Paul's Newsletter #50
Hello there,
Welcome to newsletter #50. Half a century!
After what seemed like day after day of rain in September, we’re now finally moving into autumn. Blue skies, still warm enough to wear a T-shirt, and autumn food in the supermarket. It’s the best time of year to be in Japan.
Huge thanks to everyone who attended our 2nd meetup in Jiyugaoka on September 17th. We had a lively evening of drinks and conversation.
Once again, I forgot to take pictures. I asked ChatGPT to imagine the scene, and the output was actually not too bad (if you ignore the fact that we were about 9km from Tokyo Tower).
The job market has picked up again after a slow summer, with quite a few new roles opening in the last few weeks. From my research, it's quite a mix of roles, but still mostly mid-level to senior. Backend or fullstack in software engineering. SRE and platform engineering. Some product manager roles (primarily bilingual). Some positions in QA. Overall, I think the job market will remain quite active for at least the next couple of months, before the usual year-end slowdown.
The big news since my last newsletter was the large fee hikes for various immigration processes. The fee for permanent residence rose from 10,000 JPY to 200,000 JPY. Visa renewal and Change of Status fees rose from 6,000 JPY (or 5,500 JPY online) to as much as 75,000 JPY, depending on the length of stay granted. Apparently, there were queues of up to 6-7 hours at immigration in Shinagawa to submit permanent residence applications at the old pricing before October 1st. I think it'll take some time for all of this to play out. These are big jumps for workers on average wages. Will we see companies cover the costs of visa applications and renewals to attract and retain staff? We'll have to wait and see.
Without further ado, this month's articles, jobs, and fun stuff.
From Me:
Profile #42: Aishwarya Wahane – data scientist and co-founder of DataMinds
Aishu is a data scientist and co-founder of DataMinds, a community for people working in the data science and AI/ML fields.
Aishu and I spoke about her early interest in electronic engineering, her Tokyo internship and bootcamp experiences, her move into a data science career, the DataMinds community, and more. [article]
Interview with Karan of FusyBots
Karan is a robotics engineer and runs the FusyBots robotics community. Our conversation was mainly focused on those seeking to relocate to Japan from overseas, and covered recent changes in immigration, visas for students and professionals, Japanese language requirements, and salaries. [YouTube]
What I've Been Reading:
More than 100,000 people in Japan are now 100 years of age or older
The number of people aged 100 or more in Japan has exceeded 100,000 for the first time, according to the health ministry. [article]
Japan beer giants raided over suspicions they colluded to set the price of beverages
Authorities raided the country’s four biggest breweries (Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, Sapporo) over suspicions they colluded to set the price of beer and other beverages. The scoundrels! [article]
AI tool that copied actor’s ‘lustrous’ voice violated his rights, Tokyo court rules
A court in Japan has ruled that the human voice has legal protection after a landmark case involving a well-known actor and a TikTok account that he claimed had cloned his “lustrous” baritone voice in its AI-generated videos. [article]
The Lady Gaga moment for corporate Japan
Hiring Lady Gaga to dance for 30 seconds and ask “Why not work for FamilyMart?” marks a distinct new episode for corporate Japan. [article] Watch: ファミマではたらく？ 30秒 [video]
Startup Nation Japan - Reality Check
Founder Brandon Possin on the real-world frictions confronting start-ups in Japan. Detailed, insightful, frustrating to read. [article]
Where Foreign Nationals Actually Live in Japan: The Maps Behind the National Statistics
Japan’s foreign population is growing, but its acute local concentration requires targeted municipal solutions rather than one-size-fits-all national policies. [article]
I’m a Foreigner in Japan. Here’s What I Think About the “Foreigner Problem” | LinkedIn
A Tokyo VC who grew up in Japan digs into the data behind the country’s “foreigner problem” and finds that both the “Japan is being overwhelmed” and “Japan is turning xenophobic” camps are getting it wrong, along with one striking stat that should worry anyone who cares about Japanese startups. [article]
In Japan, sometimes the person who can’t read the air is exactly who you need
Can you "空気を読む"? [article]
Why Japanese People (Almost) Never Call Each Other by Their First Names
A 1,500-year-old habit of hiding your real name. [article]
And finally:
Why’s everybody going to Japan?
