When you search for “in-house SE don’t take it,” you’ll find an overflow of negative information.

Warnings about difficulty in skill development, becoming a jack-of-all-trades, stagnant salaries—many engineers hesitate to make the transition after encountering such cautionary tales.

However, the reality is that it’s not the position of in-house SE itself that’s problematic, but rather “which company you work for” that determines whether it becomes paradise or hell.

This article explains the reasons behind the “don’t take it” warnings and key points for choosing the right company, based on official data from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

1．7 Reasons Why In-House SE Positions Get “Don’t Take It” Warnings

The “don’t take it” warnings about in-house SE positions stem from structural issues inherent to the role.

Here, we’ll explain seven reasons that directly impact an engineer’s career, based on official data.

Reason 1: Risk of Skill Stagnation and Declining Market Value

Structural limitations in accessing cutting-edge technology

In-house SE work environments tend to restrict opportunities for exposure to the latest technologies. Since the focus centers on maintaining and operating existing systems, engineers end up dealing with legacy systems for extended periods.

Many companies run systems that are over 10 years old, making work with outdated language versions routine.

Additionally, introducing new technologies requires approval from multiple departments, resulting in extremely lengthy decision-making processes.

In corporate cultures that prioritize stable operations, “proven technologies” are preferred, creating an environment that suppresses engineers’ innovative spirit.

The danger of becoming dependent on company-specific skills

As in-house SEs become deeply optimized for a specific company’s systems, they risk developing skills that don’t translate well in the job market.

Customization skills for specific ERP systems or development expertise in proprietary tools with limited versatility may be valued within that particular company, but during job transitions, these become “skills that only work at that company.”

When considering a career move years later, you may find your portfolio lacks universal achievements to showcase, increasing the risk of losing competitive edge in the market.

In-house SE realities through government data

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s job information site “job tag,” the average annual salary for Systems Engineers (Infrastructure Systems) is 7,526,000 yen.

While this figure is high compared to the overall occupational average, it remains mid-range within the IT industry.

(Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Job Information Site job tag “Systems Engineer (Infrastructure Systems)“)

Reason 2: Risk of Becoming a “Jack-of-All-Trades” and Losing Specialization

How broad responsibilities hinder specialization

In-house SE responsibilities span development, maintenance, operations, help desk, and equipment setup. Particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises, handling all these areas with minimal staff is standard practice.

This multitasking environment keeps expertise in each domain “broad but shallow,” making it difficult to build market value as a specialist in any particular field.

Since the job market values depth of specialization, generalist careers often work against you.

The serious reality of the “solo IT department” problem

The “solo IT department” situation—where a company’s IT department is effectively run by a single engineer—represents one of the most serious issues for in-house SEs.

In “solo IT department” environments, responsibility during system failures concentrates on one individual, creating risks of excessive psychological and operational burdens while legal responsibility remains ambiguous.

Without anyone to consult, you must solve all problems alone, increasing the risk of psychological isolation and burnout.

Reason 3: Help Desk Duties Interrupt Core Work

The reality of administrative tasks and their time costs

PC startup troubles, password resets, printer connection errors—technically simple but frequently occurring inquiries fragment an engineer’s day.

While each incident takes 5-15 minutes, when 10-20 occur daily, they consume a total of 2-3 hours.

Moreover, since these arise at unpredictable times, securing planned development time becomes extremely difficult.

Psychological costs of disrupting engineers’ flow state

Engineers achieve maximum productivity in what’s called a “flow state”—a deep concentration mode that requires 15-30 minutes of lead time to enter.

Help desk interruptions destroy this flow state. Once interrupted, returning to the same level of concentration requires similar time investment, substantially reducing actual productivity.

The stress from continuous interruptions directly leads to decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover intentions.

Coordination with Other Departments Becomes a Major Stressor

The reality of limited understanding from non-IT departments

One major stress source for in-house SEs is the communication gap with non-IT departments. Requests that ignore technical feasibility—like “just add this one button, right?”—arrive routinely.

Even careful explanations of technical constraints often fail to gain understanding, and you may be labeled as “the uncooperative IT department.”

Additionally, a structural problem exists where internal resources are perceived as “free,” making it difficult to gain understanding when asserting appropriate effort estimates.

