My reasons why I liked HDE (by Olya)
In this article I am trying to list reasons why I liked HDE.
Hey, my name is Olya, I am a Russian student pursuing my bachelor degree in Computer Science and Math. I found HDE Global Internship Program (GIP) by googling something like “Japan IT internship”, cause I really wanted to experience living in Japan (because of anime in the first place).
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find goods with the anime I like, but nevertheless I liked Japan and especially HDE a lot (which was so unexpected to me). So here I listed the reasons why I think that happened. But… I am still not sure that these are exactly the reasons, these are approach to the reasons... What I can say for sure: I am just really comfortable in HDE, in Japan.
Here we go:
Japan
Right here I am going to write a subarticle with 9 reasons why Japan is cool.
Japanese food! It is super delicious. Japan is the first country where I haven’t visited McDonalds. And free lunches that I will mention below (if you are an GIP intern) give you an awesome opportunity to enjoy it. Personally, I fell in love with: deep fried chicken with tartar sauce, sushi/sashimi, shrimp tempura and rice with raw egg. It is just aweeeesooommeeee.
Also safety & cleanliness, everyone knows it I guess.Well, except for Shibuya probably, you better not to see it in the Saturdays morning…
People! This is important! Though a lot of Japanese people don’t speak English they are always ready to help with gestures or katakana knowledges :) That was surprising for me, but I have never felt lost in this country.
Accessible traveling. In Japan you can travel to the really cool places from Tokyo even during the weekends.
> Ito, Hakone, Nikko, Kawaguchi-ko, even Kyoto & Osaka…
Nice quiet neighborhoods… They exist! And they are super quiet. And nice. I have no idea why I am obsessed with them, but I can walk in one for hours :) Maybe they remind me of the anime I watch, maybe I like countryside in general… But the point is: if you want to find crowded and busy place in Tokyo- easy peasy lemon squeezy. If you want to find SUPER quiet place in Tokyo- easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Note: Actually with all my love to the quiet places I lived in Sakura House Maruyamacho, which is in Shibuya. It has its own pros for a short-period stay(6 mins commuting time, lots of convenient stores (konbini), cafes, restaurants and shops around).
Incredible clothes. Okay maybe this is not for all of you. But I really like how Japanese people dress up. And in Japan you can find things that can be hard to find you country. So I really enjoyed shopping in Japan.
Sakura~ But I guess it doesn’t apply to you if you are not visiting Japan in March/April (though I am pretty sure there are places where it is blooming even in May). But if you visit Japan in the “right time” then BLOOMING IS SUPER BEAUTIFUL!
Weather!!! Lol maybe it is because I am Russian, but during March-April whether is just perfect. Warm, but not hot.
Other seasons? Okay, if you are not visiting it during spring there is bunch of cool stuff is going on during other seasons (and I am kinda sad that I didn’t experience it, but I would someday for sure!)
> Summer: fireworks and festivals, probably beaches
> Autumn: leaves falls and school festivals
> Winter: perfect onsens, skiing/snowboarding
Without one more “w” I cannot finish this phrase. And I also need to have two lines for this part to look nice. But yeah, Japan is wow.
Back on track:
Company size
There are approximately 200 people in the company. And there are approximately 30 developers. Pretty cozy. At some point you are starting to recognize people even from other divisions. And being one of three GIP interns here is kinda cool, cause there are not lots of them so you actually start to think that people care about you :D Size is just perfect (at least I haven’t experienced better one).
Board games (!!! cool, important !!!)
There is a “Boardgame night” every Wednesdays (Wednesday became my favorite day eversince). Everyone is really friendly and nice (this usually happens during board games if you know what I mean). It is really cool. Almost all people who I can talk with without any problems or hesitation I met during this board games night. Well, actually I think this is one of the main reasons I liked HDE :D
Note: I know that this is not the only company that has board games night. But it is cool to have one for a small(kinda) company. And in large companies you usually play with other people not the ones you work with or see everyday.
Colleagues
People in the company are pretty nice, too. We had nice talks during GIP lunches and during communication lunches. Of course there are more communicative people and less, people who can speak English really good and not that good, I even met one person who can speak Russian! But with people I met I had a nice time :) And it is really pleasant to see someone who you know and who is not from your division. You kinda start to feel this company more…. (I am from the ones who are not that good at English lol)
And because of GIP lunches, board games, and communication lunches (to be mentioned…) you start to find people you kinda get along with and can speak without any problems — THIS is GREAT.
Internship tasks
Tasks are cool.
I can tell you about some, I guess. At least about the first one, cause I was allowed to post my code on the github.
First one was a warming up one, a training, which for me was pretty challenging and really interesting, cause I have never made a web application. We had two weeks to implement this task.
About second task I don’t think that I can say a lot, but in general it was Continuous Integration practice.
This was a step when warming up tasks finished (after 3 weeks) and me and 2 other interns were separated to work on “our own” projects. Meaning we were kinda assigned to the different teams (different people) and were given our own tasks that are real world tasks not warming up ones.
My task was pretty interesting and 2 other interns also feel the same way about their tasks.
In total I experienced 11 new services!!! O_O (among them 5 during the warming up task)
Benefits
HDE provided us Macbooks during the internship as the workstations and also smartphones. It also organized free lunches (called GIP lunches). Each lunch with two different employees from the office. For lunch you can go wherever you want to go (it is a great opportunity to discover new places to eat in the future and also visit the places where you probably would never go on your own (fully Japanese and hidden somewhere on the 5th floor, but where food is very delicious)). This is cool cause you get to know people in the office and one by one you are starting to recognize them and feel more comfortable.
Sometimes HDE holds so-called “Communication lunch”, when someone comes to the office and brings food and everyone is supposed to eat lunch and communicate. There are also free dinners during the board games nights (if you visit board games night) and after Monthly Technical Sessions (MTS)…
HDE bought flight tickets for us and also provided subsidy to cover living costs :) This was enough to live in Tokyo and even if you try you can save some money. But this last sentence is not about me :D (especially if you are taking in account that clothes in Japan is awesome)
This is it. Thanks for reading if you read till the end :)
