To start off, I am a US Citizen, 26 year old male. Single, living with parents at home. I have a bachelor's in Computer Engineering and a master's in Computer Science that I just completed. I graduated with my bachelor's in 2021, and immediately began working at my current company as a (contractor) Windows Admin for about 9 months, and after received an offer as an employee working as a System/Architecture Admin for our applications, where I currently still am. Going on year 4 now of working for this company. I love my coworkers and the job is easy and pays decent (~94k a year currently), but I just know this isn't where I should be.
In the 2nd half of my master's, I decided I wanted to pivot my career from IT/Cyber sec to Software Engineer. To that effect, I've been doing the usual leetcode grind and spamming applications, but nothing so far.
While all this was going on, I've gone to Japan 3 times over the last 3 years, and am planning my 2nd visit this year, 4th visit total. I've also been independently studying, and passed N5 back in November 2024, but it has been hard given the coding and master's degree grind and I have not been able to devote the time I've wanted to learning the language.
I have known for the past few years that I want to live in Japan for some undetermined length of time, but what form that takes I'm not really sure. Language school definitely seems like the strongest Japan option for me, as I have zero interest in teaching English.
Given the rough state of junior positions in software right now, I'm starting to wonder if quitting my current stable, cozy job for Japanese language school is crazy or not. I have the savings to do it, but I'm just terrified of killing my career. I'd like to see what kind of doors open up for me in software in Japan, and am very open to working a software engineer role in Japan, but I'm not dead set on working software in Japan or even here in the States. I know that I love being in Japan, but I just don't know what to do, and I feel like I'm at a pivotal crossroad in my life.
Should I just forget about Japan for a while, keep studying Japanese independently as best I can while I try to get my Software Engineer career started here? Maybe try to get lucky and land a role and a company with a Japanese branch? Or jump into the deep end, go to language school, and then see what path life takes me on?
I know that only I can really decide what's "right" for me, but I'd like to hear some perspectives of people who have had similar situations.
by Caboose1569