36F married to 34M. We are moving to Japan in 2 months for my job at a university in Tokyo. I lived in Japan before, I speak Japanese, N2, Master's degree, etc., which is why I feel comfortable with moving to Japan with my husband, even though he doesn't have a job lined up there yet.
My husband is a software engineer for a major financial firm, and he has been working there since 2021. That has been his entire software dev experience, so he's completed 3 years. He has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. He speaks no Japanese yet, but is studying daily with the goal of getting N4 by December 2025, and going from there.
I've tried researching about his field and we've looked at jobs. I'm assuming it will be easier for him to find work from inside Japan, but what timeframe could we expect for someone like him? Would it be possible for him to find work within 2-3 months of landing? I know to work for a company full time, he will have to switch his visa type, and that's ok, but I assume being physically in Japan will still appeal to companies more than someone applying from the outside. Considering he is associate level and not senior, what kind of salary can he expect to start? 4-6M yen? 5-7M?
We've saved up ~4M yen cash to bring with us to cover our starting expenses plus his expenses for a bit and are hoping it will take no longer than 3-6 months for him to land something, with him studying Japanese, getting more certs, and cleaning up his portfolio as he job hunts. I feel like his odds are good, but is there anyone who didn't get into this field after that span of time? I told him if it hits 4-6 months and it isn't looking good, that he should continue working on his coding skills, study Japanese, and maybe do something part time on the dependent visa, like work freelance in his field or do a job that will help boost his Japanese. Is this a good idea, or would this make it worse? I don't want his resume to have too big of a gap.
Thank you for any suggestions.
by Efficient_Plan_1517