Japanese Line job experience over three months

After various international conferences, from the end of 2019 to Japan, after joining in January 2020, I also spent my third month in Japan. From university graduation to military service, then to new job, it's been a long time since I last wrote a personal article. Recently, due to the pandemic, remote work has become common, and I have more free time. This article mainly shares my thoughts from living and working in Japan for three months, including not only work but also leisure activities during my vacation period.

Choose Japan LINE

When I first arrived in Osaka, I learned from the international conference that LINE had a shortage of Infrastructure Engineers, and was repeatedly asked whether I should go for an in-person interview. At that time, I was still in the process of transferring from Google, which hadn't been completed yet, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to go for a few interviews. The detailed interview process can be referenced here: LINE Tokyo - Experimental MindsetI never expected to go through the interview process, as I had been hesitating for a long time after receiving Google's offer. In the end, despite LINE having fewer opportunities compared to my original circle of friends, I still decided to accept the offer, considering the job content and future career growth potential, and chose to join LINE.

Work Culture

LINE's work culture is not like a typical Japanese company, where employees wear suits daily, show great respect to senior management, and often go out for drinks after work. Instead, it leans more toward a Western-style atmosphere. Engineers don't need to wear formal suits to work; colleagues typically wear casual, relaxed clothing. After work, there's no pressure to follow managers for drinks or socializing.

Work hours are flexible, and while a time card is technically required, most people are largely self-managed. Most team members arrive around 11 a.m., and if someone has a family emergency, they can easily work from home—offering a high degree of freedom. However, we do occasionally see someone still submitting a pull request or replying to messages after hours, but I personally rarely handle company matters after work unless it's an urgent issue.

Collaboration and Communication

Communication within the team is mostly in English. Interestingly, out of our 13-member team, seven are not Japanese nationals, so language isn't a major barrier. We don't have to worry about language limitations. The biggest challenge might be occasionally struggling to keep up with Japanese colleagues' casual banter, but even then, it's possible to participate in internal discussions, and Chinese-speaking team members can freely chat in Chinese.

Team interactions are generally open and collaborative. Questions are frequently asked and answered promptly, and we often work together to find solutions. Sometimes, even when team members don't initially see a solution, we end up discovering creative approaches that weren't obvious at first.

Work Environment

LINE's work environment is highly suitable, worth considering.Introduction to LINE Fukuoka's work environmentThere are some photos available for reference, and the office in Tokyo is basically quite different. Each person generally has a large ergonomic standing desk, and the chair is Herman Miller Aeron. Most employees will apply for two 4K monitors. The IT department will fill out a form for you to select from, mostly MacBook models and Windows laptops, or you can apply for any additional requirements.

The company provides free breakfasts every day, usually including a variety of snacks and bento boxes. Every week there is one day dedicated to fruit, but breakfasts are often not available if fewer than 10 people arrive at the office. The midday portion offers 500 yen worth of convenience store items that you can choose from—although it initially seems like a lot, the supply is quickly exhausted due to high demand.

Work Content

The company’s main development platform combines Git + GitHub Enterprise Edition, and engineers regularly connecting to GitHub can easily get started. The standard workflow is mostly similar to the common GitHub process: fork, clone, edit, commit, push, PR, and code review. Bug reporting is handled via Jira, and documentation is primarily managed using Confluence.

Most of the work time is concentrated on development and code reviews, with few meetings or administrative processes to manage. A brief daily meeting is held every day to quickly discuss what everyone worked on that day, allowing team members to stay informed about each other's progress and tasks. A longer sprint meeting is held every two weeks, mainly to review what was completed in the previous sprint, identify areas for improvement, and set goals for the next sprint.

Most company projects do not have extremely rigid deadlines. Typically, the development lead sets the timeline for completing each phase and the expected completion time. The advantage of not having tight deadlines is that more time can be spent on overall planning and structure, rather than starting to write code immediately upon seeing the scope, which helps reduce technical debt and burnout.

Work From Home

Due to the pandemic, the past three months have mostly been remote work. For developers, as long as there is internet access, work can be done from anywhere—pushing code via VPN and joining meetings via Zoom, for example. However, working from home long-term still feels less than ideal. The most noticeable change is the lack of spontaneous interactions with colleagues, and being alone all day often feels a bit lonely. Additionally, the absence of the office environment has affected focus and work rhythm, making it harder to maintain the same level of concentration and routine as in the office.

Overall, although long-term remote work has not caused major issues, there are still many areas that need adaptation and adjustment. In the initial period, inefficiencies may arise due to poor adaptation, leading to a slight drop in work efficiency.

Japanese Lifestyle

In the past, I’ve experienced around ten instances of life in Japan, but the actual experience and feelings differ significantly from what I imagined. While life in Japan has its good and bad aspects, here are some points I consider advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. Convenient public transportation, with stations everywhere, basically no need to ride a bicycle within Tokyo's city districts.
2. Prices aren't at all what I imagined, very economical, roughly 500-600 JPY per day for meals, though eating out might cost a bit more.
3. Waste sorting is very clear.
4. The roads are very flat.
5. Air quality is good, no people walking around smoking or vaping on the streets.

Disadvantages:

1. Housing is very cheap, extremely cheap, really very cheap.
2. Transportation is much better than in Taiwan.
3. Walking westward usually gives you good views.
4. The bus schedule is very reliable, almost on time.

Summary

I've been working at LINE Japan since my initial selection, and throughout my onboarding process, I've also learned many related programming skills. I've also met many kind and supportive colleagues. Living abroad naturally brings many challenges, but I've grown a lot over these past three months. In the end, we're still recruiting talent, so if you're interested, please review the Job Description below and submit your resume.

Software Engineer / OpenStack / Private Cloud Platform

Software Engineer / Kubernetes / Private Cloud Platform

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Copyright Notice: All articles in this blog are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 unless otherwise stated.