Company: Jaypan
Position: Intern
Position type: Junior web designer or developer (dependent on the successful applicant's skill set)
Location: Yokohama, Japan (second largest city in Japan, 30 minute train ride from Tokyo)
Contract Length: 8 months - 1 year
Basic requirements: Minimum 18 months working towards web design or development as a career
Japanese Language Skills: Not required
English Language Skills: Fluent English speakers only. Non-native English speakers are welcome if they can communicate effectively and clearly in English.
Education: High school graduates only please. A degree in anything is nice, but a degree in design or computer sciences will be a strong plus.
Eligibility Restrictions: Due to visa restrictions put in place by the Japanese government, this position is open to children of Japanese nationals, spouses of Japanese nationals, and citizens of the following countries who are 30 years old or under:
I have been running Jaypan as a private web development company for the past four years. One year ago, at the beginning of 2011, I left my former position as the Technical Chief in a Japanese publishing company to focus my efforts fully on Jaypan as a web development service. I have fully registered with the appropriate authorities, and I am legally operating Jaypan within the laws and regulations of Japan. Over the past year I have grown, and I am at a point where my output has hit a ceiling, and I am ready to bring on some help in order to grow my business.
Running an online web development business is a complex operation. At its core, it requires three things:
Before starting Jaypan, I spent 10 years in the Japanese corporate world. For a number of those years, I managed a team of 14 staff, varying in ages from 18 to 50, from countries all over the world. This taught me to effectively communicate, with people of different ages, races, nationalities and cultures.
After I left people management, I ran a branch office for my company. It was my responsibility to manage the books, do advertising, interact with our current clients, and bring in new clients. In this position, I learned to manage a business, how to strategize a company direction to ensure that the team has focus. I learned to how to deal with crisis events, and how to interact with customers to keep them happy, and more importantly, satisfied. This was how I learned to operate a business.
Through this all, I was learning web development. I did it for years as a hobby, and I even studied C++ for a year in university. In the last position I held in the corporate world, Technical Chief, It was my responsibility to concept, build, launch and maintain all the company websites. I also had to train our clients in usage of our systems, and was tasked with managing any outsourcing required. It was my responsibility to ensure that company sites held good SEO rankings, that the sites were functional on all platforms, and that they had a nice user experience that was pleasing on the eyes, and secure for the site owners. In this, I how to build websites that aren't just OK, but are great, websites that I take pride in.
These corporate experiences, combined with the past year of working for myself, have brought me to the position where I am at today, where I feel entirely comfortable running my own web development business, and feel I have a lot to offer to the successful candidate. I am ready to expand my company, and want to do so with the right person, a person who is motivated to learn, and ready to take on the world.
The responsibilities of the successful applicant will be dependent on the skills of the person hired. If the person hired leans more towards design, then they will be responsible for the design side of sites, as well as Drupal theme development (training in this provided by myself). If the successful applicant leans more towards development, they will be responsible for the website build, as well as Drupal module development (training in this provided by myself). I believe that the best way to get quality work out of an individual is to focus on their current strengths. It increases overall job satisfaction, and allows for pride in work. As such, I'm not looking for a person with skill set A, I'm looking for person A who has a skill set that I can use.
As we will be a team of two, the successful applicant will be working with me in the daily operation of my business. I am looking for someone I can train, so that we can quickly build quality sites while providing a good customer experience and a product that meets the customers wants and needs. This role will be on the job training, with the result being an in-depth first-hand look at how to run a small web business, how to interact with clients, and how to manage all the aspects of a web platform to ensure that websites are fast, secure, easy to use, and cross-browser compatible.
I will provide an in-depth training in the usage of Drupal. Drupal is an extremely complex CMS/CMF used by tens of thousands of websites worldwide. An in-depth knowledge of Drupal can be extremely beneficial when looking for work, as it is a highly technical system, with plenty of demand for people who know it. I have been using this system for four years, and know it inside-out.
