Because of the rapid growth of the IT industry, as well as population decrease, the demand for IT engineers in Japan is increasing day by day. This means that international engineers who wish to work in Japan are likely to have many job opportunities.Nevertheless, because of the language and cultural barriers, it is often not easy for international engineers to find the right company in Japan. This article will introduce you to the rankings of tech companies in Japan, which will help you find the best companies to work for, as well as help you learn the trends.The tech companies with the highest growth rate in Japan in 2021This is the ranking of the tech companies that have the highest growth rate in 2021 in Japan, according to Deloitte.Many of these companies are actively hiring new employees, and are experienced in international recruitment. If you find a company that interests you, do not hesitate to contact them.RankCompany NameInternational Recruitment History*1BE AIRー2Spartyー3SheepMedical〇4AI inside〇5HOPEー6YAMAPー7Crunch Styleー8zig-zag〇About 30 % of the employees. Official language in the engineering department is English9stmnー10AmaziaーReference：Deloitte（https://www2.deloitte.com/jp/ja/pages/about-deloitte/articles/news-releases/nr20211214.html）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：SheepMedical (https://www.sheepmedical.com/recruit)AI inside (https://inside.ai/career/)zig-zag (https://www.zig-zag.co.jp/recruit/202201-backendengineer/)The companies offering the highest annual salariesFor many job seekers, salary is one of the most important things to consider when choosing a company to work for.These rankings show the companies offering the highest annual salaries in the system integration sector, the AI sector, and the SaaS sector.System IntegrationRankCompany NameAverage Annual Salary (M)International Recruitment History*1Nomura Research Institute1,225ー2Information Services International-Dentsu1,047〇18 international employees（December, 2021）3SRA Holdings1,033ー4Kudan1,022ー5Mitsubishi Research Institute1,009ー6ITOCHU Techno-Solutions933〇7OBIC933ー8HITACHI890〇About 10 % of the employees (April, 2021)。Aiming to exceed 30%, by 2030.9FUJITSU865〇475 international employees（2020）10KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING860〇39 international employees (June, 2021)Reference：業界動向サーチ（https://gyokai-search.com/）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：Information Services International-Dentsu（https://www.isid.co.jp/sustainability/data.html）ITOCHU Techno-Solutions（https://www.ctc-g.co.jp/company/sustainability/reports/document/CTC_CSR_10_all.pdf）HITACHI（https://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/month/2021/04/0420.pdf）FUJITSU（https://www.fujitsu.com/jp/about/csr/esgdata/social/）KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING（https://www.kke.co.jp/corporate/organization/）AIRankCompany NameAverage Annual Salary (M)International Recruitment History*1ExaWizards814〇2AI inside776〇20% of the employees3MetaReal730〇9% of the employees4BrainPad721ー5PKSHA Technology714ー6FRONTEO705〇About 53% of the employees in the group7Neural Pocket684〇8Silver Egg Technology677〇9HEROZ668ー10Morpho666ー参照：業界動向サーチ（https://gyokai-search.com/）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：ExaWizards（https://exawizards.com/team/member）AI inside（https://note.inside.ai/n/n7f06a5d87a17）MetaReal（https://www.metareal.jp/recruit/metareal-style/#figure）FRONTEO（https://www.fronteo.com/corporate/locations/）Neural Pocket（https://www.neuralpocket.com/recruit.html）Silver Egg Technology（https://www.silveregg.co.jp/archives/recruit/2239）SaaSRankCompany NameAverage Annual SalaryInternational Recruitment History*1PLAID887ー2SCALA886〇3Asteria834〇4Uzabase797ー5TeamSpirit757〇6Property Data Bank755ー7freee705ー8HENNGE704〇9SRE Holdings697ー10OBIC BUSINESS CONSULTANTS686ーReference：業界動向サーチ（https://gyokai-search.com/）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：：SCALA（https://scalagrp.jp/ir/esg/）Asteria（https://www.asteria.com/）TeamSpirit（https://www.teamspirit.com/ja-jp/blog/entry/b-20191125.html）HENNGE（https://hennge.com/jp/ir/images/202011161500.pdf）The largest tech companies by revenueRevenue is another important factor when choosing a company to work for. These are the rankings of the companies that have the largest revenue in the field of system integration, AI, and SaaS. System integrationRankCompany NameInternational Recruitment History*1FUJITSU〇475 international employees（2020）2NEC〇251 international employees(2020) 3NTT DATA〇About 10% of the employees in the group(2022)4HITACHI〇About 10% of the employees in the group(April, 2021)。