Tomoharu — Software engineer at a Vancouver AI services firm (ex–sales → fintech SE)
Sales then 4 years fintech SE in Japan; Langara CS; ~80 applications; offer before graduation at an AI contract-development company (~24 months to offer).
ソフトウェアエンジニア · Vancouver
Profile
Tomoharu is a software engineer in Vancouver. Attribute background is 経験者; company name not in attributes.
Current role
Software engineer at a Vancouver AI contract/services development company (name not stated). Reports high flexibility vs Japan SaaS role; global offices; rough Japan-yen compensation stated ~¥10M. Started part-time while still in college, then full-time after graduation.
Japan experience
Aoyama Gakuin University (non-CS). New-grad **sales ~3 years**, then self-taught programming via a mentor (CTO/contract engineer) while building Ruby projects. Fintech startup software engineer **~4 years**: JavaScript/React frontend and Ruby on Rails backend SaaS. Overseas work interest existed since sales years. IELTS prep: ~**3 hours/day for 3 years** during the engineering period; first practice test overall **6**, needed Langara overall **6.5**.
Path to Canada / North America
Introduced to Frog via an ex-AWS contact on social media; also considered New Zealand. Langara College Computer Science **~2 years** (motivation: PGWP ~3 years + wanting formal CS). Second half year freelanced for a Japan company while studying; left that work at graduation. Job prep from ~6 months into Langara: read Frog success stories, practiced English/algorithms/system design, ATS/resume tooling (e.g. Jobscan). Applied to ~**80** companies; interviews included CS/system topics and PM behavioral rounds.
Outcome
Offer before graduation; attribute monthsToOffer=24. Part-time first, then full-time. Compensation cited roughly ~¥10M.
Based on Frog’s Japanese-language interview. English summary for scanning. Original interview (Japanese)
company attribute null; do not invent AI firm name. Salary figure from article as stated.