From what I've seen at least Google and Amazon don't have much engineering effort beyond localization in Japan. I'm curious to know if any of these guys are hiring for Software Engineering or SRE type roles (in Japan).
Google's open job reqs: https://careers.google.com/jobs#t=sq&q=j&li=20&l=false&jlo=e...
That's the public version. If you want the non-public version, take any one of several thousand people in Tokyo out for a beer.
Many engineers on Google Chrome team are in Tokyo (Japan has quite a few experts in low level programming, and culturally excel at optimizing for speed).
Amazon Japan has engineers working on original products and features on their ecommerce storefront.
Understandable that he doesn’t have time, but the agreement sounds a little unfair.
Without talking about that negotiation, note generally that if a prospective employer says "BTW we want all of your attention on the day job so our policy is $FOO" that you have many, many options for your next sentence, of which "OK then, if that is your policy." is only one.
As an aside (while it’s the de facto standard) my understanding was that it’s illegal in Japan to restrict your work outside of company time. If anyone has a good reference for this, it would be welcome.
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=194921&cid=15971343
"... not going to set the world on fire."
But see (also on front page currently):
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-com-announces-fourth-q...
It seems like AWS is doing quite well.