened to one another’s stories and offered each other advice. I expected Toastmasters to be another activity on my calendar. Instead, it gave me access to a small social world that I could not have found through my job or everyday life in Japan. In the end, I may not have stayed because I loved every speech—I stayed because I became curious about the people giving them.

My honest opinion is that very few things in one’s life can be as fulfilling as living abroad. The opportunity to break away from my comfort zone, brave new horizons, and immerse myself in new cultures has probably been the greatest joy I’ve found during my time on this Earth. Japan in particular holds a deeply special place in my heart, given my long-standing love for its culture and people, both of which have been part of my life since my childhood in Brazil. Of course, that raises the question: “Well, how come you’re talking about having anxiety in Japan then?” The truth is, living abroad has brought me woes and wonders in equal measure. In Japan specifically, I found myself dealing with a worsening mental state while simultaneously experiencing a completely new environment, all with very little immediate support, given that my friends and family were, quite literally, on the other side of the world. I had to locate help on my own and deal with a medical system that was completely foreign to me, in a language I couldn’t freely communicate in. Through this article, I aim to share some of my experiences dealing with severe anxiety and navigating Japan’s medical system, in the hopes that they can, in turn, be of help to someone else. How the anxiety began Finding help (for the wrong thing) Mental health in Japan Finding help—again Bringing medicine into Japan Helping yourself Final advice Resources How the anxiety began Japan was not my first experience living abroad. Before coming here, I lived in neighbouring Taiwan for around three years. Deciding I wanted to try living somewhere else, I settled on Japan, as it seemed to have a vibrant international developer community (through TokyoDev, of course). Once the decision was made, it was time to prepare. All in all, it took me a year and a half to feel comfortable enough to make the move. However, everything did not go as smoothly as I’d hoped. There were quite a few bumps on the road, which almost made me give up on the move altogether, but in the end I decided to go through with it. Instead of finding work before the move, I chose to study the language while searching for employment. This made failure a much riskier prospect, as I was now actively investing both time and money into my stay in the country. All of this is to say that I was already under quite a bit of pressure when I arrived. Arriving in Japan with a purpose was a much different experience than when I had visited it in my travels. Here I was, in the country I had spent so long preparing for, and it was time to make it work. And I was definitely going to make it work! Looking back, this was my first mistake, since as the difficulties piled on, so did the stress. Eventually something had to give, and that thing was my stomach: unexplained nausea, digestion troubles, lack of appetite, and so on. It was quite frustrating that just a few weeks after I arrived in Japan I already found myself having to deal with health issues. Oh well, nothing to do but have it looked at, I thought to myself. Finding help (for the wrong thing) If you’re in Tokyo, you won’t have any trouble finding yourself a clinic for pretty much every specialization known to modern (and even ancient) medicine. Most of them have a listing on Google Maps, and you can usually find them just by typing the specialty in plain English. The process itself is quite simple: choose the clinic, make a reservation through their website or by phone, and show up with your insurance card (保険証, hokenshou) or My Number Card (マイナンバーカード, mainanba–ka–do). Since I was a student at the time, I was enrolled in Japan’s National Health Insurance system (国民健康保険, kokumin kenkou hoken), which meant that I only had to pay for 30% of all medical expenses. At the time, as I thought my symptoms were physical, I searched for an internal medicine clinic (内科, naika), and actually ended up finding a gastroenterologist near where I lived. However, the doctor didn’t speak English, and while some doctors in Japan do, this is by no means the norm. Finding clinics that actively cater to foreigners can be even more difficult. They certainly exist, but they also tend to have limited availability, and higher prices on average because they often don’t accept NHI. Knowing the doctor didn’t speak English meant I had some homework to do before my appointment. I researched how to describe some of my symptoms in Japanese, noted them down on my phone, and translated the