Do you need to know Japanese in order to work in Japan? it also depends on the company, and also what kind of job, for example if sales kind of job of course you need good japanese, as for my case we just focus on coding and make great products, we dont need to talk to client and stuff (keigo), BUT!, we still need to able to speak basic Japanese in order to communicate with the Japanese in the company especially the HR staffs, besides that, u also need to be to communicate with the officer here in order to deal with the government and other stuff like post office, or create bank account and etc. You MUST at least know the basic, at least able to have a conversation in japanese, once you have that, the officer will try their best to help you out. Unless your company provide you a human translator or do everything for u.

Must follow their working culture? It really depends on the company you are working at, different company has different culture, but the still the general Japan culture is still there, but as for my case, all the Software Engineers in my company are foreigners, and the management staffs (all japanese) they understand and want us to work our best by letting us work with flexible hour and we are able to work remotely. Of course some japanese here also they dont work OT, like once their work is done, they just go back, of course they would say Osaki ni shitsurei shimasu , and inside your Malaysian heart would whisper aiyah beh hiao kin lah, just go bak and get a good rest lah dont worry. Nowadays japanese people are changing i guess? My company people are different from what i had in mind before i work there.

Anyway, i'm working on the story of how i change from fresh graduate as E & E engineer to become Self-taught software engineer and got employed in Japan. It's going to be on Medium. Stay tune~