Yes, especially if people living in the city. I have known Japanese people who can’t speak English well but can read technical CS papers and understand well enough to give a summary and presentation in Japanese.

Just keep in mind they are usually very good in reading, okayish in listening, and kinda needs work on speaking. But that’s expected. If you live a daily life in Japan like the Japanese, you barely need to speak English, or hear it, if at all. Even the foreign staff at the convenience store speak Japanese good enough for them to carry on their duties.

The average native Japanese speaker knows more English than the average native English speaker knows Japanese.

Yeah. I'm not a native English speaker and I spent significant time and effort learning the damn language. It paid off.

What's preventing Japanese engineers from doing the same?

The average Japanese person doesn't know English.