[Ireland][Work Visa] What Made Me Pursue a Software Engineering Job Abroad. [Working Holiday]

Title: [Ireland][Work Visa] What Made Me Pursue a Software Engineering Job Abroad. [Working Holiday]

I’d like to share what prompted me to start job hunting in Ireland.
Other articles about my overseas job search are collected here, so feel free to take a look.

Confidence as a Software Engineer

I could speak English to a certain extent, graduated from a reputable university, and as a woman in STEM, I had worked as a software engineer at a well-known company for about six years. Yet everyone around me was a “super engineer”, and I always felt inferior.

I don’t think Japanese culture is very big on praising people, so I wasn’t praised much. Even when I was occasionally complimented, I couldn’t really believe it and wondered if it was just politeness. I had no confidence in myself.

On top of that, I couldn’t follow everyone’s technical discussions, and with my all-or-nothing mindset, I’d get quite discouraged whenever I didn’t understand something. I knew that, probably, other people didn’t understand everything as thoroughly as they seemed to, but I still couldn’t convince myself of that.

Gradually, I started wanting to escape my current environment and begin again from a blank slate. I wanted to properly assess my abilities as a software engineer.

The Strain of Working Within Japanese Culture

Working at a Japanese company with Japanese colleagues, I felt a significant sense of discomfort. The culture of being considerate? How considerate was I supposed to be? Manners? Politeness?

I couldn’t quite put it into words myself, but it felt very suffocating.

I’d heard that things overseas were more straightforward. Was that really the case? I wanted to find out. It might turn out to be different, but I felt I wouldn’t know unless I experienced it myself.

Working Abroad

I could speak English to some degree, and I felt it would be a waste not to work overseas at some point, given my skills.

After six years of working, I became curious about how far my English and software engineering skills would actually take me. More than that, I wondered if I could overwrite my lack of confidence by achieving something concrete: landing a software engineering job abroad, and thereby boost my self-belief.

I’d also heard that salaries were better overseas. That’s when I decided to pursue a job search abroad.

How to Go About Job Hunting Abroad?

First, I researched how people actually go about looking for jobs overseas.

Job Hunting from Japan

Some people do this via LinkedIn, but I felt it was probably impossible unless you had exceptional skills. The reason I thought it was unrealistic is that, for a Japanese person to work in another country, you need an appropriate visa. Tourist visas, which you use for travel, don’t allow you to work. Working holiday visas or student visas, on the other hand, do permit employment.

If you job hunt from Japan, at that point you don’t yet have a visa that allows you to work in that country. So the company would need to sponsor your visa. Moreover, they’d have to sponsor you before even starting a probationary period.

When I asked myself whether I had that level of value, I concluded that I didn’t. So I ruled this option out.

Aiming for an Ireland Posting via a Japanese Company

This was another possibility. However, I wanted to be evaluated and hired within an overseas culture, not a Japanese one, so this didn’t feel right for me. I dismissed this option as well.

Job Hunting on a Working Holiday Visa, Then Switching to a Work Visa

This was the final option. Obtain a working holiday visa, spend a year job hunting, and then switch to a work visa. When I looked into it, there were already several pioneers who had done this, so I thought, “This could work.”

Since I wanted to job hunt locally, this seemed like the best plan.

Which Country Should I Work In?

I wanted to use English, so I looked for English-speaking countries that issued working holiday visas.

Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland… were there others? Canada, Australia, and the UK seemed like they’d have large Japanese communities, which made me hesitate a little.

What caught my eye was Ireland.

Ireland Trivia

Actually, Ireland is sometimes called “Silicon Docks” (the Irish version of Silicon Valley in San Francisco).

Lots of companies are clustered there. The reason is the low corporate tax rate, so many companies establish their European headquarters in Ireland. In fact, because companies and workers are gathering in Ireland right now, there’s a housing crisis. (No vacant homes…)

Deciding to Job Hunt in Ireland

And so, I applied for an Ireland working holiday visa and was selected. (Perhaps because it’s not very popular, the Ireland working holiday scheme has a low competition rate as of 2024.)

With one year of validity on my Ireland working holiday visa, my long job hunt began, aiming to be hired as a software engineer by a company. (In the end, I applied to over 100 companies across about six months.)

Wrap-Up

This is the story of how I came to start job hunting in Ireland. I hope it’s useful to someone.