Moving to Tokyo as a Software Engineer — Month 1 Reality Check

The job itself. Funai Consulting's engineering work was technically challenging in ways I found immediately engaging. The codebase was complex, the requirements were precise, and the expectations around code quality were higher than anywhere I'd worked previously. I'd expected cultural adjustment to be the hard part. The technical bar was higher than I'd prepared for.

The setup. Tokyo infrastructure for daily life — transport, banking, phone, apartment — is actually more straightforward for foreigners than the reputation suggests, as long as you're in a company that helps with the initial logistics. HR walked me through every setup step in the first week.

I assumed silence in meetings meant agreement. In most of my previous working contexts, if nobody objected, the decision was made. In Japan, silence often means 'I have concerns I haven't yet found the right way to express.' I'd move forward on things I thought were decided that weren't. This caused friction that took me three months to understand.

I underestimated how much language matters even in an English-working environment. The informal conversations — the ones where you understand what's really happening on a project — happen in Japanese. My technical contributions were visible. My ability to participate in broader context was limited until I invested in the language.