Yamato Kept Writing Code—From Hitachi to Fullscript in Ottawa

Yamato is in his thirties in Ottawa as a senior frontend engineer at health-tech company Fullscript (Healthy Web Inc.). He holds an economics degree and entered engineering as a new graduate without university programming experience. Japan industry experience runs about seven to eight years. He started at Hitachi as an SE after SE recruiting talks caught his interest—first at another company’s session, then across SE employers including Hitachi. Large-company training lasted roughly from an April hire into about September. He left because he wanted to keep writing code rather than move into management, and because corporate hierarchy did not fit.

Next came Marketing Applications, building web survey tools, then MedPeer for three years and two months—first as a Rails engineer, later as senior frontend helping stand up a frontend team. After leaving MedPeer he intended to move to Canada, but COVID blocked travel, so he took another domestic role until restrictions eased. Final Japan compensation is stated as about 8.88 million yen.

A former colleague’s Canada hire made overseas work feel concrete. He had backpacking experience—Europe about one month at age twenty, Southeast Asia about two months before graduation—and studied English online for about three years from around 2019, including DMM Eikaiwa. In early 2022 he committed to relocating; he also won U.K. Youth Mobility but chose Canada. He entered on a tourist visa, job-hunted, then switched to working holiday. In about September 2022 he found his first Canadian role in roughly three weeks—tourist status lasting a little over a month. Attributes record monthsToOffer as one. He had practiced English interviews with Shopify from Japan in 2021 across four or five rounds without an offer.

First Canadian employer was Foundation, senior frontend on a small Rails and frontend team, at CAD 110,000. Funding stress and 2023 layoffs pushed him out; the recession search that followed was very difficult despite Canadian experience. He joined Fullscript via a referral from a Japan-era colleague, again at CAD 110,000 entry. At Fullscript his title is frontend, but he also works Rails backend and describes the role as effectively fullstack. He entered at intermediate level and was promoted to senior frontend after one year. The product sits where healthcare meets e-commerce: practitioners prescribe supplements patients buy on the platform. After about two years and three months his base rose by CAD 30,000, with stock bringing total closer to about CAD 170,000.

The through-line is stubborn: keep writing code, keep choosing seats that allow it, and when a recession erases a first Canada win, use an old colleague’s referral rather than pretending cold volume alone will save you.

Shopify’s multi-round practice from Japan in 2021 did not yield an offer, but it inoculated him against English interview shock before the 2022 tourist-to-working-holiday sprint. Foundation’s layoff season then tested whether Canadian experience alone was enough in a recession—it was not. Fullscript’s referral and the later senior promotion restored agency: compensation climbing, fullstack scope, healthcare commerce that still lets him write code daily.