Search Engine is one of my favourite podcasts: A Japanese listener gets so many houseguests she starts a spreadsheet to try to figure out what's going on. Why has American tourism to Japan gotten so out of control? The story of a government plot. [Podcast]
Hands On:
Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026
For the sixteenth year, Stack Overflow asked developers and technologists about everything from how they’re using AI to how happy they are at work to where they’re learning new skills. This year’s survey boils down to one question: How are you doing? [article]
Native is now the future of mobile at Shopify
Coding agents changed what it costs to build mobile apps twice. Here’s why Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin. [article]
Advice to a beginning software engineer
Sean Goedecke offers his advice to entry-level engineers. [article]
The Future Tech Role Is the Product Architect
Coding is moving from humans to agents. As agents get better at implementing, testing, and reviewing software, the human role moves toward deciding what should be built, defining how the system should work, and verifying the result. The person who owns all three is the product architect. [article]
If you came to last month's meetup, you would have met Taylan. He has a great blog on embedded electronics, microcontrollers, and the maker community in Tokyo that I want to share with you. [blog]
Why humanoid robots won’t catch up to human workers any time soon
A humanoid robot just outran Usain Bolt's 100-metre record, yet the best robots still need four to ten times longer than a person to do simple chores like peeling an orange and succeed only about half the time. Kai Williams explains why that gap means robots won't be taking our jobs any time soon. [article]
Hot Jobs:
Jobs at Partner companies (you can apply directly via my job board):
Jobs at Mico (a Japanese SaaS company specialising in AI-powered communication platforms that enhance customer engagement):
Lead cloud infrastructure operations and reliability across Mico's product portfolio on AWS, managing infrastructure-as-code, observability, CI/CD pipelines, and incident response while developing SRE expertise.
[5M to 8M JPY | Apply from: Japan only | Hybrid | English: Fluent | Japanese: Conversational]
Jobs at Mico (a Japanese SaaS company specialising in AI-powered communication platforms that enhance customer engagement):
Lead Mico's cloud infrastructure and reliability across its entire product portfolio. Drive team growth strategy while architecting scalable systems, optimizing costs, and building observability and CI/CD infrastructure on AWS.
[8M to 11M JPY | Apply from: Japan only | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Conversational]
Jobs at Mico (a Japanese SaaS company specialising in AI-powered communication platforms that enhance customer engagement):
Lead Mico Engage AI's Data Platform team to establish sustainable governance and hierarchical data architecture across a complex, rapidly growing system using TiDB and Snowflake, while redesigning core data models and mentoring engineers.
[7M to 11M JPY | Apply from: Japan only | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Business-level]
Jobs at Zaiko (Japan's leader in ticketing technology for live events and streaming shows):
Drive product strategy and execution across Zaiko's ticketing, livestreaming, and fan engagement platform for Japanese and global event creators and fans. Balance stakeholder needs, define metrics-driven roadmaps, and ship impactful features across web and native apps.
[Salary details not provided | Apply from: Japan only | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Not required]
Jobs at MODE (the creator of BizStack, an all-encompassing IoT application):
Product Manager (Industry Solutions) (#1647)
Drive industry-specific solutions for BizStack, MODE's enterprise IoT and AI platform. Use AI agents to rapidly validate ideas across complex, multi-segment customer problems before full-scale development.
[8M to 9M JPY, plus stock options | Apply from: Japan only | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Business-level]
Jobs at Mercari (Japan's leading eCommerce marketplace):
Senior Software Engineer, Agentic AI Platform – Mercari (#1645)
Build Mercari's AI Platform infrastructure—LLM Gateway, MCP Gateway, Agent Sandbox—enabling thousands of engineers to work AI-natively while tackling emerging challenges in agent-era system design and operation at scale.
