Japan is very livable as an engineer. When I was on 5m I could still afford a 1k mansion in central Shinjuku with a front desk, gym and sento. It was really luxury and I felt that I had made it. But despite that your money won’t go far internationally, especially now. Now I’m living in Ome focusing on building a business. I think that’s really the only way to get ahead financially in Japan. An online business where you get paid in dollars - then you’re really talking. I was surprised you mentioned Ome in this video because despite living out here for 18 months already I don’t know anyone who lives here. Great video by the way.
yes. I really think 5m is quite livable in Japan. Oh wow you are trying to build a business in ome? I'd love to hear. I want that USD... Ome is easy access from shinjuku, easy access to the country side and has a big super market / shopping center so has most thing there. Rent is much cheaper than inner Tokyo and even buying a house looks good. please reach out to me on linkedin or discord. I'd like to know more.
It's a whole rabbit hole when it comes to salaries, the average cost of living, and also one's own perceptions. But I definitely think that we sort of have to shed the idea of the inflated US market salaries, and sort of look further into what it takes to live comfortably in whatever country you are aiming at living. Thanks for the video Ippo! This was extremely insightful, really trying my hardest to emigrate to Japan next year, so I will definitely make use of everything you laid out in here.
Thanks for watching! I hope my content can give you some ideas, but as I always say seek information from other people too. All the best on getting here.
But one can do a quick calculation and see that maybe 40k is too low even if they were living rent free and all. If one makes 100k usd, which is not uncommon for software engineers...and doesn't live in those expensive cities, they can easily save at least 30k, assuming no family.
You forgot about clothes, electronics, flight tickets home. mobile phone, fruits. After these i think 70-80 thousand would be left. I think the best alternative would be to move a bit away from Shibuya, but not so far away as going to Ome. 30-40 minutes away you can find the same apartment for 40 thousand, save 40. Cook a bit, even though not much save another 30 thousand, do not spend 80 but 50 for fun, and in that way you can save 180 thousand, which is not bad, and really not missing anything.
I live in Ome. I have an 80sqm 2 story 3 bedroom house for 80k per month rent. I use my rooms as a bedroom, gym and office. I can enjoy nature with hiking and the Tamagawa river. It’s excellent for remote working and if you only socialise once per week. However if I make more money I’d move back to the city.
I keep looking at Ome-shi. Rent. Really like Okutama area, river and hiking. My dog would like it more in the country side too. Okutama has super cheap Akiya but it's a little too far from the city to travel once per week. Your idea is great. Everything is at home and cheap. There are so many options for remote engineers. I tired to move to Okinawa but I came back to Tokyo...
One point about flight tickets, it's probably easier to work in the US and visit Japan than it is vice versa. Even with a midrange US salary (~$70,000/yr), flights to Japan are pricey. Someone earning $250,000 can frequently fly there with ease, even if they go for a nice apartment back home.
It's simple, it's less income but also less expenses. Having to pay HALF in rent, cellphone, internet... and less in food is worth it. Also, a car is not mandatory so forget about the monthly payments, insurance, and using the bicycle for weekends, with the occasional trip to other cities/prefectures. And you didn't mention that most companies have an allowance for transportation, in case that the employee has to work in person.
Thanks for the breakdown. I would like to add stuff like clothing, gym membership, amazon prime, and some traveling. Shoes especially. Gym requires a separate pair of indoor shoes, and depending on industry you might need extra shoes (which the company doesn't reimburse...)
Yeah. You can easily spend all your earnings if you want to enjoy life. Maybe my next simulation of 10mil yen should add in travel/holiday & monthly subscriptions etc. I'll check in discord for my next video. Have you seen "chocozap" in Tokyo? It's everywhere these days. i think 24/7 gym for 3,000 yen per month.
