Hey all , looking for some real-talk advice from anyone who’s navigated the haken to seishain jump here in Japan's tech scene.
I'm an Backend Engineer and have been in Japan for almost 4 years now. Total work experience is sitting right at 7 years.
The Haken Situation
For the last two years, I’ve been working as an Applications Engineer (Java/Spring Boot, good AWS/DevOps skills) at one of the big e-commerce company(iykyk) here in Tokyo.my salary is around 6.8 milion yen. It's a sweet gig in terms of experience, no overtime no deadlines but it’s a 3-month rolling haken contract, and honestly, after two years, there’s been zero mention of converting me to seishain.
As most of you know, there is a 3 year limit to Haken. I’m starting to count down, and I only have 4 renewals left until my time is up.I asked my payroll company about the conversion and there was no proper response from them.It feels like the company has made its decision, so I need to make mine! I’m already hitting the job boards now before I'm forced to rush.
On the language side, I'm N3 certified and I'm actually sitting for the N2 this coming Sunday! Fingers crossed
1.Given my skill set, can I apply for direct seishain role at a foreign-affiliated or major Japanese tech company?
( I am also preparing for LT/CF ) Should I expect the two years of haken to be a major roadblock during interviews?
2.What kind of salary should I be targeting when I apply for these full-time roles?
by Hopeful_Welder794