Getting a job as an American here is easy. Just be proficient in the language and have solid skills in your field and it's not difficult to get a good programming job that pays about $2000 a month with 25-40 hours of expected overtime.

And that's on the low side. The overtime, not the pay. I've seen job openings for ~$1600/month here and average expected overtime of 91 hours/month for one company. I've been contacted by companies offering similar.

And pay raises are pretty much based on age.

If that all sounds like an improvement over your status in America, it's easy to move over here. Pretty much all visas are approved. If that sounds bad, Japan is not a good place. For me, it was an improvement.