Aiming to exceed 30% by 20305OTSUKA CORPORATIONー6Nomura Research Instituteー7ITOCHU Techno-Solutions〇8TIS〇155 international employees（2020）9SCSK〇42 international employees（April, 2020） 10BIPROGY〇Reference：業界動向サーチ（https://gyokai-search.com/）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：FUJITSU（https://www.fujitsu.com/jp/about/csr/esgdata/social/）NEC（https://jpn.nec.com/csr/ja/data/index.html）NTT DATA（https://www.nttdata-gsl.co.jp/recruit/company/vision/）HITACHI（https://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/month/2021/04/0420.pdf）ITOCHU Techno-Solutions（https://www.ctc-g.co.jp/company/sustainability/reports/document/CTC_CSR_09_all.pdf）TIS（https://www.tis.co.jp/documents/jp/ir/finance/annual_report/ar2020_05.pdf）SCSK（https://www.scsk.jp/corp/csr/diversity.html）BIPROGY（https://biprogy.disclosure.site/ja/themes/107）AIRankCompany NameInternational Recruitment History*1FRONTEO〇About 53% of the employees in the group2Appier Group〇3Preferred Networksー4PKSHA Technologyー5BrainPadー6AI inside〇20% of the permanent employees7Double Standardー8Advanced Mediaー9MetaReal〇9% of the employees10ALBERTー参照：業界動向サーチ（https://gyokai-search.com/）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：FRONTEO（https://www.fronteo.com/corporate/locations/）Appier Group（https://www.appier.com/ja-jp/about）AI inside（https://note.inside.ai/n/n7f06a5d87a17）MetaReal（https://www.metareal.jp/）SaaSRankCompany NameInternational Recruitment History*1Sansan〇2Cybozu〇3RAKUSー4Money Forward〇5freeeー6EM SYSTEMSー7Appier Group〇8Info Martー9OBIC BUSINESS CONSULTANTSー10SMSーReference：業界動向サーチ（https://gyokai-search.com/）※Companies that mention international recruitment on their official websites (June, 2022)：Sansan（https://jp.corp-sansan.com/mimi/2020/05/ocean-02.html）Cybozu（https://cybozushiki.cybozu.co.jp/casestudy/oneteam/）Money Forward（https://recruit.moneyforward.com/member/interview/0007）Appier Group（https://www.appier.com/ja-jp/about）SummaryData of companies’ growth rate, revenue, and the average annual salary helps to find the right company. In addition, you are more likely to land a position by getting in touch with the companies that already have experience in international recruitment.Bizmates, Inc. offers services that connect international engineers and companies that are actively hiring international IT engineers.GitTap is a job platform for international IT engineers who wish to work in Japan. All companies on the platform are actively hiring international IT engineers. Many of the most highly respected companies in Japan are using GitTap, including ExaWizards, which offers the highest salary in the AI sector.Browse jobs on GitTap G Talent is an employment agency for international IT engineers who wish to work in Japan. Bilingual consultants who specialise in the IT sector will introduce you to appropriate jobs that match your skills and experiences. To register the service, please visit the page below. Register on the platform 

There is a serious shortage of IT engineers in Japan. Engineers needed the most include cyber security, machine learning and cloud engineers. For international IT engineers who wish to work in Japan, there are more opportunities in these sectors.Moreover, language requirements and cultural etiquette are less important in these sectors. Learn IT skills in demand, and land a job that offers attractive working conditions and pays well. Read this article in Japanese. IT skills in demand in Japan in 2022 Cyber security The demand for cyber security engineers is significantly increasing. In 2021, the domestic market value was 1,135.7 billion yen with a growth rate of 13.4%. The growth rate is projected to increase, given the acceleration of remote work and the current social conditions. If you are a security engineer, you are likely to have many job opportunities in Japan.   Useful certifications for security engineersRegistered Information Security Specialist Examination: A qualification to prove your expertise in information security, offered by IPA. After the qualification is obtained, you are eligible to apply for a national certificate for Registered Information Security Specialist.CISSP: A qualification to prove your expertise in information security, offered by (ISC)², International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium. Cloud As more and more internet services shift to cloud, the demand for cloud engineers is increasing. The market value of cloud computing was 2,875 billion yen in 2020 with a growth rate of 22%. In addition, the demand for public clouds, such as SaaS and IaaS, is especially high.More than half of the Japanese companies that provide cloud services use AWS. If you are an AWS engineer, you have many job opportunities in Japan.   Useful certifications for cloud engineersAWS certifications: A certificate to validate cloud expertise. AWS offers several levels: associate, professional and speciality. There are also certificates for those who are specialized in the fields such as network, data and machine learning.Google Certified Professional: A certificate to prove your expertise in Google cloud platform. Machine Learning The use of AI in services and products is now commonplace. The sales in automation services and personalised services are increasing rapidly.In 2019, the market growth rate of machine learning was 95%. As the use of machine learning will increase in the future, machine learning engineers will have many job opportunities in Japan as well. Useful certifications for machine learning engineersDeep Learning for ENGINEER: This is a certificate to validiate your knowledge and implementions skills in deep learning. It is offered by the Japan Deep Learning Association (JDLA). *The exam is available only in Japanese.Python 3 Certified Data Analyst Examination: A certificate to prove your advanced knowledge and skills in deep learning.  