Cool! I recently moved from SF to Tokyo and so have a vested interest in this, but I wish more startups went after the Japanese market at an earlier stage. Based on the popularity of twitter and sheer number of iPhones I see on a daily basis there's a ton of potential.

I'm not a potential hire but your visit sounds like a good excuse for an informal meetup of hacker news readers in Tokyo. Have time?

We're definitely going after the Japanese market at an early stage. :-)

I'd love to meet up. Shoot me an email at ray@ and we can set up a time!

I'm not sure where the lack of job title comes from, but from reading the post I gather that you're looking for a Japanese-speaking designer who has built large sites in Rails. Is this about right?

Um, good point, thanks. :-) Updated.

> # be fluent in English.

> # have native-level Japanese fluency with polished business Japanese skills

Ray, you might find it necessary to soften those requirements. As you know, most Japanese hackers aren't nowhere near fluent in English. And by requiring "native-level" in Japanese you exclude all the foreign developers, even those who speak Japanese fluently or at "business level".

I work in a mixed environment (Japanese and foreigners) and we have both Japanese and foreign clients. We try to hire bilingual people but often it's not possible if we also want high technical skills. Even companies like Google Japan and Amazon Japan mention in their job ads that fluent English is not required! My suggestion is that you require fluency in one language and business level in the other.

By the way, I'd apply for the job anyway, but I don't have a lot of experience with web development.

Thanks, this is good feedback. I'll probably soften the English fluency requirement.

Fellow Rails developer in Japan here. I gotta say, if you're looking for a native Japanese speaker, then you are looking for a Japanese developer. This seems the wrong site to advertise on :-P. Maybe try posting on daijob.com or something. As nandemo pointed out, and also from my experience, very few devs are fluent in both languages. You'll have to relax one, if not both, of those restrictions.

I was also curious about posting a position for a Japanese developer on a mainly western site (HackerNews).

I am fluent in English (native level) and work entirely in Japanese at a Japanese company. I however have a job, live in Nagoya and am not ethnically Japanese.

I was also curious about the requirements saying that the applicant needs to be a developer, have large-scale data experience and be good with customers.

So you (the OP) need a native level english speaking Japanese person with design and programming abilities who can also manage large amounts of data and can also sell the product.

I wish I knew where that person lived!

I actually know a fair number of Japanese people who read this site so was assuming there are more. I also know quite a few westerners living in Tokyo who speak excellent Japanese with the ability to communicate well in business.

But I agree with your overall point - native level in either language is not necessary but we are looking for someone who can deal with Japanese customers, code and communicate well with the rest of us. I'll update the docs.

Agreed. I left out a comment about the number of people who actually satisfy those reqs. :)