Well programmers tend to be into video games, and at least for a while all the best video games came out of Japan, so that helped. Between that and anime I really wanted to learn Japanese, and took two semesters of it in college.

I even worked for a Japanese game publisher for a while (in their small US office, they originally invited me in to discuss maybe publishing a game I was developing that they spotted at Microsoft's XNAFest).

Spoke some Japanese phrases that everyone in the office did while there "Ohayoo gozaimasu!(good morning, as you arrive) Tadaima!(i've returned, said when you come back to the office, like after getting food or coffee) Shitsurei shimasu.(sorry for interrupting, say before enter someone else's office) Itadakimasu!(common saying before eating lunch, which we always did together) Hai, wakarimashita.(yes, i understand) Mmm, umai.(mmm, that food is tasty) Aa, so so so.(yes, i agree) Doozo.(please, go ahead)" are some of the most common examples I can remember from over a decade ago.

I also sat in some teleconference meetings conducted in Japanese with the parent company in Japan (I was pretty quiet, mostly just tried to follow general concepts and wrote down words I heard I was curious about to look up later). Even got to the point where I started saying 'Hai' instead of yes around others for a while, out of habit.