How I got to Japan... Part 1: はじめまして
Let me just start out and say, this is not an advice column. This is not a roadmap, or a one-size-fits all solution. Heck, what I did may not even work anymore. But maybe there are parts of this story that give you hope, ideas, or entertainment.
How did I get here?
Chance? Circumstance? Hope?
Starting my software career in the early 2010s had a couple perks. High demand for software engineers, good salaries, and occasionally, my work sent me abroad for a month. The first time was to New Zealand, where I collaborated with our Christchurch team and broke down a lot of barriers that exist between satellite offices communicating via email or chat. The second, Indeed, who sent me to Tokyo for a month to train a team on how to deploy the search engine backend.
While I liked the responsibility of being release manager, and I was good at it, I realized that the task had become non-promotable work. Cleaning up merges of hundreds of lines of untested code for literal cowboys? (This was Texas) Sometime one has to recognize when it's time to let go. So I was in a skip-level meeting with a great leader named Jack, asking about new opportunities on the SRE team. And within two weeks, I was in Tokyo, with jet-lag and indigestion, training a team of five engineers to take on the work I had been doing alone.
It wasn't an easy month. My manager decided to give my quarterly feedback over a late-night video call rather than when I was in Austin, and the wifi hotspot kept cutting out. Critical feedback with words cutting out is not fun. Handing over a product also puts everything under scrutiny. "Why don't you know this monolith better?" It wasn't a vacation.
Despite the work challenges, I found Tokyo so intriguing. As the largest metropolitan area on earth, Tokyo is not really a city, rather a collection of city centers where the edges blur. (I could and will probably write another essay on why there is no such thing as "downtown Tokyo.") I think of Tokyo as an organism, with its jagged streets and criss-crossing transit systems. Little nodules of shopping centers dotted atop train tracks, and diligent workers going to and from their daily routines.
I was looking to move on from Austin, and had been eyeing San Francisco. The food, culture, and availability of tech jobs were primary draws. Suddenly I noticed: Tokyo is cheaper and safer than SF. (I'd been dealing with a series of street harassment in USA so this was top of mind) What if I got a tech job out here?
This was fall 2016, amidst the "grab 'em by the 🐱" debacle. The normalization of violence against women by a man seeking the highest office in my home country was deeply disappointing. Even worse to see the many who continued to support him. I'd lived briefly in Germany for study abroad, and with my professional experience working overseas, and I'd always loved the quality of life. What if the best future I could build for myself was outside my home country?
Oh, and one more thing. So people know me professionally as a Software Architect. I don't always get to share that I have a Visual Art degree with a focus on printmaking. I loved the colorful gradients and ethereal watercolor pigments of Japanese woodblock prints. The intrigue of being close to such deep culture was my ultimate draw.
It was important to frame my move as moving towards something, rather than running away. Certainly the increasingly far-right politics in Texas, the barriers at my OB/GYN office due to bishops having jurisdiction over things they should not, and the rise of MAGA fascism did not make me want to stay. But I also thought about all the possibilities that would be available. Access to a rich history of fine art, including textiles and printmaking. World-class food. The best public transit on earth, and the ability to give up car life. Being able to walk around safely at night, unbothered, thinking about engineering, art, or a book I read. (Not thinking about the optimal way to hold my car keys in case weird shouting guy gets more bothered.)
Look at all this freedom to have basic safety and comfort, and continue my career and hobbies.
Moving abroad, far away from the people I love, letting go of the possessions I'd collected, the comforts and familiarity of Austin, it terrified me. But I also knew I would regret it if I didn't try it.
So I made up my mind: somehow, someway, I will live in Japan.