Caught between technical feasibility and business demands

In-house SEs constantly find themselves caught between excessive expectations from management and unreasonable demands from operational staff. Management promotes “DX transformation” while remaining reluctant to secure necessary budgets and resources.

Priority coordination requires not just technical judgment but advanced coordination skills that consider interdepartmental politics and interpersonal relationships.

No matter how carefully you coordinate, departments whose requests aren’t fulfilled may harbor dissatisfaction, risking deterioration of your internal standing.

The changing skill set requirements

In such environments, communication and coordination abilities tend to be overemphasized compared to engineering technical skills.

Personnel who originally wanted to hone their technical abilities often find themselves spending the majority of their time in meetings and coordination work, leading to many cases where their engineering identity becomes shaken.

Reason 5: Achievements Are Hard to Visualize and Rarely Appreciated

The structural position as a cost center

In many companies, the IT department where in-house SEs work is positioned as a “cost center.”

Rather than being a department that directly generates revenue, it’s recognized as a “cost” to support other departments, making IT investment viewed through the lens of “how much can we reduce it?”

Lack of appreciation for systems that “should just work”

The majority of in-house SE work involves preventive maintenance and monitoring to keep systems “running normally.” However, the effort to maintain this “incident-free state” typically goes unappreciated.

When system failures occur, you face strong criticism, but preventing all failures is simply taken as “expected.”

In other words, you’re placed in an asymmetric evaluation structure where success goes unrecognized while failures bring accountability. Setting quantitative performance indicators proves difficult, and this evaluation challenge often leads to disadvantages in salary increases and promotions.

Reason 6: Structural Issues Preventing Salary Growth

In-house SE salary realities through official data

As mentioned earlier, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s job tag, the average annual salary for Systems Engineers (Infrastructure Systems) is 7,526,000 yen.

Particularly for in-house SEs at non-IT companies, salary tables are often set based on company-wide clerical job standards, creating a structure where technical expertise isn’t reflected in compensation.

(Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Job Information Site job tag “Systems Engineer (Infrastructure Systems)“)

The reality of companies with low salary caps

At non-IT companies, compensation systems for IT departments are often inadequately developed, with slow salary increase paces and low caps.

Even more serious is the corporate culture that forces transitions from technical to management positions upon reaching certain ages or ranks.

For engineers who want to pursue technical excellence, the structure where salaries plateau without becoming managers creates major career constraints.

Reason 7: Limited Career Paths Making Job Changes Difficult

Risk of optimization to company-specific processes

The longer you work as an in-house SE, the more deeply you become optimized to that company’s unique workflows, approval processes, and specific vendor product knowledge. While this enhances internal evaluation, it reduces versatility in the job market.

Job market evaluation realities when changing careers

The most difficult aspect of transitioning from in-house SE roles is creating a portfolio that visualizes achievements.

Web or app development engineers can showcase code on GitHub or demonstrate personal project results, but in-house SEs work primarily on confidential tasks, leaving few outputs that can be publicly shared.

Resume content tends to center on activities like “internal system maintenance and operations” and “help desk support”—work that’s difficult to demonstrate technical depth.

During interviews, you may face concerns like “Have you only been doing internal coordination without writing code?” making technical skill demonstration challenging.

■Related Reading

Curious about career paths beyond in-house SE? Explore the comprehensive roadmap from entry-level positions to CTO roles, complete with salary data and strategic transition advice for long-term IT career success in Japan.

2．Data-Revealed Realities and Unexpected Benefits of In-House SE Roles

The previous section detailed structural problems with in-house SE positions, but that’s not the complete picture.

Based on objective data, in-house SE roles offer clear benefits that shouldn’t be overlooked. Here, we’ll explain the realities and positive aspects of in-house SE work based on official data.

Large Company In-House SEs Show High Job Satisfaction

Satisfaction differences by company size

In-house SE job satisfaction varies significantly by company size.

Large enterprises have abundant IT investment budgets and enable specialized role distribution, making situations like “solo IT departments” with excessive burdens less likely.

A frequently cited reason for satisfaction is “receiving direct gratitude.”

When working at client sites as SIer or SES personnel, opportunities for direct communication with system users are limited, but in-house SEs frequently experience direct “thank you” moments from internal colleagues.