In the Netherlands developers start around 35K-45K euros, so it's not that much. But senior devs certainly make enough to buy an apartment or house on their own. Taxes, car ownership, and intercity transit are expensive, but other cost of living is not that bad. People really struggle to find housing here though due to the shortage. Had 15 potential tenants scheduled to see my apartment in one day as I'm moving out, and this is the outskirts of Rotterdam.
I was born and raised in Silicon Valley. My dad's an engineer. I don't require that much money. I can and have lived on less. Cost of living is so different there too. It's more affordable....especially if you don't live in Tokyo or some posh neighborhood.
It IS interesting to me that this is what are classed as poverty wages for California but our economy is larger than Japan's actually (and so is the state itself). It's good to have perspective.
Comparing income and cost of living is tricky. property in Silicon Valley must be so high that you need high income. I'm also guessing many people have high student loans and general cost of living. People on 100k USD+ can still be living pay check to paycheck. I'm also guessing taxes are the highest there. To be honest I would love to have that USD but I know competition is high right.
I think it's because Japan is still in the top 5 economies of the world so people assume incomes will be high. You can live a decent life with this income if you move away from Tokyo.
@@devippo Yes 100k is hard to live on in some cities due to the cost of rentals food etc. Despite this i've made it work on about $45k. If you're creative you can get by. I'm currently unemployed but even then I'm doing ok. Taxes are pretty high here but California operates more like a small country than a state so there's a social safety net. I like to hear the way household income works other places tbh because it's so different than what I'm used to. Comparison is awkward but valuable in the sense that if you're going to go someplace you need a reference point. I'm married to a European whom I live apart from just now. We can get by just fine on less than half my old income over there. It's partly down to housing which is the biggest expense in California.
@@devippo Oh and it's not impossible to get into tech here but working for FAANG isn't worth the headache. I've done so myself in the past and there's very clear caste-like behavior in the office. Family members work in those companies and they've pretty much given up having any sort of life down to how much more they work than normal. Other companies that one often doesn't think of, like banks and hospitals, often pay similarly but also have better work-life balance.
Interesting, As someone from a developing country. An average software engineer earns like around 100万円. it makes a huge difference comparing japan with the US and also with my own country
Ey bud thx a bunch for sharing the deets!! Was hoping you would go over the cost of things like Internet (ideally, Gigabit speeds) and cell phone plans per month...curious, how much does that cost?
Rakuten mobile: under 3,000 per month or less if you don't use it. SimFree phones. Fast internet: arouund 5,000 per month. Mine right now 329.8 Mbps download 436.0 Mbps upload
@@devippo its bad out there i spent like 3 years in london and i met many french people who prefer living in the UK over france eventho the transportation and rent is high to them it seemed ok compared with france
Whats the average salary of an overseas engineer being brought to Japan with a sponsored visa? About 5-6 million too? And is this the salary for 2 + years experience perhaps or is that more senior? Great and interesting videos as always. It really is a big decision to move to Japan with the salary difference as you are really locking yourself into that economy as your savings wont be worth much if you ever decide to move back to Europe or the US. I know you worked with Vietnamese companies in the past and was wondering how do the salaries there compare to those with Japan? Ive seen some Japanese engineers move to Vietnam due to work life balance a bit on youtube. Sorry for the long message, thanks for the video!
For average Japanese companies at 5mill to 6mill might be at least 3 to 4 years. Us tech companies pay a lot more of course. Vietnam devs get paid from 0dollars to 1.5k usd. Their agencies/ dev shops charge at least 2k usd per month. When I was working in Vietnam it was 250,000 to 300,000 per month for devs. The devs themselves would then be paid less than half of that. Japanese income goes a long way in south east Asia. Digital nomad is great if your clients are in Japan or the Apac areas. So making 5mil and after taxes per month having over 300,000 is upper class pay in SEA.
Thanks for the reply, I'll pass my n3 this year and then have one year exp as a dev by next summer, would you say 2-3 years minimum in this market is the experience needed to get over there even with n3 and up, uuuugh it's such a long road still for me i think?
