pin9999

> you're able to immediately get things in the hands of your "normal" friends and see what they think.

A friend of mine teaches kids how to code. Kids get really excited when they see apps they made actually work on their own phones.

Are you at the Tokyo branch of a foreign company? From what I heard, it sounds like the kind of the freedom you talked about is not usually enjoyed in most Japanese companies, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.