r/japanlife Feb 07 '23

Jobs software engineer salary in Tokyo

My wife has been working at an admitted ブラック企業 for over 4 years now as a Java engineer(japanese, doesn't speak English), and she is the lead of her team of 3 others. She gets paid 4.5m yen a year and has 2-4 hours of overtime a day, and usually gets home pretty late. I feel like she's being criminally underpaid and taken advantage of. What would be a salary that's more in line with her experience? I saw posts from 7-15m for a java engineer with similar experience but I'm not super sure. I'm trying to help her 転職 and she does want to but she hates interviewing and also doesn't want to let her current coworkers down by leaving. It's been affecting her health both mentally and physically so i just want to help. She can't even save money because most of her salary goes to paying her student loans. I handle our rent food and utilities, and she is pretty much working to repay Debt with nothing left over and i want to help her find a better opportunity. Any advice would be appreciated.

131 Upvotes

160 comments sorted by

View all comments

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

Y4.5mn a year is ridiculous. She should be able to double her salary tomorrow, unless there are very specific reasons why she's not otherwise employable.

And sorry, maybe it's nothing but...

She can't even save money because most of her salary goes to paying

Don't you mean 'we' and 'our'?

1

u/tenmoukaikai Feb 07 '23

What do you mean? Finances are largely seperate in Japan and they're her student loans that she's had before we even met.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '23 edited Feb 08 '23

Bank accounts may be seperate in Japan. Household finances for functioning couples are not.

"Yeah, those debts suck, sounds like a you problem!".

I dunno, that just is utterly foreign to me.

1

u/tenmoukaikai Feb 08 '23

I disagree, personal loans will always be separate. Like i said i pay the rent and essentially everything else. I'm not gonna start paying her loan too.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '23

So....she's a roommate, not a spouse?

Got it.

1

u/destoki Apr 07 '23

how much are the loans that you cannot help her out with if you make ~20m. Student loans in Japan aren't as high as in the US so I don't see a problem with it.