This “visible relationship” directly connects to engineering fulfillment.

Being able to tangibly see how your created systems or solved problems improve the work of people right in front of you serves as a powerful motivational factor.

In other words, it’s not the in-house SE position itself that’s problematic—satisfaction and work environment vary dramatically depending on which company size and industry you choose.

Work-Life Balance Definitely Improves

Average overtime hours for in-house SEs

According to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare job information site “job tag” data, the work environment for Systems Engineers (Infrastructure Systems) tends to be more stable compared to project-based development engineers.

In-house SEs average approximately 10-30 hours of monthly overtime. This is clearly less than SIers’ 30-50 hours or SES’s 40-60 hours.

The structural reason behind this difference is that in-house SEs face fewer “deadline-driven projects.”

While SIers and SES face strict deadlines set by client contracts—often normalizing long working hours to meet them—in-house SEs can set flexible schedules through internal coordination.

Benefits of freedom from client site assignments

Liberation from the “client site assignment” stress experienced by many SES engineers represents another major in-house SE advantage.

Being able to commute to the same office daily and work with familiar colleagues brings psychological stability.

Remote work implementation realities

In-house SE is a position relatively well-suited for remote work adoption. With proper security requirements met, accessing internal systems and performing monitoring duties from home becomes possible.

Many companies have introduced 2-3 days per week remote work or flextime systems, achieving high flexibility in work styles.

DX Promotion Is Strategically Transforming In-House SE Roles

Growing importance in corporate digital transformation

The “2025 Cliff” problem warned about by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has made core system renewals and DX promotion urgent priorities for many companies.

Within this trend, in-house SEs are being reevaluated not as cost-reduction targets but as subjects of strategic investment to enhance corporate competitiveness.

Recent surveys show nearly 80% of information systems departments are involved in generative AI implementation and utilization, demonstrating that in-house SEs are no longer cost-reduction targets but strategic investment subjects for enhancing corporate competitiveness.

In deploying generative AI and cloud technologies, in-house SEs with both technical expertise and business understanding are gaining attention as key players at the DX promotion frontline.

Transformation from cost center to profit center

While IT departments have traditionally been recognized as “cost centers,” their involvement in management strategy is increasing as key players in digital transformation, creating opportunities to function not merely as technical staff but as business partners.

Career paths to executive positions like CTO (Chief Technology Officer) or CIO (Chief Information Officer) are becoming clearer than before.

Gaining a Sense of Contributing to Your Own Company’s Business

Benefits of users being “internal colleagues”

The defining characteristic of in-house SE work is that system users are “company colleagues.” When problems arise, users often approach not as “complainers” but as “colleagues working together toward solutions.”

System improvement results receive direct evaluation, with feedback coming through words of gratitude and increased internal recognition.

This visible relationship makes it easier to feel the significance of engineering work, connecting to long-term motivation maintenance.

Proximity to management and career expansion

In-house SEs also have many opportunities for direct communication with management. During IT strategy planning and budget formulation processes, situations arise where you participate in management meetings or present directly to executives.

This experience provides valuable opportunities to understand both technical and business aspects, opening pathways to career transitions into IT consulting or corporate planning roles.

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3．5 Characteristics of People Suited for In-House SE Work

Aptitude for in-house SE positions can’t be measured by technical skill alone. Rather, work values, career goals, and personality traits significantly influence success or failure.

Here, we’ll specifically explain characteristics of people suited and unsuited for in-house SE work.

5 Traits of People Well-Suited for In-House SE

1. Those who prioritize work-life balance above all

In-house SE roles best suit those who value stable life rhythms and personal life fulfillment over technical challenges.

Suitable for those prioritizing:

• Balancing family life
• Securing time for hobbies and self-improvement
• Maintaining healthy lifestyle rhythms

In-house SEs have relatively few overtime hours and can more easily adopt remote work or flextime systems, enabling planned life design.

2. Those who want to leverage broad knowledge and coordination skills

Since in-house SE work spans multiple areas, it requires the ability to solve problems by integrating broad knowledge rather than deeply mastering specific technologies.

Suitable for those who can demonstrate:

• Multitasking aptitude
• Bridging roles between departments
• Project management capabilities

3. Those wanting deep involvement with specific businesses or industries

In-house SE is a position enabling long-term engagement with your company’s business.