rest on the go during the visit. All in all, everything went smoothly. The doctors and nurses were very kind and made sure we could fully understand each other every step of the way. After a battery of examinations, however, it was clear that there was nothing particularly wrong with my stomach, and that the problem lay elsewhere. This is where my experience started to become frustrating. Once digestive issues were ruled out, I ended up with no guidance on what to do next, and was merely given more medicine for the immediate symptoms. Feeling sick on the train? Here’s some medication for that. Dizziness? Here’s another one. When I finally connected the dots that the problem might be related to stress or anxiety, and brought it up with the doctor, I was told to “Drink some coffee every day to relax.” Mental health in Japan Historically, mental health has carried significant stigma in Japan. A 2013 study showed that “mental illness was considerably stigmatised, with schizophrenia being more stigmatised than depression” and that “the general public often lacked accurate knowledge about mental illness.” Some of the effects of this stigma can be seen in the healthcare system itself. A 2015 OECD Review pointed out that “service provision for mild-to-moderate disorders, such as depression and anxiety is poor relative to the expected burden of disease,” and that the mental health needs of vulnerable groups, including children, adolescents, and the elderly, were not being adequately met at the time. However, a more recent study from 2023 suggests that attitudes toward conditions such as depression have become more informed over time. Increased public discussion around mental health, alongside government efforts to improve awareness and access to mental healthcare, may have contributed to this shift. Finding help—again The old stigmas might, at least in part, explain the doctor’s response. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, he might have been reluctant to bring up the topic, or to address something outside his area of expertise. Whatever the reason, I once again found myself searching for help on my own. Since my mental health was a far more complex issue than my stomach pains, I decided not to compromise this time and instead looked for a professional with whom I could discuss my problems without struggling to find the right words. Even disregarding the language barrier, many of the local mental health clinics I came across during my search had surprisingly very poor reviews on places like Google Maps. The dislike seems to derive from the way the appointments are handled: people walk in, tell the doctor all their symptoms and concerns, and then get prescribed medicine without much care or thought, all in under 30 minutes. You might recognize this as a fairly common experience when seeing any doctor in Japan. While this approach might be fine when treating a rash or a cold, when it comes to people’s mental state, it leaves a lot to be desired. There are a few clinics which can properly accommodate foreigners, usually offering support in multiple languages in addition to English. With that said, I ran into two problems. First, they were often fully booked for weeks on end. Second, many of them did not accept Japan’s National Health Insurance, meaning that I would have had to pay out of pocket. Things were much the same when I looked for a therapist, as psychotherapy sessions are not covered by the NHI at all. While I did eventually find some very promising clinics by that point my symptoms threatened to overwhelm me. I was unable to ride a train, travel by car, or even sit through a 30-minute lesson without experiencing severe discomfort. My daily life had become so disrupted that even the smallest things took me a great deal of effort. Faced with this, I decided to return to my home country during the semester break in order to seek help in a more familiar environment. Bringing medicine into Japan I initially planned a short, two-week stay, but once I saw the doctor it became clear that that wouldn’t be the case. I was immediately diagnosed with anxiety disorder and agoraphobia, and started on medication. While I was relieved to finally have a proper diagnosis, I knew that the road to recovery would be a long one. It took almost two months for me to be healthy enough to face the 30-hour journey alone back to Japan. The medication also introduced a new challenge: once I left Brazil, I would have to find a way to obtain it in Japan. The first point I needed to confirm was if I would be able to fill my prescription while in the country. Since I was prescribed escitalopram, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) that is very commonly used as a treatment for depression and anxiety, I learned it was readily available at most pharmacies as long as