5G The market growth rate of 5G is projected to be 80.3% between 2020 to 2027. It is a field that is expected to create many job opportunities in the near future. Jobs related to 5G include embedded engineers, network engineers and IoT engineers. To work with 5G, the knowledge and skills in the development of embedded software and network are required.The article below explains the details of the 5G market in Japan and skills you need to be an engineer who works with 5G.5G market in Japan and skills you need to be an engineer who works with 5G Programming languages and developer tools in demand in Japan According to the research conducted by GitTap, the skills that are most in demand among Japanese companies are AWS, Python and JavaScript (January, 2022).AWS is a cloud computing service offered by Amazon. In Japan, more than half of the companies that provide cloud services use AWS. The market of cloud computing is expanding and the demand for AWS engineers is projected to increase. The article below explains programming languages in demand in Japan in detail. The programming languages in demand in Japan Summary International IT engineers have many job opportunities in Japan since there is a serious shortage of IT engineers. This is especially the case in some fields such as cyber security, cloud and AI. The following  jobs are some of the examples of jobs that are in demand in Japan. Python engineer Job Summary：Implement mathematical models, develop optimization algorithms, conduct software testing while working closely with professors. Salary：7M yen~ Learn More about This Job Automation engineer Job Summary：Develop and maintain automation platforms. Develop new automation products. Salary：7M yen~ Learn More about This Job CTO Job Summary：Chief Technology Officer for a financial system Salary： 8M yen~ Learn More about This Job GitTap is a job matching platform for highly skilled international IT engineers. The platform has many senior level jobs, which leads the average salary range of the advertised jobs to be 6-12M yen. There are also many remote positions available. The platform allows you to find a job efficiently by not only applying for positions but also getting scouted and conducting informational interviews. It is free to use, please feel free to register. Browse Jobs on GitTap G Talent is an employment agency for international IT engineers who wish to work in Japan. Bilingual consultants will assist you to land your dream job! To learn more about the service, please click the link below. Learn more about G Talent

DevOps engineers create solutions for improving the development speed of applications and systems as well as ensuring the stable operation of services. Being involved in both development and operations, they are responsible for a wide range of tasks, from developing and improving applications and systems to building and operating infrastructure environments such as the cloud. “DevOps” is a word coined from combining “Development” and “Operations”. To put it simply, it is an idea that the development side and the operation side cooperate to ensure speedier development, while also providing stable service operation. Due to the focus of DevOps on improving development speed, it is easy to confuse this with agile development, which will be explained later. Amongst all the different IT engineering jobs, to be a DevOps engineer requires a wide range of skills and plenty of experience. With a higher level of responsibility comes higher salary. The average annual income for a DevOps engineer is somewhere between 5 to 15 million yen, while the average for IT engineers in general is 4.52 million yen (※doda company survey). In the future, the demand for DevOps engineers is expected to rise, as the industry becomes more specialized due to increasing system complexity and more infrastructure environments transitioning to the cloud. This article provides a brief overview of what a DevOps engineer does and explains how you can become one too. DevOps engineers differ from infrastructure engineers A lesser-known position amongst IT engineers, the DevOps engineer is often compared to infrastructure engineers. This is because both are involved in tasks like server management. The table below provides a brief overview of the differences between DevOps engineers and infrastructure engineers, for you to get a good idea of what DevOps engineers do. ◆Differences between DevOps engineers and infrastructure engineers What sets a DevOps engineer apart from an infrastructure engineer is the former’s involvement in the development side. Both DevOps engineers and infrastructure engineers work on networks and servers, but DevOps engineers also engage in application and system development. You can think of DevOps engineers as one level beyond infrastructure engineers. This is why DevOps engineers must have