[Salary details not provided | Apply from: Anywhere | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Not required]
Jobs at Mercari (Japan's leading eCommerce marketplace):
Product Engineer Backend, Global Supply – Mercari (#1646)
Build Mercari's global supply foundation, enabling seamless multi-market listing and commerce operations. Own end-to-end specifications, architecture decisions, and production delivery for a genuinely global marketplace serving millions across countries, currencies, and languages.
[Salary details not provided | Apply from: Anywhere | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Not required]
Software Engineer (Site Reliability) – Mercari (#1643)
Drive reliability and scalability across Mercari's production microservices on Google Cloud and Kubernetes, operating at marketplace and fintech scale. Lead SLO-driven reliability epics, build AI-powered autonomous operations for incident detection and recovery, and reduce toil through infrastructure automation.
[Salary details not provided | Apply from: Anywhere | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Not required]
Product Engineer, Backend (Product Data) – Mercari (#1638)
Build and operate Mercari's product catalogue system, designing schemas and data pipelines to normalise partner data while maintaining data quality, freshness, and reliable contracts for downstream discovery surfaces.
[Salary details not provided | Apply from: Anywhere | Hybrid | English: Business-level | Japanese: Not required]
More roles on the job board.
If you’re interested in a role, apply early. Job Alert subscribers get notified about new roles before they appear in this newsletter. Sign up via 'Manage your preferences' below. I send no more than one alert per week.
Outside Interests (random things I found interesting):
Why the world pays more for denim made on these looms
How did Japan become the global hub for premium selvedge denim? [YouTube]
Japan's book scene is quietly moving from bookstores to libraries
In small Japanese towns like Nankan, where the library draws 100,000 visitors despite a population of just 9,000, local libraries are turning into travel destinations. Asami Saisho shows why they may be the best way to find the real Japan that never appears in guidebooks or search results. [article]
Four Islamic polymaths prove breadth beats specialisation
Historian Mariam Sabri uses four great Islamic polymaths, al-Biruni, Alhazen, Avicenna and al-Khwarizmi, to argue that in an age of AI and upheaval, broad learning will serve today’s students better than narrow specialisation. [article]
Why I Outsource My Biggest Decisions to a Chatbot - and None of the Small Ones
A chatbot told Lauren Leek to quit her job, travel round Australia and leave London, and she did all three, but when she re-ran those conversations thousands of times she found the advice swung by 53 points depending only on how she worded the question, which suggests the AI wasn’t weighing up her life so much as approving decisions she had already made. [article]
Book I'm Reading:
Where the axe is buried - Ray Nayler
The President cannot die. The machines cannot fail. Both are about to be proven wrong.
In the Federation, the President has ruled for generations by moving his mind from one new body to the next, and surveillance reaches into every corner of life. A plot to kill him and put an impostor in his place is already underway. Lilia, a brilliant scientist whose invention may be the key to toppling him, is on the run.
In the West, governments have handed power to AI Prime Ministers, promised to be calm, rational and incorruptible. But an experimental machine mind has started to go wrong, and its errors could bring down a civilisation.
As both systems begin to collapse, a scattered band of rebels must decide what kind of world comes next, and whether people still remember how to govern themselves.
Subscriber 1-on-1s:
I set aside time each week for 1-on-1 calls with newsletter subscribers as a thank you for your support.
If you need help with your resume, coaching on job-hunting tactics, advice on negotiating a job offer, want to learn how I can help you hire as an agent or via the job board, or anything else Japan-related to job-hunting & hiring, you can book a free call with me.
Busy this week, as my brother and his family are coming to Japan on Saturday, and I'll take next week off to be their tour guide.
As always, if you have any feedback, feel free to message me by reply email. Thanks for reading. Time for a nap.
Paul.