Finally, I can offer the opportunity to live in and experience life in Japan. I came to Japan in the year 2000 on a Working Holiday visa. I was in my mid-20s, with the idea that I would try life in another country for a year, and then go back home. Instead, I found that I loved the country, and in the intervening years, I got married, had a child, and started a business.
Coming to Japan effectively changed my life. I appreciate the opportunity it opened up for me, and I would like to extend that opportunity to another individual now.
I am looking for someone who has begun their life into the world of building websites, but is not there yet. The minimum requirements for this position are as follows:
The above requirements will not be enough to get the position. The reason I have left my requirements simple, is because I prefer to let the pool of candidates determine the skill set, rather than putting out a skill set and looking for candidates. As such, I have only listed those skills which I absolutely require. I need someone to take on some of the burden of my work. Currently, I am managing every aspect of the business myself. My goal is to find someone to lighten my coding burden, so that I can spend more time focused on interacting with clients and drumming up new business. As such, both designers and developers can be of assistance to me, and I do not have a particular preference at this time. So beyond the minimum, any of the following will increase an applicant's chances of being chosen:
Finally, I don't care what sex, race or age you are. I only care about nationality insofar as it's a requirement for a visa. Gay people of either sex are more than welcome to apply, and if you have tattoos, piercings, or other body modifications, I'm open to that as well... provided it's within reason.
If you already have your life established, or if your primary goal for finding work in Japan is getting to Japan (that is to say, any old job will do), this position is most definitely not for you. This is not a high paying position, so if you are focused on money, this position is not for you. If you cannot handle small spaces, this position is not for you (apartments and office space are both tiny in Japan). If you do not like Canadians, this position is not for you. If you do not like big cities, this position is not for you. If you are not particularly outgoing, this country is probably not for you.
This position should be considered a learning opportunity as much as employment. Jaypan will provide an apartment for the successful applicant, as well as providing a small monthly stipend to cover basic living expenses. This position is for an ambitious applicant who wants to learn, and build their overall skill set and business knowledge in order to put themselves in a stronger position in life.
The successful applicant will be required to live in Yokohama, Japan for the duration of the contract. Living in a foreign country is not for everyone. If you don't speak the local language, you effectively become an adult baby - unable to read, write or speak. Some people enjoy the challenge of trying to get around and communicate in a foreign language (I did!), while others really don't like it at all. The successful applicant will need to be ready to come and live in a country that will most likely be extremely foreign, and deal with all of the challenges that go along with that. I will provide support to the successful applicant - I will show them where they can buy food, how to use the train, where they can go for a drink, and over the course of the year will be a resource of information, as I speak fluent Japanese and I know Japan very well. But I will not guide the successful applicant at every step along the way. I have a fairly significant amount of experience in helping foreigners new to Japan adapt to life here (it was part of my job when I was managing foreign staff). That said, I have my own life here - a wife, a child, friends, and hobbies. So while I am able to provide assistance, and happy to do so to a certain degree, the successful applicant will need to be the type of person who is able to help themselves, and take the initiative to solve problems on their own, rather than relying me to hold their hand every step of the way.
So if you have a drive to learn, a sense of adventure, and an independent spirit, an interest in living a year in a foreign land, and you know how to build a website, this position is for you, and I most definitely want to hear from you!
You got this far, and you're thinking 'hey, I want to know more'. Great! The first thing you should do is read the rest of the stuff on my site, to get a feel for who I am and what I do. The successful candidate will need to choose me as much as I will need to choose the candidate. If you read through my site and are still interested, lets talk. To apply, please do the following. Applications that miss any of the following will be immediately discarded:
Email me at: employment[at]jaypan[dot]com. Attach the cover letter and resume/CSV to the email, and include the links to sites you've built in the body of the mail. I will set up a Skype call with successful candidates at which time we can discuss specifics more thoroughly with each other. For candidates who get far enough in the process, I can provide reference letters as well as contact information for former employees and managers, and I am more than happy to answer any questions on my background and abilities.
Thank you for taking the time to read this far, and I look forward to hearing from you.