more knowledge and experience than just infrastructure engineers. The No.1 role of DevOps engineers is automation Now let’s take a look at what DevOps engineers do. As explained earlier, DevOps is a concept born to “speed up development” and to “enable stable operation” of the system at the same time. What do DevOps engineers do to achieve these goals? Here are some of the specific roles DevOps play in the IT industry. “Infrastructure as Code (IaC),” essential for stable system operation Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means to get infrastructure settings written in code in order to automate the building process of the environment for operating and developing systems and software. In creating infrastructure, the task of typing all the commands according to a design can be extremely tedious and costly, especially as the scale increases. In addition, people cannot always avoid making little mistakes. Once infrastructure settings are written in code, all you need is just to execute it in order to automatically create an infrastructure environment. Also, executing the same code means you can reproduce identical environments at scale without the risk of human error. By allowing multiple servers to reproduce the same environment, problems caused by differences in infrastructure settings are less likely to occur. As a DevOps engineer, you want to achieve the stable operation of a system. Therefore, IaC is an important skill to keep in mind in order to minimize the workload and avoid human errors when creating infrastructure. However, you need skills for building the infrastructure to be able to practice IaC, which means more investment in acquiring those skills may be necessary. You may also need experience working as an infrastructure engineer. Build a CI/CD Pipeline to speed up development Building a CI/CD pipeline is a key skill for DevOps engineers who seek to “speed up” the development of applications and systems. A CI/CD pipeline is an automated set of steps required to practice CI/CD. CI/CD is a method of automating build, integration, testing, etc. to make software development faster and increase the speed before production. CI (Continuous Integration) is a method of automating code changes from build to test. CD (Continuous Delivery) is a method that allows software that has passed testing to be automatically released into a production environment. ◆ CI/CD pipelines Simply put, by building a CI/CD pipeline, the entire process of Build – Integrate – Test – Release – Deploy becomes automatic. Any changes to your code will be automatically applied to every step from build to test to deployment, thus reducing the lead time of your development process. By getting everyone on a development team to work with this pipeline, software release becomes much faster. CI/CD tools include on-premises and cloud types, with some examples being Jenkins and Drone for the on-premises and Travis CI and CircleCI for the cloud. DevOps engineers need to use different tools to build CI/CD pipelines depending on their objectives. “Knowledge of managed services” to reduce management cost and working time A managed service allows a company to outsource part of the operation management and maintenance of a serve. Stably operating a server is no simple task. From hardware procurement to equipment/line management to trouble handling, the operation management and maintenance of a server requires expertise offered by dedicated professionals, which can be quite costly. This is where managed services come in. By capitalizing on managed services, you can reduce the amount of work devoted to issues such as fault response and security measures. This allows for improved efficiency and ultimately leads to stable system operation. Since not all engineers in a company are knowledgeable about infrastructure, leveraging managed services to reduce management costs and work hours is an important task for DevOps. As you can see, being a DevOps engineer is not so much about working directly on products and services, but rather focusing on creating solutions to increase productivity for developers and operators. 2021 Roadmap for becoming a DevOps Engineer So, what does it take to become a DevOps engineer? This section is based on the article, “The 2021 DevOps RoadMap for Developers” which is another highly recommended read. Now, let’s take a look at the roadmap for becoming a DevOps engineer. There are 9 steps in total. ◆Roadmap for becoming a DevOps Engineer 1. Learn a programming language To be involved in system development, you need to know a programming language. If possible, become proficient in at least one of: Java, Python, or Ruby Each has its own characteristics. Java is generally an all-rounder in any environment, while Python is relatively simple and easy to understand. Ruby originated in Japan and thus more resources are available in Japanese. Its code is simple and easy to read, making it beginner friendly. 