You mean how much invested to live of interest? With a house paid off with the 4% rule 200,000 per month should be enough. That is 50,000,000 yen in an index. saving 100,000 per month for 20 years. Or you could just live in South East Asia. In my opinion in 30 years from now the pension system will not work in most developed nations. This is a simplified answer.
What do Japanese people think about Russian people? The Russian Empire fought against the Japanese Empire 1904 - 1905. Is this military conflict still fresh on their minds? Our stupid Tsar tried to conquer Manchuria, which brought him in conflict with China and Japan. I think that was was totally unjustified and unneeded. Especially since much of Eastern Russia was not fully settled yet. There truly was no need for more territories. Some UA-camrs, people are saying that Japan is dying out. Japan's population is 122.6 million in 2024. Russia's population is 143.9 million in 2024. As you can see, they are on the same order. But the difference is that Japan is a small archipelago while Russia is a whole entire continent. Birth/death rates in Russia are similar to Japan. So how did it turn out that an entire f-ing continent has the same population as an archipelago? It's a completely empty abandoned continent. Russia is totally cooked, I'm telling you. At least Japan is mostly ethnic Japanese, small, contained in the archipelago, culturally the same. So they will have a chance to bounce back and recover. But for Russia there is no chance, I think. Russia will collapse and be in history. I'm Russian but I've lived all my life in America though. I don't know, but America ain't looking too good either. Probably out of these three countries, Japan will be the most stable one in the next few decades. Both Russian and America are in big big trouble, so many internal problems. Japan seems to be much safer. I don't know. I'm used to being a foreigner, as I am now in America. And since I've never actually lived in Russia, I would be a foreigner there as well. I've never had a social life. I'm anti-social, or autistic, or hikikomori to some extent. I'm just trying to survive in this damn planet, that's all. I have an ascetic lifestyle, I don't have many expenses, I just need the bare minimum.
do you really believe that anyone in Japan will care about ancient History? Like that happened almost 1.25 centuries ago. If you don't know, go as a tourist.
Wow man you went hard on this one. One thing we know about Japan is it's a homogeneous country so they will most likely stick together no matter what. As much as things change they also stay the same.
As a russian living in ru I just wanna add that we are quite homogeneous too. Yes, we have some blacks here and there, but they are usually in Moscow and rare. While the US has cheap labor in the form of mexicans, we use Tajiks and other muslims, but they aren't that many. And on a side note everyone bitch about yen being weak. Have you seen the rouble? I mean, in comparison you live in luxury, really.
It's not my income or cost of living. Just an example. Most people don't cook just bento or eat out. Need more time to study or level up. Rent is cheap here. Phone unlimited internet under 5,000 yen Home internet 5,000 yen Under 10,000 for both.
![Why I Will (not) Quit My Software Job In 2025. [Dev In Japan]](/img/n.gif)
Japan is very livable as an engineer. When I was on 5m I could still afford a 1k mansion in central Shinjuku with a front desk, gym and sento. It was really luxury and I felt that I had made it. But despite that your money won’t go far internationally, especially now. Now I’m living in Ome focusing on building a business. I think that’s really the only way to get ahead financially in Japan. An online business where you get paid in dollars - then you’re really talking.
I was surprised you mentioned Ome in this video because despite living out here for 18 months already I don’t know anyone who lives here. Great video by the way.
yes. I really think 5m is quite livable in Japan.
Oh wow you are trying to build a business in ome?
I'd love to hear.
I want that USD...
Ome is easy access from shinjuku, easy access to the country side and has a big super market / shopping center so has most thing there.
Rent is much cheaper than inner Tokyo and even buying a house looks good.
please reach out to me on linkedin or discord.
I'd like to know more.
It's a whole rabbit hole when it comes to salaries, the average cost of living, and also one's own perceptions. But I definitely think that we sort of have to shed the idea of the inflated US market salaries, and sort of look further into what it takes to live comfortably in whatever country you are aiming at living. Thanks for the video Ippo! This was extremely insightful, really trying my hardest to emigrate to Japan next year, so I will definitely make use of everything you laid out in here.
