PostHole
Compose
Login
Hire Me in Japan
I'm looking for a new job.
Hire Me in Japan
November 11, 2025
My sabbatical is soon coming to an end, and I am looking for a new job.
In particular, I am looking for a job at a company that would like to sponsor a working visa for me in Japan, where I’d like to relocate within the next year.
If you can sponsor a software engineering visa in Japan and think I might be a good fit, please email [email protected]. Below I’ll recap some of my past work, with more details re: what I’m looking for near the end of this page.
(Skip to the end)
Past Work
Hi! My name is Dan Abramov.
I started programming about 20 years ago and then I couldn’t stop—so I’ve been doing software for over 15 years professionally. I’ve dabbled in different languages, but the vast majority of my recent work has been in JavaScript and TypeScript.
Here’s a few things I have worked on over the years.
2025: Consulting
This year, I’ve been doing consulting, so there isn’t much I can say publicly.
Mostly, I’ve been consulting teams using React on how to approach engineering challenges related to performance and state management in complex apps.
On the side, I’ve been contributing to Terence Tao’s Analysis textbook in Lean.
2023–2025: The Bluesky app
From 2023 to 2025, I worked on the official Bluesky client app (in React Native). Most of my engineering work focused on improving the app quality, for example:
Some of this work required multi-week deep dives and sprawling refactors.
The Bluesky app is open source; here’s a link to my other merged pull requests.
We’ve used a lot of open source software at Bluesky, and sometimes it could be difficult to trace down where a bug is coming from. Occasionally, I’ve had to do deep dive investigations into the underlying projects to file bugs or fixes there.
In addition to my individual engineering work, I’ve done some engineering management and mentoring on the application team. This included:
- Helping the team get a natural mental model for working with React.
- Mentoring the application team on how to root cause particularly gnarly issues.
- Pushing for a closer collaboration with the backend team so that the seams from the client/server organizational split don’t “show up” as poor UX in the product.
I’ve also helped the team explain the AT protocol to a broader community—first in a talk last year, which then crystallized into my recent article called Open Social.
2015–2023: React at Meta/Facebook
Before Bluesky, I used to work on the React team at Meta (formerly Facebook). Some of the more visible projects I was involved with include:
- The React Documentation, which I co-wrote with Rachel Lee Nabors and others. My work on it included designing the Learn section curriculum, iterating on the Reference page structure, a decent chunk of technical work on the website itself, and much of the actual writing, including the design of examples and challenges.
- The public messaging and rollout of React Hooks, including the original documentation for React Hooks and the conference talk introducing them.
- Implementing Fast Refresh (hot reloading / live editing) as a first-class React feature. It feels like a distant past, but we used to press Cmd+R to see our edits.
- Co-creating Create React App, which ended the “JavaScript fatigue” (allegedly).
I’ve also done some other technical work on React over the years, which mostly consisted of fixing bugs and occasionally revamping the build infrastructure.
Outside of my job, I co-created Just JavaScript, which is a half-book half-course introduction to thinking in JavaScript, aiming to be both whimsical and rigorous.
Before 2015
I haven’t done many publicly notable things before getting hired at Facebook, other than accidentally co-creating Redux as a demo for my conference talk.
I’ve previously worked at a small product company that didn’t succeed doing some JavaScript and C#, and before that at an outsourcing firm where I mostly did C#.
I also created React Hot Loader (a very early precursor to Fast Refresh, now built into React), React DnD, and normalizr (which was used by Twitter for some time).
Looking Forward
As you can tell from the above, most of my engineering expertise lies in the field of UI engineering, web development in particular, and of course in using React. I’d love an opportunity to share my expertise and to help you create better apps.
I enjoy sharing what I learned, which is why I blog and do talks. Although I prefer when I can work on open source software, this will not be a requirement for me.
Currently I feel most comfortable with JavaScript/TypeScript. I’ve recently picked up some Lean, and working with it professionally seems alluring (if unlikely). I’ve been using LLMs quite a bit recently too and am open to working with them more. In general, I’m open to learning new things on the job (for example, I’ve learned React Native while at Bluesky!) but a new stack may require some ramp-up time.
I care about the quality of what I’m working on, whether it’s an app, a developer tool, or a course. I hope to find a job where caring about quality is appreciated. I know fixing things “the right way” isn’t always possible, but I feel most useful when I’m able to dig into the root causes, and work with others on solving them.
To sum up, I’m looking for a software engineering job… in Japan.
Why Japan
Why indeed!
[...]