I had the prescription on hand. This isn’t the case for all medicines, however. Some, like Bupropion, are not sold within the country, and need to be replaced by viable alternatives. Another option would be to bring them into the country by presenting an Import Confirmation Certificate (輸入確認書, yunyuu kakuninsho) upon arrival, but not every medication can be brought this way, and there are also strict limits on the amount imported per person. Many of the same restrictions apply if you plan on importing them after arrival. Depending on the medication, receiving additional supplies from a family member abroad may be difficult or even impossible. Even if your medication is sold here, you will still need to see a doctor in order to get a Japanese prescription. Most doctors will readily help you continue your treatment as long as you present proof of your diagnosis, such as previous prescriptions or a letter from your doctor, which can all be in English. They may also evaluate you before continuing treatment, at their discretion. With your prescription in hand, you can head to any pharmacy to obtain your medicine. Helping yourself Being given what was essentially a second chance to enjoy my life in Japan, I decided I would do things differently, if only to avoid falling into the same traps of the past. For me, that meant I started going to the gym, talking to a therapist, attending meetups with like-minded people, doing hikes, and etc. These are generic things, sure, but they are surprisingly effective. By keeping both mind and body busy, you avoid ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. At the same time, the meetups and hikes provided something to look forward to, a reward of sorts for the week’s efforts. Another very helpful thing was finding ways to practice my Japanese. Interacting with people, either in real life or online, can soothe the feelings of isolation so commonly felt by expats. Dating apps like Bumble are surprisingly good tools for casual conversation, even if you’re not interested in dating. In fact, I would go one step further and say that reaching out to people was the most important thing for my recovery. In the past, I felt everyone else was having the time of their lives in Japan while I, alone, was suffering through it. When I finally reached out, the amount of support and understanding I received was both comforting and surprising, but most of all it gave me the sense of belonging I so desperately needed. You will also find that the people you interact with might help you in ways you hadn’t even considered before. When I told the staff at my language school about what had happened, they were extremely helpful in finding me a clinic at which to continue my treatment. In much the same way, I later learned from an acquaintance that the Tokyo government offers a hotline specifically for introducing clinics. This article itself is a coping strategy. Putting things into writing can be a cathartic experience, regardless of whether there will be an audience for it or not. Writing will take things out of the ephemeral and force you to structure them in a way that helps ease the usual catastrophic thinking that often accompanies anxiety. And finally, even though it’s a cliché, remember you are not alone. Looking back, one of my biggest mistakes was trying to deal with everything on my own. Moving to a new country is never easy, and even the most cheerful people can be affected by it. Reach out to friends and family. There is no shame in sharing your problems and worries with those who care about you. Final advice Fighting anxiety is a long battle, and even after you believe you’ve defeated your enemy, it can return in unexpected ways. The medicine didn’t magically solve the problem, but made it considerably easier for me to tackle it on my own. Life in Japan has become better than I ever could have hoped for, and I can truly say that I’m living it to the fullest. I’ll leave some of the resources I found along the way below, in the hopes that they can be of use. Resources ABC Japan, a Brazilian NPO that offers free consultations with a therapist in various languages. I’ve used ABC Japan’s consultation services myself. While their schedules are very busy, the doctors are very patient and will listen to your troubles very carefully. A Reddit thread detailing foreigner-friendly mental health clinics in Japan Meetup.com, for finding communities with many different interests TELL Japan, a NPO which maintains a toll-free hotline in English. While I did not use TELL’s services, they’re often brought up when speaking with foreigners about mental health, and come very highly recommended. Finally, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] with any questions you might have regarding anything in this article. I’ll be more than happy to help.