Thanks for watching!
I hope my content can give you some ideas, but as I always say seek information from other people too.
All the best on getting here.
But one can do a quick calculation and see that maybe 40k is too low even if they were living rent free and all. If one makes 100k usd, which is not uncommon for software engineers...and doesn't live in those expensive cities, they can easily save at least 30k, assuming no family.
When you realise that most youth in Japan have a average yearly salary of only 1.5-2.5M yen.
You forgot about clothes, electronics, flight tickets home. mobile phone, fruits. After these i think 70-80 thousand would be left. I think the best alternative would be to move a bit away from Shibuya, but not so far away as going to Ome. 30-40 minutes away you can find the same apartment for 40 thousand, save 40. Cook a bit, even though not much save another 30 thousand, do not spend 80 but 50 for fun, and in that way you can save 180 thousand, which is not bad, and really not missing anything.
I live in Ome. I have an 80sqm 2 story 3 bedroom house for 80k per month rent. I use my rooms as a bedroom, gym and office. I can enjoy nature with hiking and the Tamagawa river. It’s excellent for remote working and if you only socialise once per week. However if I make more money I’d move back to the city.
@@shugyosha7924 Yes, if you work remotely it can be a good idea, but too far away if you commute everyday.
I keep looking at Ome-shi. Rent.
Really like Okutama area, river and hiking.
My dog would like it more in the country side too.
Okutama has super cheap Akiya but it's a little too far from the city to travel once per week.
Your idea is great. Everything is at home and cheap.
There are so many options for remote engineers.
I tired to move to Okinawa but I came back to Tokyo...
One point about flight tickets, it's probably easier to work in the US and visit Japan than it is vice versa. Even with a midrange US salary (~$70,000/yr), flights to Japan are pricey. Someone earning $250,000 can frequently fly there with ease, even if they go for a nice apartment back home.
Living in Tokyo can cost you around 2x to 5x more than anywhere else in the country.
damn, your channel feels like i found a gold mine. I really wanna move to Japan, looking for jobs, but no ones hiring freshers these days.
Thanks for watching.
The truth is these days no one wants to hire new grads.
It's simple, it's less income but also less expenses. Having to pay HALF in rent, cellphone, internet... and less in food is worth it. Also, a car is not mandatory so forget about the monthly payments, insurance, and using the bicycle for weekends, with the occasional trip to other cities/prefectures. And you didn't mention that most companies have an allowance for transportation, in case that the employee has to work in person.
Thanks for the breakdown. I would like to add stuff like clothing, gym membership, amazon prime, and some traveling. Shoes especially. Gym requires a separate pair of indoor shoes, and depending on industry you might need extra shoes (which the company doesn't reimburse...)
Gym is like 8000 yen per month.
Yeah. You can easily spend all your earnings if you want to enjoy life. Maybe my next simulation of 10mil yen should add in travel/holiday & monthly subscriptions etc. I'll check in discord for my next video.
Have you seen "chocozap" in Tokyo? It's everywhere these days. i think 24/7 gym for 3,000 yen per month.
In the Netherlands developers start around 35K-45K euros, so it's not that much. But senior devs certainly make enough to buy an apartment or house on their own. Taxes, car ownership, and intercity transit are expensive, but other cost of living is not that bad. People really struggle to find housing here though due to the shortage. Had 15 potential tenants scheduled to see my apartment in one day as I'm moving out, and this is the outskirts of Rotterdam.
Thanks for sharing.
I'm not surprised as The Netherlands seems like a cool place to live. You must have many Europeans living there.
Perfect timing!
lol I need to determine my future cost of living in Tokyo to see how much I would need from a new job.
Great.
This is just an example.
You can reduce the food and rent quite a bit.
Glad you enjoyed it.
More like this to come!
