After literally years of gathering materials and many full days of writing work, I’ve finally published my page on technical and business Japanese for software professionals (code monkeys) looking for a job in Japan or already working in Japanese companies or with Japanese clients who want to improve their programming Japanese.
The page consists of basically three main parts: Essential Japanese programming vocabulary, Expressions for communicating technical issues in Japanese (with a Part II), and A look at a Japanese software specification. They’re based on material I’ve gathered during my years working in Japan, mostly in completely disorganized, scattered text files, so collecting and choosing the useful bits of it for this page was more work than it should have been…
Actually, I first got the idea of writing a “Japanese for Programmers” book some time ago when talking with a former colleague. The idea was that there are so many especially Indian software developers working in Japan, but there are as yet no books aimed specifically at this segment, and there should be a huge market.
Anyway, I’m an avid reader of Seth Godin’s blog, and Seth is the guy behind Squidoo as well, so I naturally stumbled upon it. I gave it a go, and it’s actually a really fun and easy way to create modern, stylish, SEO’d web pages without having to bother with the technical issues.
And then in last month’s search queries used to find my site I saw “japanese speaking programming“, and that finally got me going to do something with my Japanese for Programmers idea – I mean people are searching for it, and they’re already finding my site from it (there’s no “Japanese for Programmers” site on the net anyhow!), despite me not specifically covering that topic, so it seems everything falls into place. And thus the Japanese for Programmers Squidoo “lens” was born!
So I hope it’ll get lots of readers and comments. I still have loads more material, so if it gets popular I might do a follow up. 
Here’s the URL again:
http://www.squidoo.com/japanese-for-programmers
Hi Henrik, its interesting that I found your blog as I am a software engineering graduate myself with a bit of interest in learning Japanese myself (I'm Korean so might have an advantage or two learning Japanese).
Would you have any kind idea what kind of demand there is for developers with command of both English and Japanese? Also in general, if I were to go for some big companies, say Google, would Japanese work to my advantage significantly (probably better to ask that to their HR department I know
just wondering if you can speak from experience on that one) I'm probably much younger than you.
Hi Sean,
There is a great demand for programmers in Japan, especially ones who can speak English as well as Japanese. If you also speak Korean, I imagine that would open even more doors. For some reason there doesn't seem to be many good Japanese software engineers, and as you might know English skills are pretty abysmal due to a poor educational system and some nationalism on top of that.
So yeah, go for it. As you mention Google, Japanese skills won't get you far there. Neither will experience or other skills, since they're looking for people who have memorized the data structures and algorithm book from university, so if you're a recent graduate that might be a good place to start anyway. But if you want to use and improve your Japanese you'll have to do some time in a Japanese company. There are some decent ones too so don't worry.