Suitable for those wanting:

• Deep involvement in specific industries like manufacturing, finance, or healthcare
• Building specialized industry knowledge
• Increasing value as a domain expert

4. Those wanting to shift toward upstream processes or management

For those wanting to shift from coding-centered careers toward upstream planning/strategy formulation or IT governance construction, in-house SE provides an appropriate stepping stone.

Suitable for those aiming for:

• IT consultant-type roles
• CTO/CIO career paths
• Bridging roles between technology and business

5. Those seeking long-term stable environments

For those wanting to settle into one company for long-term work rather than pursuing careers involving repeated job changes, in-house SE offers a high-stability option.

Suitable for those valuing:

• Employment stability
• Avoiding job change risks
• Corporate belonging and trust relationships

5 Traits of People Unsuited for In-House SE

1. Those constantly seeking cutting-edge technology

For those who find strong value in technical challenges and being in leading-edge development environments, in-house SE roles likely feel insufficient.

Unsuitable for those who:

• Want to master new frameworks and languages continuously
• Find greatest joy in writing code
• Want to work in startup-like environments

2. Specialist-oriented individuals wanting to master specific expertise

For those wanting to deeply explore specific technical domains and be recognized as experts in those fields, in-house SE isn’t appropriate.

Unsuitable for those who:

• Aim to become authorities in specific languages
• Value recognition from technical communities
• Can’t find value in “broad but shallow” skill sets

3. Those wanting to focus and develop at their own pace

For those who prefer entering flow states for extended concentrated periods and immersing themselves in creative problem-solving, in-house SE environments with frequent interruptions become stress sources.

Unsuitable for those who:

• Feel strong stress from work interruptions due to help desk or sudden inquiries

4. Those wanting quantitative achievement evaluation

For those who value having work achievements clearly evaluated through numbers, with that directly connecting to compensation and promotion, in-house SE evaluation systems tend to generate dissatisfaction.

Unsuitable for those who:

• Want evaluation through concrete metrics like sales or page views
• Want to clearly prove abilities through technical exams or certifications

5. Those uncomfortable with internal coordination and communication

Those confident in technical problem-solving but strongly uncomfortable with communication with non-technical personnel or interdepartmental coordination work may struggle to adapt to in-house SE duties.

Unsuitable for those who:

• Want to compete purely through programming or system design
• Want to avoid interpersonal skill-requiring work like meetings and explanations

■Related Reading

Before making your career move, understand how to identify toxic workplace environments. Learn the 11 critical red flags that foreign IT engineers should watch for when evaluating Japanese companies during the job search process.

4．5 Points to Avoid “Don’t Take It” In-House SE Positions

To avoid regret when transitioning to in-house SE roles, having clear selection criteria during the company selection stage is essential.

Here, we’ll explain five specific points for avoiding environments that warrant “don’t take it” warnings and securing high-satisfaction in-house SE positions.

Point 1: Choose Large Companies Actively Investing in IT

How to verify company DX strategies

You can verify how much companies value IT through publicly available information. Always check:

• Listed companies’ securities reports
• IT investment policies in mid-term management plans
• DX initiatives in press releases

Determining IT budgets and personnel structures

During interviews or company briefings, confirming these points is crucial:

• IT investment ratio relative to sales (3% or higher is desirable)
• IT department headcount and expansion plans (minimum 10+ people for companies with 1,000 employees)
• Outsourcing ratio to external vendors

Companies reluctant about IT investment tend to experience:

• Legacy system neglect due to budget shortages
• Overwork from understaffing
• Accumulation of technical debt

Point 2: Confirm It’s Not a “Solo IT Department” Structure

Identifying healthy IT departments

“Solo IT department” environments carry extremely high risks of overwork and knowledge concentration.

Healthy IT departments require:

• Minimum 3+ personnel (ideally 5+)
• Clear role division: development, maintenance, operations infrastructure
• Knowledge-sharing systems like documentation and regular knowledge-sharing sessions

Question list to verify during interviews

During interview reverse questioning, understand realities through questions like:

• “Could you show me the IT department’s organizational chart?”
• “What was the previous person’s reason for leaving?”
• “What’s the backup system when someone takes vacation?”

