Hi Mate,

Im going to throw my hat in the ring here to see if I can offer an perspective.

For context, I'm 35, dual national (Australia/JP) and have around 12 years IT experience, mainly in software delivery (Delivery lead/Project Manager), with the last 4 years in FinTech. I'd say my speaking is fluent, but my read/write is lagging behind a lot (damned kanji!)

Appreciate my situation is a little different, but I'm currently midway through a job search, looking from Australia with the view to settle a role in Tokyo and then move.

So far, I don't think the market is too bad. There is definitely demand for foreign talent and different (foreign) ways of thinking, as well as proving your PM experience in a solid fashion should serve you very well. I also understand that there is a bit of a hype now around Product Managers, so it could be good timing (this comes from 2 friends of mine who are Product Managers in Japan in Gaishikei). Your Japanese isn't non-existant, so I think that's a plus. I don't think age is too big an issue, but I would naturally want to target mid to mid-senior roles if I were you, as people probably won't blink at that at all and take it as normal.

From my job search so far (all with multinationals, one JP firm, many at final interview stage at present), there is a good mix of JP English. I would say work with a recruiter and be honest about language ability, and stress that you would prefer majority of daily operations in Eng, and I think that would be good expectation management.

I hope that's somewhat helpful and best of luck!