Hi there, it's imkoga002. Last some weeks, I was considering about my future from various perspective. And I decided my plan, so I want to share in this place.
[ TL;DR ]
In this blog I define ownership in three senses. The starting line for getting that ownership is joining a remote US startup. From here on, I'll push my learning and development toward that goal. And the trajectory of that learning and development will be trackable on this website.
[ Ownership ]
What is Ownership
As the title says, my goal is ownership. This ownership has three meanings.
1.Tech Field
The first is ownership in the technology industry. This isn't about wanting to show off or anything like that. It means I want to build a product or a service that becomes an ecosystem, a foundation, a de facto standard in the tech industry.
2.Company
The second is ownership in a company. Put simply, functioning as a principal at a tech company — a CEO or a CTO. To be a bit more precise, what matters is being able to function at a company that actually ships products and services. Because if all you want is the CEO or CTO title, you can just pay to incorporate and have it tomorrow.
3.Computer
The third is ownership over the computer. This one is probably the easiest to get. It's purely about wanting to go deep on technical skill and on computers — to really understand them. Memory management? Keep it safe with ownership!
Why I Aim for Ownership
As for why I want ownership: it's for the money and for the world.
Money is the easy one. Using LLMs and AI agents enough these days already costs real money, and I want an environment where I can properly focus on the work. Whatever anyone says, I think money matters.
The other one, "for the world," is a slightly arrogant reason, but I do think the world ends up better with the products and services I build in it. This connects to why I like designing organizations and software: the world — or more precisely, society and people — tends to settle for the systems and designs that already exist. Myself included. If that's the case, I believe the world gets better if I think up something new and build it for them.
How to Get Ownership
So how do you actually get that kind of ownership? I'm well aware the ownership I just defined isn't something you pick up overnight. But if I don't start, I won't even be standing at the starting line. The first thing I have to do is get to that line — which, simply put, means becoming an engineer who can operate globally. To do that, there are a few things I need. First, getting into the global tech field. Second, building the technical skill to get into that tech field. In the following chapters I'll explain why.
[ Join Startups ]
Getting into the global tech field. Stated more bluntly, that means joining a US/EU startup. I'd guess most people don't read "getting into the global tech field" as equal to "joining a US/EU startup."
Global = US/EU
Global = US/EU is probably intuitive enough. At least seen from Japan, the tech market you can globally participate in is the US and Europe. Chinese and Indian startups have been booming lately, sure, but they weight in-person work more heavily than the US/EU does, and there's a language barrier too. Also the pay is quite different. Compare the US and India and you can find close to a 10x gap.
Tech Field = Startup?
Experience Needed
On why the tech field narrows down to startups. As I wrote above, my goal is to have my own product or service. And that product or service will come out better in performance and quality if I gather teammates with expertise across different fields instead of doing it alone. That is, in other words, founding a company — a startup itself. So I need to know and experience how a startup gets born, survives, and grows. Hired in Japan?
Take the standard path: get an IT job in Japan, change jobs, experience a startup. It might be safe, but it's slow. I want to build my own product sooner than that. And on top of that, I need experience collaborating with others as a business, and experience shipping. Besides, I don't think there are many Japanese companies running SaaS at global scale.
Full Scratch?
Of course there's the option of building everything myself from the start. But connections really do matter. In the tech field especially, I have the impression that your network carries a fair amount of weight. So for now, roughly speaking, I'd rather avoid starting entirely on my own. Side projects, sure — I want to build those whenever I'm not too busy.
[ Culture & Philosophy ]
I think culture and philosophy matter most. For instance, I consider fully remote, async communication and collaboration, and documentation-first to be non-negotiable.
And culture and philosophy influence software design quite a lot, too. This is exactly where the so-called culture fit has to happen.
GitLab, in particular, is one of the things that most shaped how I think about company culture and philosophy.
[ Remote Job Needed ]
So what I want is a remote US startup job! Some people might say that's an indulgent thing to ask for, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable across the board. In the current US entry/junior market, the reaction is probably "why come to the US market instead of just getting hired in Japan?" Japanese IT jobs will still take you without skills and let you study during a training period. And you can rack up years of experience there. Well — as I said, I have zero appetite for grinding along that patiently. Isn't that fine? Impatient like a programmer should be, and lazy enough not to want to ride a packed Japanese train to get to an office. Surely that makes me a promising pick.
So from here I have to apply to remote US startups from Japan. Or post about myself on platforms like Reddit, Dev.to, and IndieHackers.
[ Make a Portfolio & Apply ]
Let's build a portfolio. I've barely done any coding. All I've done is design. I mean, it's not that I can't code — design was just more fun, and honestly I have absolutely nothing I can put in front of people! So before I apply or post anything, I'm going to start by building a portfolio.
The portfolio site itself is this website, by the way, though at the point of writing this blog the only thing under Project is this website.
And once the portfolio has filled in somewhat and the projects have grown a bit, that's when I'll start applying and posting.
[ Skill Stack ]
I love Rust. I know, I know — nobody at a startup is writing Rust. Of course some people do, and there are features built in it, but I'm aware the majors are Python and TS. So I'm going to prepare portfolio projects in Python and TS. I'll have something written in Rust too, naturally.
Also, personally, I hate environment-dependent setups, so I expect every project to use dev containers and Nix.
[ Dev Project in Public ]
The portfolio matters, but more than that, I think showing GitHub directly is more effective than a summarized writeup — ADRs and docs living inside the code, features split across branches, issues, and PRs, showing what I was thinking when I added or changed something.
Honestly I think contributing to OSS matters too, but I'll think about that a bit later.
[ Documentation in English ]
If I'm going to a global market, English is obviously required. I can handle English reasonably well as it stands, but I'm weak on accents and slang, and it's rough English with a lot of gaps — English just for getting a message across. So I've decided to first study reading/writing and listening/speaking properly, up to the level where I can use them in business and technical settings. And above all, writing documentation in English is the most important part, which means I have to be very deliberate about technical writing and about writing prose that lands. I'll be hammering all of this out with LLMs. So if my English starts reading like a technical document, now you know why.
[ How To Get A Remote Job Online (Fast) ]
So, as covered here, I have to start from "Dev Project in Public" and "Documentation in English" and get to Ownership. The first step is this blog, "Holding ADS. Aiming for Ownership." I expect I'll keep putting out blogs summarizing progress on a regular basis, so I'll see you then. You'll probably be able to follow along in Progression to some degree, too.
Alright — later, alligator.
P.S. If you read this blog and got interested in me, I'd be glad if you sent me an email or something, no hesitation needed! I'm not asking you to hire me. I'd just be happy to chat over a coffee.