If these questions don’t receive clear answers, that company’s in-house SE environment likely has problems.

■Need an Advisor Who Understands Your Career Goals in Japan?

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Point 3: Clarify In-House SE Scope and Discretion During Interviews

Verify development, maintenance, and operations ratios numerically

In-house SE work content varies significantly by company.

During interviews, verify whether the balance is ideal:

• Development/planning: 40-50%
• Maintenance/operations: 30-40%
• Help desk: 10-20%

If help desk comprises over 50% of work, engineering growth opportunities will be severely limited.

Help desk outsourcing status

Excellent companies outsource primary support to external help desk services, enabling in-house SEs to focus on secondary and higher-level support.

Verify:

• Primary support outsourcing status
• Escalation flow establishment
• Clear boundaries for in-house SE responsibilities

Involvement in strategy formulation

Whether you can participate in IT strategy formulation rather than merely operating systems is extremely important for career growth. Verify:

• Management meeting participation opportunities
• Leadership in IT strategy development
• Involvement in budget decisions

■Related Reading

Master the art of evaluating potential employers with our comprehensive guide. Discover 7 essential checkpoints that help software engineers identify companies offering genuine growth opportunities, work-life balance, and competitive compensation.

Point 4: Understand In-House Development Ratios and Vendor Control Realities

In-house development policy presence and reality

At companies outsourcing all system development to external vendors, in-house SE technical skills continuously decline.

Verify:

• Recent project in-house/outsource ratios (minimum 30% in-house is desirable)
• Future in-house development plans
• Measures for maintaining in-house engineer development skills

Value of vendor management skills

Even when external vendor collaboration is central, proper vendor management itself becomes a highly marketable skill.

Skills like these prove extremely valuable for transitions into IT consulting or project management:

• RFP creation and vendor selection abilities
• Project management and quality control
• Cost negotiation and risk management

Point 5: Verify Career Paths and Evaluation Systems in Advance

Clarifying promotion and salary increase criteria

Career paths and evaluation systems after joining as an in-house SE should be clearly verified during interviews. Ask about:

• Evaluation system details
• Salary increase track records over the past 3 years
• Technical position salary caps

At companies with opaque evaluation systems, achievements may not be appropriately recognized regardless of results, leading to motivation decline.

Path from technical to management positions

When aiming for management positions in the future, verify whether that career path is clearly shown. Check:

• IT department head appointment track records
• CTO/CIO position existence
• Specialist track establishment

Internal transfer flexibility

Whether opportunities exist for transfers to other departments or job rotation after joining as in-house SE is also an important point. Verify:

• Possibilities for transfers to other departments
• Secondment/transfer systems
• Job rotation program existence

Companies with broader career options enable longer-term growth and motivation maintenance.

5．Comprehensive Comparison: SIer vs. SES vs. In-House SE

When considering in-house SE transitions, accurately understanding differences from SIer (System Integrator) and SES (System Engineering Service) is crucial.

Here, we’ll compare these three positions from four perspectives: work style, skill development, salary, and career paths.

Work Style and Environment Differences

Work location and commute times

• SIer: Work location varies by project; includes both own-office work and frequent client-site assignments
• SES: Primarily client-site assignment; difficult to predict work locations, with commute time variation risks
• In-house SE: Own-office work as standard; daily same-location commutes with stable life rhythms

From commute time stability and life predictability perspectives, in-house SE excels most.

Overtime and weekend work realities

According to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare occupational information, clear differences exist in working hours by position type:

• SIer: 30-50 hours monthly
• SES: 40-60 hours monthly
• In-house SE: 10-30 hours monthly

Regarding weekend work, while SIer and SES frequently experience it for system releases or troubleshooting, in-house SE centers on planned work with lower frequency.