I was born and raised in Silicon Valley. My dad's an engineer. I don't require that much money. I can and have lived on less.
Cost of living is so different there too. It's more affordable....especially if you don't live in Tokyo or some posh neighborhood.
It IS interesting to me that this is what are classed as poverty wages for California but our economy is larger than Japan's actually (and so is the state itself). It's good to have perspective.
Comparing income and cost of living is tricky.
property in Silicon Valley must be so high that you need high income. I'm also guessing many people have high student loans and general cost of living. People on 100k USD+ can still be living pay check to paycheck. I'm also guessing taxes are the highest there.
To be honest I would love to have that USD but I know competition is high right.
I think it's because Japan is still in the top 5 economies of the world so people assume incomes will be high.
You can live a decent life with this income if you move away from Tokyo.
@@devippo Yes 100k is hard to live on in some cities due to the cost of rentals food etc. Despite this i've made it work on about $45k. If you're creative you can get by.
I'm currently unemployed but even then I'm doing ok. Taxes are pretty high here but California operates more like a small country than a state so there's a social safety net.
I like to hear the way household income works other places tbh because it's so different than what I'm used to. Comparison is awkward but valuable in the sense that if you're going to go someplace you need a reference point.
I'm married to a European whom I live apart from just now. We can get by just fine on less than half my old income over there. It's partly down to housing which is the biggest expense in California.
@@devippo Oh and it's not impossible to get into tech here but working for FAANG isn't worth the headache. I've done so myself in the past and there's very clear caste-like behavior in the office. Family members work in those companies and they've pretty much given up having any sort of life down to how much more they work than normal. Other companies that one often doesn't think of, like banks and hospitals, often pay similarly but also have better work-life balance.
Interesting, As someone from a developing country. An average software engineer earns like around 100万円. it makes a huge difference comparing japan with the US and also with my own country
Yes. It's also difficult to compare countries because of things like cost of living or health care.
Ey bud thx a bunch for sharing the deets!!
Was hoping you would go over the cost of things like Internet (ideally, Gigabit speeds) and cell phone plans per month...curious, how much does that cost?
Rakuten mobile: under 3,000 per month or less if you don't use it. SimFree phones.
Fast internet: arouund 5,000 per month.
Mine right now
329.8
Mbps download
436.0
Mbps upload
Pretty nice compared with the living cost in London and Paris.
I've never been but some french guys tell me about it.
@@devippo its bad out there i spent like 3 years in london and i met many french people who prefer living in the UK over france eventho the transportation and rent is high to them it seemed ok compared with france
Whats the average salary of an overseas engineer being brought to Japan with a sponsored visa? About 5-6 million too? And is this the salary for 2 + years experience perhaps or is that more senior?
Great and interesting videos as always. It really is a big decision to move to Japan with the salary difference as you are really locking yourself into that economy as your savings wont be worth much if you ever decide to move back to Europe or the US. I know you worked with Vietnamese companies in the past and was wondering how do the salaries there compare to those with Japan? Ive seen some Japanese engineers move to Vietnam due to work life balance a bit on youtube. Sorry for the long message, thanks for the video!
For average Japanese companies at 5mill to 6mill might be at least 3 to 4 years. Us tech companies pay a lot more of course.
Vietnam devs get paid from 0dollars to 1.5k usd.
Their agencies/ dev shops charge at least 2k usd per month.
When I was working in Vietnam it was 250,000 to 300,000 per month for devs. The devs themselves would then be paid less than half of that.
Japanese income goes a long way in south east Asia.
Digital nomad is great if your clients are in Japan or the Apac areas.
So making 5mil and after taxes per month having over 300,000 is upper class pay in SEA.
Thanks for the reply, I'll pass my n3 this year and then have one year exp as a dev by next summer, would you say 2-3 years minimum in this market is the experience needed to get over there even with n3 and up, uuuugh it's such a long road still for me i think?
What about things like pension? especially if one is a contract worker.