この記事は日本語でもお読みいただけます。 Over the last six months, TokyoDev has received a handful of reports from our clients about fraudulent applications, in which candidates purport to be different people than they actually are. As a relatively niche job board that helped Japanese companies make 93 hires last year, the overwhelming majority of our applicants are real people. Nevertheless, this trend is disturbing. All these reported scammers share one particular characteristic: they claim to be Japanese citizens living abroad, or recently returned to the country. One reason for this commonality is that our clients are actively seeking to hire more bilingual Japanese citizens, who are rather rare to begin with, so our clients are far more likely to interview these candidates than if they had claimed another, non-Japanese identity. Reports to us have mentioned that they believe these scammers are North Koreans, a possibility that has been reported elsewhere. My theory is that these scammers are actually assuming a Japanese identity in order to target American and other international companies. The typical Western person won’t be able to easily differentiate whether someone comes from Japan or North Korea based upon appearance and English accent alone. Pretending to be Japanese saves them from having to use video or audio filters during interviews. If a scammer is using an automatic tool to apply for English-speaking software jobs around the world, they may just happen to apply for one of the jobs on our site. I don’t have any reason to believe that TokyoDev and our clients are specifically being targeted. The end goal of these people is not entirely clear. At best, they want to get paid money directly. At worst, they’re performing industrial espionage or looking for opportunities to inject malware into their target’s network. Regardless, even if they’re all caught, the time they waste and the distrust they sow is incredibly harmful. In this article, I’ll outline what I’ve witnessed and the measures we’ve taken so far. By compiling the signals we’ve seen, and our best techniques for catching scammers, we can hopefully stop companies who use TokyoDev (and even those who don’t) from actually hiring these candidates. Attributes of a scammer Besides claiming to be a Japanese citizen, these are other attributes common among scammers applying via TokyoDev. While these don’t guarantee that someone is a scammer, if an applicant has any of them, proceed with caution. Resident of Japan with a US phone number It is easy and cheap for anyone in the world to get a virtual US phone number, and use VoIP to answer it. This makes the numbers attractive to scammers, as they can say they’re based in the US and have a legitimate-looking phone number to prove it. I’ve frequently seen scammers say they’re currently in Japan, but list a US phone number. While I suppose it is possible for someone to be a resident who has only recently relocated to Japan and not have gotten a local phone number, the chances of this are quite slim. Non-existent Japanese phone number The Japanese government places restrictions on who can get a phone number. To get a virtual phone number, you need to be a resident of Japan. Non-residents are able to get a Japanese voice SIM, but they must physically be in Japan to receive it and present ID when doing so. While there is a black market to get around this, using it increases the cost and risk. Likely because of this, I’ve seen cases of scammers putting fake Japanese phone numbers on their resumes. If someone calls the number, the game will be up, so I guess they’re just counting on it never being called. Senior candidate with a generic portfolio website Scammers are usually trying to appear quite senior, with eight or more years of experience. Some of them will provide a link to a “portfolio” website, often hosted on a subdomain of a free hosting service, such as GitHub pages. The website usually feels very generic and just lists their skills and projects. It doesn’t have any unique content, like a blog. I’ve seen legitimate junior candidates create something like this, but good senior candidates won’t waste their time. If they have any website at all, the most they’ll do to sell themselves is post a link to their resume. Worked at famous companies, but most recent one is “anonymous” or “stealth” I’ve seen scammers who will say they previously worked for famous big tech companies, such as Amazon, Google or Meta, but list their most recent employer as “anonymous.” I suppose they’re doing this to strike a balance between creating an attractive profile, and being able to withstand basic scrutiny. However, legitimate candidates will normally list who their current employer is. I know of one scammer on TokyoDev who tried this tactic out, but later moved on to listing minor companies instead, perhaps because he realized pretending to be ex-FAANG made him too obvious. What doesn’t work to catch them Here are some techniques we’ve investigated that initially seemed promising, but won’t consistently catch scammers. IP address-based detection Some applications from candidates that claim they’re based in Japan do have non-Japanese IP addresses, but many fraudulent candidates also will have Japanese ones. Furthermore, those addresses often can’t be caught by VPN detectors; it appears that they are using residential Japanese ISPs. There are less ethical services that will provide you with a residential proxy, so it seems that these candidates have clued in and started using them. Listing your job as “partially remote” or “no remote” Even though these fraudulent candidates are based outside of Japan, I’ve still observed them applying for jobs that require candidates to come into the office. From talking to our clients, it seems like these candidates have a story about a sick relative or injury that they’ll