I’m a 31-year-old engineer with about 8 years of experience, but my annual income is lower than my wife’s who's only been working for less than 3 years as a nurse.
My annual income is around 4.5 million yen:
– Base salary: 250,000 yen
– Overtime: about 80,000 yen for 40 hours per month
– Bonus: around 500,000 yen per year
My wife earns about 4.65 million yen:
– Base salary + allowances: around 300,000 yen per month
– Bonus: about 1.0–1.1 million yen per year
It’s not a big difference, but I work about 10 hours more per week due to overtime. The overtime is optional, but if I stopped doing it, my annual income would actually drop to around 3.5 million yen. (Yikes!)
I’m considering changing jobs, but first I’d like to know what’s realistic. Is my salary low for an engineer my age? And how much do people around my age (regardless of profession) usually earn here?
(Please don't provide google info as it is usually BS. I want to know YOUR first hand knowledge.)
by Optimal-Carrot1645
26 comments
Tokyo? You should make twice.
Yes this is very low
I’m a 33-year-old software engineer, 9 years experience. I make 9.5 million a year. I’d say you could definitely be making more.
Sound pretty low, what industry?
What are you doing specifically? Engineer is pretty broad. Working that much overtime with a base pay that’s only 25% above minimum wage (assuming Tokyo) seems pretty rough to me.
in tokyo for 8 YoE is quite low.
elaborating on what kind of engineer and in what industry is your company in might also give more context.
also have you only work at this company for the whole 8 years?
What kind of engineer? Civil?
Your salary is extremely low. This is lower than what fresh graduates make. Are you working at SES?
Peanuts
If I were you, I will be looking for new job that offers better pay. With that kind of salary + overtime work is considered very low in Tokyo. These kind of company are usually black company.
bro I’m a diesel mechanic in Hokkaido and I make 5.2 M .
how’s an engineer make that low?!😐
Dude you’re earning less than engineers in cheap labour countries. Try to find something remote
Depends what kind of engineer, but you’re being offered the base salary that most inexperienced teachers get in their first full time job.
That much salary doesn’t go that far in 2025,
I know you said no Google, but if you want a reference, and if you are a software engineer, this may be useful to know which companies pay the most, etc. [https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater-tokyo-area](https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater-tokyo-area)
What’s up with these comments? This is slightly lower than average, but pretty standard for a Japanese company. You should look to negotiate a higher salary or change jobs, but you would be looking at a 10-20% increase realistically, not double the current salary.
Okay, I left Japan 2 years ago but I think I have a say in this.
Your base salary is my base salary when I had 3 years of experience.
That seems very low. I make more money than that working IT support. I have no degree, and less experience in my field than you do in yours. I also have done about 45 minutes of overtime over a span of two and a half years.
For a person with 8 years of solid experience as an engineer, 4.5M incl. 40 hours of minashi zangyo is total shit for Tokyo and Japan generally, name-and-shame level bad (but also, sasuga Nihon). Are you working in an outsourcing company?
Change your job. This is very low salary.
That’s what I got (your salary without the bonus) as an entry level software engineer a few years ago, but most of the salaries for entry level ranges I saw then were 2-3m yen at Japanese companies.
Whether it’s good or not depends on what kind of job you’re doing. It’s definitely livable though. Most people make that or less and survive fine in Tokyo.
Usually the best way to increase your salary is to job hop. Companies here do take often past salary into account when making an offer, unfortunately. Unless you have really invaluable skills or an impressive resume, maybe you can ask for 7m and see what happens. 6m-9m is what I see on a lot of mid-career job ads recently.
For reference, within my company, around this figure is usually is the newgrad seishain engineer salary. How much that progresses with experience when staying in the company I’m not sure myself.
How much of your work experience was gained in Japan, how long have you been at this company, and what’s your Japanese language level?
I’m not saying it’s a reasonable or good salary, but if you have zero Japanese and the company treated you as ‘entry level’ (low/no experience at a Japanese company) then it’s understandable.
I think it is on the lower end. You should probably be able to find a better paying job if you look.
People in nursing tend to make more money to start for a number of reasons so best not to compare. Engineering can make you a lot more money but starting salaries are lower and companies are happy to pay you a low amount if you stick around on it so best to jump around for the payraise. Of course depends on your skills.
That’s insane
You are making me feel better about myself. I only make a little over 4mil but I work less than 4 days a week about 20hours. You need to start looking for a better place.
A bit below average by Japanese standard, but very very low by Redditor standard.
Two years ago, I earned a similar amount as a tech lead in a Japanese company. In my current international company, fresh graduates earn that much.
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