I pay 国民年金 that is like 15,000 or so per month. Quite cheap.
@@devippo thanks!
@@21Kikoshi I will never get a pension back as the population will not be enough to pay it. that's the truth.
@@devippo That's true. We are declining fast and I don't think people have the capacity to solve the problem.
Hi! How much money do you think you would need to have saved by 65?
You mean how much invested to live of interest?
With a house paid off with the 4% rule 200,000 per month should be enough.
That is 50,000,000 yen in an index.
saving 100,000 per month for 20 years.
Or you could just live in South East Asia.
In my opinion in 30 years from now the pension system will not work in most developed nations.
This is a simplified answer.
@@devippo Quite a good reference. Thanks.
Every time I see Soyjoy I think Soylent green.
I have 8 years experience in IT, Can I get IT job easy without having Japanese language?
Even with Japanese skills it's Not easy.
There are limited positions.
Just give Japan dev a try and see.
What do Japanese people think about Russian people? The Russian Empire fought against the Japanese Empire 1904 - 1905. Is this military conflict still fresh on their minds? Our stupid Tsar tried to conquer Manchuria, which brought him in conflict with China and Japan. I think that was was totally unjustified and unneeded. Especially since much of Eastern Russia was not fully settled yet. There truly was no need for more territories.
Some UA-camrs, people are saying that Japan is dying out. Japan's population is 122.6 million in 2024. Russia's population is 143.9 million in 2024. As you can see, they are on the same order. But the difference is that Japan is a small archipelago while Russia is a whole entire continent. Birth/death rates in Russia are similar to Japan. So how did it turn out that an entire f-ing continent has the same population as an archipelago? It's a completely empty abandoned continent. Russia is totally cooked, I'm telling you. At least Japan is mostly ethnic Japanese, small, contained in the archipelago, culturally the same. So they will have a chance to bounce back and recover. But for Russia there is no chance, I think. Russia will collapse and be in history.
I'm Russian but I've lived all my life in America though. I don't know, but America ain't looking too good either. Probably out of these three countries, Japan will be the most stable one in the next few decades. Both Russian and America are in big big trouble, so many internal problems. Japan seems to be much safer. I don't know. I'm used to being a foreigner, as I am now in America. And since I've never actually lived in Russia, I would be a foreigner there as well. I've never had a social life. I'm anti-social, or autistic, or hikikomori to some extent. I'm just trying to survive in this damn planet, that's all. I have an ascetic lifestyle, I don't have many expenses, I just need the bare minimum.
do you really believe that anyone in Japan will care about ancient History? Like that happened almost 1.25 centuries ago. If you don't know, go as a tourist.
Wow man you went hard on this one.
One thing we know about Japan is it's a homogeneous country so they will most likely stick together no matter what.
As much as things change they also stay the same.
@@devippo Yeah previously I was just being sarcastic and joking.
@@konstantinrebrov675 OK cool.
As a russian living in ru I just wanna add that we are quite homogeneous too. Yes, we have some blacks here and there, but they are usually in Moscow and rare. While the US has cheap labor in the form of mexicans, we use Tajiks and other muslims, but they aren't that many.
And on a side note everyone bitch about yen being weak. Have you seen the rouble? I mean, in comparison you live in luxury, really.
What about cellphone plan or internet? Use free wifi? Dam your eating out food is more expensive than your rent.
It's not my income or cost of living.
Just an example.
Most people don't cook just bento or eat out.
Need more time to study or level up.
Rent is cheap here.
Phone unlimited internet under 5,000 yen
Home internet 5,000 yen
Under 10,000 for both.
Houses are cheap too.
affordable yes
wait.. that's much better than working in other western countries (except the US)
US is OP for tech work.
@@devippo Yeah but you might not live another day to tell about it 😅
@@21Kikoshi
It's quite scary...
1 usd is 160 yen now lol
I don't travel to the US so I'm pretty good.
Stick to mostly Japanese products too.