How hard is it to get a job in Japan as a 外人
 

Do they throw away your app as soon as they see a foreign name? I'm talking about high level BS+ jobs. I'm a electrical engineer with years of experience and projects.

I came here as a computer scientist, foreigner or not has very little impact in the tech sector, it depends much much more on your qualifications and how much Japanese you speak.

I spoke none, was offered two jobs in the first week, declined them when I saw the work hours, then started teaching English (which was easier for finding jobs lol).

If you speak Japanese well enough then no worries at all!

Well this is quite the sunshine and rosy answer.:) Just out of curiosity how did you obtain a work visa? I rarely hear of anybody just coming here on a tourist visa, and then putting out apps, and resumes and finding a job (other than teaching English), especially when they don't speak Japanese. In fact legally I do not think the whole come on a tourist visa and find a job can be carried out anymore, even by leaving the country for 24 hours and coming back.

Anyhow for most people finding someone to sponsor their visa is probably the biggest obstacle.

You're entirely right, tourist visa -> work visa is totally not cool...
But, I said working holiday visa, which is totally cool ^^b
He said he was 23, so still safe on the age requirements for it too.

Most people don't have the balls to come out here with no job lined up and just hope things work out, like I did.
I used an internet cafe to check gaijin pot, made a membership, spammed my cv to hundreds of places, emphasizing they wouldn't have to worry about the whole visa headache they'd have to deal with with other applicants, the interviews came pouring in, for both programming and teaching English actually.
Learning survival Japanese got me to meet a few ladies that were more than happy to lend me a hand with some of the technicalities that were quite difficult as a foreigner.

Throw your life into the hands of fate now and then, it usually works for the best in my experience :)

Ahh, yeah I figured the working holiday visa, unfortunately not every country (particularly the US) has that deal worked out with Japan. So if the OP is American, he/she is sol for the working holiday visa.

Man, you're very bold to go to Japan without speak Japanese!

What was the problem with the work hours?

I'd heard that if you spoke slowly and used basic basic english you'd be ok with most people under the age of 40, and that's true.

Programmers in Japan are yet another job where you work 6, maybe 7 days a week from the crack of dawn till the last train

The same thing happen to the programmers who are beginning in the profession in my country, no weekends and sometimes no vacations too.

I believe it, here it's not just beginners, one of my students has been with his company for over 15 years (an eternity in programmer land) and his hours haven't changed much, in fact they got worse after he got the manager position (fewer sundays off)

Few weeks ago I attended a lecture at the university where I study, a very well succeded man of the IT area who studied there talked about your experience after sent in his resignation at Oracle to start his own IT company. He talked about it, Every time he got a higher position at the company, his work hours were increased. The reason to he start his own company was not that, but he admitted that his quality of life improved a lot after let Oracle and start his company.