(Reference: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Job Information Site job tag)

Remote work feasibility

• SIer: Depends on client company security policies; finance or government projects often require office attendance
• SES: Completely depends on assignment company policies; cannot choose remote work availability
• In-house SE: Relatively easy to introduce remote work; many companies adopt 2-3 days weekly hybrid work

Skill Development and Technical Growth Differences

Technology stack breadth and depth

• SIer: Opportunities to touch diverse technologies per project; can accumulate broad experience
• SES: Project-dependent; significant specialization variation
• In-house SE: Limited technology stack breadth due to internal system focus, but enables deep understanding and long-term engagement with specific technologies

Project diversity and learning opportunities

• SIer: High cutting-edge technology exposure frequency; many opportunities to experience large-scale projects
• SES: Learning opportunities vary greatly by project; risks of getting stuck in simple tasks without skill advancement
• In-house SE: Long-term engagement with same systems provides deep understanding but less new stimulation

Regarding certification support, large company in-house SEs often have substantial programs, with environments enabling company-funded expensive professional certifications.

Salary and Career Path Differences

Salary range comparison

Based on Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare job tag data, trends show:

• SIer: 5.5-6.5 million yen
• SES: 4.0-5.0 million yen
• In-house SE: 5.0-6.0 million yen

Major SIers commonly see 7+ million yen, with promotions to project manager or consultant enabling 8-10 million yen.

Salary increase speed and growth patterns

• 20s: SIers have fastest salary growth; major SIers often exceed 5 million yen by 3rd year after new graduate hiring
• 30s: SIer PM positions: 7-8 million yen; in-house SE department head class: 6.5-7.5 million yen; SES centers around 5-6 million yen
• 40s+: SIers have clear management tracks with department head+ positions enabling 10+ million yen; in-house SEs as CIO/CTO: 8-10 million yen; SES remains fieldwork-centered even in 40s with slower salary growth

Future career options

• SIer: Abundant options including project manager, IT consultant, corporate planning transitions
• SES: Option to leverage technical skills as freelance engineer
• In-house SE: Executive positions like CIO/CTO, IT department head, corporate planning transitions

Comparison Table: SIer, SES, In-House SE Key Metrics

Metric	SIer	SES	In-House SE
Work Location	Own office/Client site	Client site	Own office
Avg Overtime	30-50h/month	40-60h/month	10-30h/month
Avg Salary	5.5-6.5M yen	4.0-5.0M yen	5.0-6.0M yen
Tech Stack	Diverse	Project-dependent	Limited
Work-Life Balance	△	×	◎
Skill Development	◎	△	△
Employment Stability	○	△	◎
Remote Work	△	×	○
Career Path Clarity	◎	△	○
Job Market Evaluation	◎	△	○

This comparison table clearly shows each position type has distinct characteristics, with no absolute superiority. Choosing the option best aligned with your career goals and values is crucial.

■Related Reading

Considering alternatives to traditional employment? Understand the fundamental differences between outsourcing and in-house development roles. This guide reveals 10 key distinctions that impact your technical growth, work style, and career trajectory.

6．Concrete Action Plan for Successful In-House SE Transitions

Successfully transitioning to in-house SE positions requires strategic approaches from information gathering through selection preparation.

Here, we’ll explain concrete action plans for achieving regret-free transitions from three perspectives.

Leverage IT Industry-Specialized Recruitment Agencies

Three agency utilization benefits

In job hunting, utilizing IT industry-specialized recruitment agencies proves extremely effective.

1. Obtaining company internal information

Recruitment agencies possess internal company information not listed in job postings:

• Overtime realities (some companies list “average 20 hours monthly” but actually exceed 60 hours during busy periods)
• Turnover rates and resignation reasons (enables avoiding “landmine positions” where IT department turnover is high or predecessors keep leaving)
• Internal atmosphere and interpersonal relationships (whether IT departments are treated as “jacks-of-all-trades” or respected as strategic partners)

2. Access to non-public job openings

Many agency-held positions are “non-public openings”:

• Major company limited positions
• High-condition positions like 7+ million yen annual salary
• Low-competition opportunities

This dramatically increases access possibilities.

3. Professional negotiation support

While salary negotiation challenges many job seekers, agency utilization provides:

• Market rate understanding
• Negotiation strategy development
• Offer condition optimization

Professional negotiation expertise becomes available.

10 Essential Interview Questions

Interview reverse questioning time represents the most crucial opportunity to assess company realities. Here are 10 must-verify questions for in-house SE transitions.