2. Understand different OS concepts This comes under the area of “Operations.” In the past, only system operation managers and support personnel were responsible for the OS and hardware. However, as DevOps engineers engage in both systems and infrastructure, OS-related knowledge is necessary. You need to be familiar with important systems such as process management, memory storage and file systems. 3. Learn server management For stable service operation, you must build a server to create a system and environment. More specifically, you need to monitor the operational status of applications/services and the usage of CPU, memory, and other resources; update the system, fix programs that need to be improved, and respond to failures. All of these require general knowledge of a server. 4. Learn about network and security The evolving technology nowadays allows for easy access everywhere on the web, which also means security challenges are on the rise. As poor security measures can lead to the leakage of important data such as customer information, it is critical to learn about network and security. Make sure to have basic but essential ones down, including DNS, FTP, SSL, etc. 5. Understand middleware and learn how to set it up Middleware is software that performs intermediate processing between an application and an OS in a computer. Examples of middleware are the web server, application server, and database management server. ◆About middleware Understanding the structure of a web server or application server, and learning how to set it up, will give you a better understanding of the system. Doing so allows you to proceed to the next step where you make the system operation more efficient and automate the building of the infrastructure environment. 6. Learn Infrastructure as Code (IaC) As explained earlier, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means to have the infrastructure settings written in code in order to automate the creation of operation/development environments for systems and software. The benefits of IaC include no need to manually repeat the same process when creating a different environment, an easier grasp of current infrastructure and server configuration, and no need to manage procedures. 7. Learn CI/CD pipeline building tools Again, CI/CD is a method of automating build, integration, testing, etc. to speed up software development and to make it ready for release into production immediately. There are various tools for building CI/CD pipelines from open source to commercial ones. However, one tool cannot automate all of CI/CD, and it is common to create a CI/CD pipeline by combining tools that are appropriate for a specific development stage. This means you need to learn to use multiple tools. 8. Learn to monitor software and infrastructure In addition to middleware setup and deployment, software and infrastructure monitoring is another important role of DevOps engineers. Monitoring means constantly checking for anomalies or problems with the functionality of an application, network, server, OS, or middleware. There are already a variety of tools available for monitoring, so DevOps engineers need to be able to choose the right tool for their companies’ needs. 9. Learn about the public cloud The public cloud is a service that provides cloud computing environments such as servers, storage, databases, and software through the Internet to an unspecified number of users, including companies and individuals. These include Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM Cloud, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Since there is no need to own a server in-house, the use of the public cloud is rapidly spreading nowadays, and many companies have already moved their servers to a cloud environment. As a DevOps engineer, you need basic knowledge of the public cloud. AWS and GCP are well known public clouds that you should get a grasp of. This is the 2021 roadmap for becoming a DevOps engineer. A DevOps engineer, being a type of IT engineer, of course needs a programming language. On top of that, you should also know how to work with various tools and infrastructures (especially the cloud). As mentioned at the beginning of the article, to be a DevOps engineer requires a wide range of knowledge and experience, and therefore it is a position one step beyond application engineers and infrastructure engineers. Sounds worth aiming for? “DevOps” is a model or concept, “agile development” is a development method As already explained, “DevOps” is a coined word that combines “Development” and “Operations”. The idea of DevOps was born from the contradiction between the development side and the operation side. While the former wants to develop applications and systems quickly, the latter wants to ensure stable operation. In other words, in order to make a system better, the development side generally takes a policy of “adding new features and updating existing ones.” On the other hand, the operation side often takes a policy of “if things are running stably, keep them as they are,” in order to consistently provide a comfortable experience to the users and to avoid troubles with systems and functions as much as possible. The concept of “DevOps” was born to bridge these