I get asked about this a lot, so here is what happened in my case. Usual caveat that this is one person's experience and the market changes. When I started applying, my Japanese was weak. Not none, but nowhere near business level. I assumed that ruled out most things. It ruled out some things, not all. What I found: There are teams that genuinely operate in English, mostly at companies with international offices or products, and at some smaller product companies. They exist but there are fewer of them than the internet suggests. Many more places say English is fine at interview and then turn out to mean the engineering team is fine but everything around it is not. Worth asking specifically how meetings, documentation, and internal announcements work rather than asking whether English is okay. The technical interview was the part where language mattered least. Explaining a design with a whiteboard works in any language. Where I struggled was the casual conversation before and after, which I had not prepared for at all. Having something public helped. Not a huge portfolio, just work someone could actually look at. It gave the conversation somewhere to go when my explanations ran out of words. What I would do differently: start learning Japanese seriously earlier, not because I needed it to get hired but because I needed it to enjoy the job. I got the role, and then spent my first year feeling slightly outside every conversation that was not about code. That was the real cost, not the hiring process. One year on I am comfortable enough to follow most of what happens around me, and the difference in how the job feels is enormous. For people currently applying: it is doable. Apply to the places you think are out of reach. Anyone else been through this recently? Interested in what people are seeing now, especially around whether teams are more or less open than a couple of years ago. #bangladesh #tech #jobs