Organization/structure questions (3)

Question 1: Please describe the IT department’s headcount and organizational structure

• Checkpoint: Eliminating solo IT department risks
• Ideal answer: “The IT department has 5 members: 2 development staff, 2 infrastructure staff, 1 help desk staff”

Question 2: Please share IT investment amounts for the past 3 years and future plans

• Checkpoint: Company IT priority (3%+ of sales is desirable)
• Ideal answer: “Last year we allocated 5% of sales to IT investment, increasing to 7% this year for DX promotion”

Question 3: Please tell me about the previous person’s resignation reason and tenure

• Checkpoint: Environmental problems
• Warning answer: Repeated short tenures like “Previous person left after 1 year; person before that lasted 2 years”

Work content questions (4)

Question 4: Please describe a typical daily work schedule for in-house SEs

• Checkpoint: Concrete work image; whether planned work is possible

Question 5: Please share help desk work percentage and outsourcing status

• Checkpoint: Administrative work ratio (ideally under 20%)
• Ideal answer: “Primary support is outsourced; in-house SEs handle only technical secondary responses, about 20% of work”

Question 6: Please describe frequency and scale of development projects over the past year

• Checkpoint: Technical skill maintenance opportunities
• Ideal answer: “Last year: core system renewal and new sales support tool development; planning AI utilization project this year”

Question 7: Please share the technology stack and versions in use

• Checkpoint: Legacy degree
• Warning answer: Using technology stacks with expired or near-expiring support

Evaluation/career questions (3)

Question 8: Please explain the evaluation system and career paths

• Checkpoint: Growth opportunity presence
• Ideal answer: “Twice-yearly evaluations assess goal achievement and skill improvement; 2 people promoted to section chief over past 3 years”

Question 9: Please share realities of overtime hours and weekend work

• Checkpoint: Work-life balance
• Ideal answer: “Average 15 hours monthly; rarely exceeds 30 hours even during busy periods; weekend work occurs 1-2 times yearly”

Question 10: Please describe remote work implementation status

• Checkpoint: Work style flexibility
• Ideal answer: “2-3 days weekly remote work possible; flextime system also introduced”

Skills to Emphasize in Resumes for In-House SE Positions

In-house SE selection emphasizes not just technical skills but business understanding and communication abilities. Resumes must appeal these elements in balanced fashion.

How to write technical skills

In-house SE roles value flexibility to handle multiple technical domains over deep specialization in specific languages.

Emphasize:

• Infrastructure, networking, security
• Development language diversity
• Experience with both cloud and on-premise environments

How to write business skills

In-house SE positions often emphasize communication abilities over technical skills.

Show these through specific episodes:

• Successful interdepartmental coordination cases
• Ability to explain to non-technical personnel
• Stakeholder management achievements

Business perspective problem-solving cases

Appeals should emphasize not just “building systems” but “solving business problems.”

Emphasize quantified improvement achievements like:

• Cost reduction results (“Cloud migration reduced annual infrastructure costs 30%, 5 million yen annually”)
• Operational efficiency outcomes (“Report output automation saved 100 monthly work hours”)
• User satisfaction improvement initiatives (“Internal survey increased system satisfaction from 60% to 85%”)

Project management experience

In-house SE roles require external vendor collaboration and overall project management abilities.

Emphasize:

• Project scale and budgets
• Vendor management experience
• Schedule, quality, cost management achievements

These experiences powerfully demonstrate immediate contribution capability as in-house SE.

■Related Reading

Ready to craft a winning resume? Learn proven strategies to pass document screening with our detailed guide featuring 15 practical examples, writing tips for different experience levels, and insights into what recruiters actually look for.

■Ready to Make Your Next Career Move in Japan?

BLOOMTECH Career for Global specializes in helping foreign IT engineers in Japan find quality in-house SE positions.

We provide full support including resume optimization, interview preparation in Japanese and English, and salary negotiation—all at no cost to you.

▼Contact BLOOMTECH Career for Global here

7．In-House SE Success Depends on Company Selection, Not “Don’t Take It” Warnings

The seven reasons in-house SE receives “don’t take it” warnings stem not from the position itself but from company IT investment attitudes and organizational structures.

According to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare data, large company in-house SEs enjoy clear benefits including work-life balance and strategic roles in DX promotion.

The key lies in clarifying your career values and selecting companies with active IT investment and proper structures. Utilize this article’s five points and ten interview questions to achieve regret-free company selection.