Social Media
Insights for Marketers and DevRel Leaders Targeting Japan
Japan is often seen as a high-tech powerhouse, yet its engineering talent landscape remains a complex and nuanced field. As of 2025, international tech companies looking to engage with Japanese developers must navigate a market rich in opportunity—but one that requires cultural fluency, strategic localization, and patience. This article offers a comprehensive overview of the Japanese engineering ecosystem.
Japan has approximately 1.44 million IT engineers, ranking 4th globally in absolute numbers. However, engineers account for only about 1.1% of the total population, a smaller proportion than in countries like the U.S., South Korea, or the U.K.
The number of engineers has increased significantly since 1985 (from 320,000), but growth has plateaued in recent years. The female representation remains low (around 22%), and while foreign nationals in the IT sector have tripled over the last decade (to 91,000), they still represent less than 10% of the total workforce.
Japan’s software and IT services market was valued at $71 billion USD in 2023 and is expected to reach $182 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 9.9%. The public cloud sector alone grew 20% YoY in early 2024, signaling strong demand for scalable and modern digital solutions.
The growth is driven by digital transformation initiatives across legacy industries and government sectors—an area where overseas vendors can play a pivotal role, especially in providing infrastructure, automation tools, or SaaS platforms.
Japan faces a looming IT talent shortage, with projections estimating a gap of 600,000–800,000 engineers by 2030. This issue—referred to domestically as “The 2025 Cliff”—is particularly critical in AI, cybersecurity, and data science.
The shortage is not just in numbers, but in skill depth. Japan’s slow adoption of emerging technologies in the enterprise sector compounds the problem, increasing the need for upskilling and cross-border talent solutions.
Japanese engineers often favor a combination of globally adopted and regionally popular technologies:
Localization of documentation, tooling, and community support in Japanese is a key factor in adoption.
Japan has a rich developer community culture shaped around localized events called 勉強会 (“benkyōkai”) or study sessions. These are typically small, focused, and highly technical gatherings hosted on platforms like Connpass or Doorkeeper.
Online platforms like Qiita and Zenn (like dev.to) are widely used for sharing knowledge in Japanese. Companies like AWS and Google have successfully fostered DevRel through localized content, community sponsorship, and Japan-specific developer portals.
To build trust and adoption in Japan, consider the following:
MOONGIFT supports your DevRel & developer marketing in the Japanese market. If you’re interested, please contact us.
Unison Career Engineer Media: https://unison-career.jp/engineer-media/article/it-engineer-knowledge/engineer/engineer-guide/p7530/
IDC Japan Report on Public Cloud: https://my.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prJPJ52761024
GII Software Market Forecast: https://www.gii.co.jp/report/imarc1609709-japan-software-market-report-by-type-deployment.html
IPA Software Modernization Survey (2024): https://www.ipa.go.jp/disc/committee/eid2eo00000036bq-att/software-modernization-comittee-20250422-software-survey2024-analysis-report.pdf
Harbors by Anti-Pattern Inc: https://harbors.anti-pattern.co.jp/coworking/engineer_community_recommendation https://harbors.anti-pattern.co.jp/coworking/about_engineer_community/
You will receive news and updates about DevRel via email.