contradicting interests. Now, “agile development” is a method that, when developing applications and systems, repeats the development process of “planning → design → implementation → test” many times in a short period of time. Once you have a rough idea of the system you want to create, you iterate through planning, design, implementation, and test, and release the system relatively early. After the system is released, you then repeatedly improve it based on feedback from users and clients. This allows for agility and flexibility in development. Agile development is the opposite of waterfall development. Waterfall development is a method in which the development process of “design → development → implementation → test” is divided into each stage and developed step by step. In this method, developers decide in advance all the functions and spec details to be installed in the system, then start development and complete one step after the other. Basically, you never go back to the previous stage, and thus systems and software are released only after the entire process is completed. In the past, this has been the customary strategy for many companies. However, it is common to discover improvements or to receive feedback from users after releasing systems or applications. Even with all the time spent during waterfall development, extra work is always necessary to use this method successfully.. As a result, more and more companies are adopting agile development because it is easy to respond to user needs when “planning → design → implementation → testing” is repeated over and over in a short period of time. Agile development is very compatible with “DevOps,” an idea that enables both speedier development and stable service operation. By incorporating agile development, DevOps engineers can “speed up development” while creating a mechanism that allows developers and operators to collaborate to achieve “stable service operation.” This is why this newer development method is currently in high demand. ◆The difference between agile development and waterfall development Source: Agile and DevOps Quality Assurance and Reliability By the way, the word DevOps first appeared in 2009 at a conference called “O’Reilly Velocity 09” hosted by O’Reilly. The term appeared in the presentation, “10 Deploys a Day：Dev and Ops Cooperation at Flickr” by John Allspaw and Paul Hammond, who were at the time engineers at an image-hosting service, Flickr. In this presentation, they proposed that the development side and the operation side can bring about fast development that deploys more than ten times a day by cooperating toward a common purpose. (*To deploy means to make the program usable.） DevOps Engineers are increasingly in demand as IT and DX advance Today, there is a growing demand for DevOps engineers. This is because, along with the progress of IT and the promotion of digital transformation (DX), there is a growing need for a shorter development period and flexibility in system development. As previously explained, development today requires companies to continue to improve their services after release using feedback from users. This makes for the rising demand for DevOps who can contribute in stabilizing operations while accelerating not only development but also improvement speed. According to the article, “Ask Hitachi, the Current Role of DevOps and DevSecOps in Large-scale Development“, the company has adopted the idea of DevOps. The article reports that DevOps is getting increasing attention due to many Japanese companies and organizations having begun to work on DX. DX is typically applied in new businesses, and therefore the business model is not clear, and the system specifications are not fixed. Thus, the idea of DevOps has been adopted because it is necessary to improve fixing the problems that come out after development and release, while also ensuring stable operation. In this way, the concept of DevOps is gaining more recognition regardless of whether it is a large company or a small- and medium-sized venture company. Moving forward, given that the demand for public clouds such as AWS and GCP will also increase, there will be more spotlight on DevOps engineers who provide expertise on these areas while also being able to engage with the development side. Summary Now you have it, an overview of DevOps engineers. The path to becoming a DevOps engineer is steep, given the wide range of knowledge and experience required. There is no correct way to become a DevOps engineer. However, if you are an inexperienced IT engineer with a goal of becoming a DevOps engineer, it is relatively easy to step up after gaining experience as an infrastructure engineer or a WEB application engineer. We offer two services for IT engineers: “G Talent“, a career transition service and “GitTap“, a scouting and job information website that allows you to contact companies directly. For foreign IT engineers working in Japan and Japanese IT engineers seeking a global environment, we offer a variety of recruitment opportunities. Please check out the “G Talent” and “GitTap” service pages.