Hey everyone, as many here, I want to move to Japan at some point in my life. I contemplated how to approach this and would appreciate input regarding feasibility/how realistic these are to work out. I know no one has a magic glass ball that can tell the future, but since I need to make decisions for the future soon, I would appreciate your thoughts.
Status quo: 30M, European, bachelors degree, passed N5 in 2023 after one year of studying alongside full-time employment, 8 years experience doing project management in game dev. My goal is to move to Tokyo within the next 6 years, want to continue doing project management, not necessarily married to the games industry but I wouldn't mind staying either.
Plan A1: Focus on language skills aiming to pass BJT with at least 400 points/N2 by 2030, try to land a job with a salary of at least ¥7M per year.
Plan A2: Same but reduce work hours to crunch language to get BJT 480+ points/N1 and salary of at least ¥8M per year.
Plan B: Reduce work hours to try and juggle aiming for BJT 400p/N2 + MBA degree, and aim for a position that pays at least ¥6M per year.
Many potentially interesting companies state N2 or equivalent as "would be nice", but I don't want to go there without the ability to be a more-than-less functioning member of society and a team. Based on what I read online and my own experiences, going from N5 to N2 within 5 years seems doable, but I think focusing on BJT would make more sense considering that I expect to be needing at least some business Japanese.
I'm at a loss regarding salary expectations though. I know the average yearly salary is ¥5M, so ¥8M sounds too high to me, despite 12 years of work experience by then. But I also see folks here saying ¥8M isn't all that unrealistic, so I would appreciate some more input in this regard.
Juggling an MBA degree while studying Japanese would be tough and I would be concerned about the distraction, but if that's what it takes, I will try to achieve it. It's my least favorite option though because I'd prefer to focus on language skills acquisition.
So. What do you guys think?
by colin199805