use as an excuse for why they can’t come into the office initially. What can catch them While I can’t guarantee that these measures will continue to work, right now they seem the most promising. Ask for a Japanese phone number Virtually every resident of Japan has a Japanese phone number, so when screening candidates who claim to be in Japan, you can call the number they list or ask them to provide one if they don’t. For extra certainty, call the number while on a video call so you can confirm the person you’re interviewing is the one answering it. While not foolproof, from what we’ve observed, this is enough to stop at least some scammers. Screen in both English and Japanese Scammers sometimes pretend to be Japanese citizens to mask the fact that they speak English with an accent. This can be their undoing, though, as while they may be prepared to interview in English, it is unlikely that they can speak Japanese at a native level. By screening candidates in both languages, you may be able to identify that their language ability doesn’t match their assumed background. Clients have reported that when they switch from speaking English to Japanese, scammers often just drop out of the call. Use an identity verification service It’s quite common these days, when signing up for apps that involve financial transactions, to perform some type of identity verification, where you upload your ID and also go through a facial recognition process to ensure your ID matches. While it would be too expensive and invasive to ask all candidates to go through such a process, I think it is reasonable to have candidates do this before you onboard them, especially if you’re hiring someone to work fully remotely without ever meeting them in person. Perform onboarding in-person If a scammer outside of Japan somehow makes it through your whole interview process, they’re only going to start working with you if they can work completely remotely from day one. Even if your company works fully remotely, completing onboarding in person will most likely catch them. Travelling to Japan may be impossible for scammers, both from a financial perspective, and because they may not even be able to secure a visa to travel here. Use an ATS with built-in fraud protection I’ve observed that some Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are starting to offer fraud protection. I have similar qualms about this as using AI for screening, since legitimate candidates are unfairly going to be skipped over. At the same time, ATS are the only ones in a position to solve this problem at scale. When you’re processing millions of job applications per month, the patterns of scammers become a lot more obvious. If you’re already using an ATS provider, talk to them about how they can help prevent applicant fraud. Take note of how exactly they’re doing it, and make sure you also understand what sort of legitimate applications will be screened out by them. What is TokyoDev doing about scammers? As a job board, we’re in a bit of an awkward situation. On the one hand, we don’t want to be the source of scam job applications. On the other, we have a duty to uphold the privacy of our applicants, and also must follow Japanese regulatory requirements that prevent us from screening candidates. If a company reports to us that they believe a job application is from a scammer, and the candidate applied via TokyoDev’s own job application form, we mark that application as fraudulent. If we receive a similar job application in the future, we flag it for manual review, and if it seems likely the flagged job application is also a scam, we do not forward it. It’s our understanding that this is in compliance with Japan’s job board regulations. This process only catches people applying via our own job application form. As about half of our job listings direct candidates to the company’s ATS, it does nothing to prevent fraudulent applications via those systems. While we considered maintaining a list of fraudulent candidates to share with companies, we eventually dismissed this idea both because of privacy concerns, and because we think it is unlikely that companies will actually verify candidates against it. Beyond that, I think that education around this issue is what’s most likely to make an impact, which is why I’m writing this article. Conclusion I expect we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg here, and things are going to get worse before they get better. Generative AI has been a great boon to scammers, making it easier to automate sending customized job applications as well as to pass the interviews themselves. Just like email spam was once a huge problem, and then was largely resolved, this issue will probably follow the same pattern. Right now ATS are a commodity, and there are hundreds if not thousands of options to choose from, but the prevalence of scammers could lead to a handful dominating the space. Google is able to offer some of the best spam filtering because of the huge volume of email that moves through their servers; similarly, the ATS that process the most job applications will be in the best position to detect applicant spam. I think it would be a bad thing to have a few companies serve as gatekeepers for the majority of people changing jobs, but that also is likely to be the outcome. One process that’s immune to all of this, though, is people changing jobs via in-person connections. A referral from an existing employee is almost certainly going to be a real person. This is one of the reasons TokyoDev supports our local tech community, both by holding our own events and sponsoring others. If you’re looking to hire developers, you can get involved too! You’ll be doing good as well as building up your own pipeline of candidates who are not scammers, and who already have a positive association with your brand.