Beyond the ideal organization

＊This article was originally written in Japanese as an interview for a new member.

Hello everyone.
This time, we interviewed Hitoshi Shinokuma, who joined us in January 2020.

Profile.
Born in 1991 in Fukuoka Prefecture. Graduated from Kyushu Institute of Technology. Joined Pioneer Corporation as a new graduate and spent nearly 5 years there before coming to Atrae.
Currently, he is contributing to the “wevox” team as an infrastructure engineer. He enjoys watching wrestling and sports in general.

- Starting from a typical question, why did you choose to work at Atrae?

I guess it’s because Atrae already had something I was trying to do.

My previous job was at Pioneer, and when I decided to quit that company, I hoped to find an environment where I could challenge myself straightforwardly to do what I want to do.

I came up with 2 options to realize this, to change a company or maybe even start my own business.
But now that I’ve thought about it again, I did not have any intention to start a company from scratch and become the president.

Then I met Atrae and felt, “This is where I’ll work”.
Because on Atrae’s website, I found the exact same thing that I wanted to do.
I was like, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”

Now that I’ve found the company of my dreams, I don’t need to search for a new job or prepare to start a business anymore!

- How did you happen to meet Atrae, your “dream company”?

To tell the truth, I had never heard of Atrae.

In my previous job, in addition to my main engineering job, I was also working in recruiting and human resource development.
Then my interest in those fields grew stronger and lead me to think about changing my job.

So I was looking at Green, a media for a job change, to look for a company that was engaged in a business that would help people’s hearts, or rather, make people happy.

By the way, I didn’t even know at the time that this was a service of Atrae (laughs).

There was a job posting on Green of a company I wanted to go to, so I had my application proceeded with the selection process, and that’s when I received a message from Atrae.

Most messages I had received were from human resources, but that time it was from an engineer.
That alone was quite unusual, but the content of the message was even impressive.

It seemed that I gained interest in my recruiting and human resource development work experience I’ve been doing rather than my engineering background and skills.
It drew my attention too like, “He is also an engineer and that intrigued him?!”.

From then on, I got interested in Atrae, and I went to Green to see the company details and the company’s website.
What was written synchronized exactly with what I had been pursuing, so I knew I was going to work here and went to the interview.

At the interview, I met the engineer who gave me a message and Oka-san, the CTO, and then the president of the company.

I’ve said this many times, but I really felt the same way as Atrae’s vision and management philosophy.
I don’t mean mere sympathy, but more like I understand the emotions behind the words on the website and the issues which must be there by saying it continuously.

I didn’t end up with a superficial impression such as simple responses as “like” or “cool” to Atrae.
So I didn’t feel even the slightest disagreement when I talked with the president.

I was very sure that I was going to work for this company during the whole interview, and now I’m here trying to advance both the organization and the business.

- Now, please tell us about your life before joining Atrae.

When I was in college, I was working part-time as a cram school teacher.
I was so serious about this job that I even ignored to do job-hunting for myself and the experience there became the base of my view of life.

At the time, there was this student who seemed to be impossible to pass the entrance exam for the university of his choice (no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t have enough deviation).
However, when I started teaching him, his grades went up rapidly. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get into the college that he wanted to go (although it was really close), but even from the day he failed the exam, he kept coming to the study room and studied every day.

When I saw him in that situation, I felt that I wanted to continue “to lead people’s lives in a positive direction” in the future.
I still keep that motto and want to be that kind of person.

After that, I thought about how to achieve the motto by using the IT technology I had learned at university.
As a result, I got a job at Pioneer Corporation., a major manufacturing company.
On my own, I didn’t have any concrete ideas for realizing my motto, so I thought it would be a good environment since they have hardware and opened to a lot of possibilities or options.
It sure was a great experience.

- What did you do at Pioneer?

I was in the so-called Internet division within the car electronics business.
My basic job was to create functions while building servers.

One of the products that went out on the market was the “Super Route Search” for car navigation systems.
This is a function that allows you to find a very clever route.
Conventional car navigation systems generally drew routes only within the device and did not communicate with the server so the amount of data that can be used was limited.
However, the car navigation system with the “Super Route Search” function became able to communicate with the server so the amount of information increased massively and the search has become much richer.

- What was the biggest lesson you learned during your time at Pioneer?

At that time, the term deep learning was considered as a term for researchers and not familiar to the general public.
However, this was not the case at Pioneer.

They had a strong will to “generate the first in the world”.
Using advanced or distinctive technologies was greatly encouraged so we could easily access to new technologies as soon as they were announced.

I think that this corporate DNA is definitely flowing through me today.
I am always on the lookout for the latest technologies, and if it seems suitable, I will try to incorporate them into Atrae’s business.

- How do you feel about working at Atrae? Any gaps?

There is no sense of discomfort nor gaps at all.
Maybe it’s because I had a deeper understanding of Atrae as an organization than general.

But if I had to give you one challenge at Atrae, it would be that “ what we accomplish” in our ideal organization (team) is not clear enough.
I have decided to focus on this issue from before I joined the company.

I believe that we cannot reach a level where we can attract the whole world with just a “good organization”.
You will also need to have a “good business”.
That’s why I want to contribute to the development of a business that will resonate with the world.

I know that each and every one of us at Atrae is great, and I know that our organizational skills are highly valued.
I’m here to create the last piece to step forward which is the business.

- What kind of engineer do you want to be in order to develop “a business that resonates with the world”?

The engineers at Atrae are fully committed to the business, aren’t they? That’s what I want to be, too.

Most companies, including Pioneer, have a department for “developing technology”, which is like trying out all kinds of technology on a daily basis and use only the parts that are useful.

An engineer who expands the business and an engineer who expands the technology are two completely different things.

At Atrae, everyone, whether they are engineers, designers, or salespeople, is committed to growing the business.
I guess it will change in the future following the company stages, but at least at this point in Atrae, I think engineers who grow businesses are a better fit.
If you want to be an engineer who expands technology, this may not be the right organization for you.

It is a good environment for engineers who are interested in who and what they can accomplish using technology.

- Do you have memorable moments being in the wevox team?

I guess one is communication with Mr. Moriyama (wevox project leader).

As soon as I joined the company, I learned that Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation was about to introduce the system to their entire bank.
The number of people in that bank was quite large, and we learned that the system might not be able to handle the load.
So I proposed to use the knowledge and technology I had to make major changes to the foundation of the system.

Although Moriyama-san is not a specialist in this field, he understood my proposal right away.
I was amazed at the level of trust he placed in me to handle the entire process, not to mention his high level of understanding.

Looking back, this may be the strength of Atrae’s organization.

Regardless of the length of you being in the company or your experience, we all have equal opportunities, not focusing on who says it but on what is said.
I think we are an organization that puts importance on those kinds of aspects.

To get back to the point, changing the systems at the root of the service means that it is necessary to understand a huge amount of information related wevox.

This is not something you can learn by reading every document on the internet at random. Instead, I had to actually try out the wevox service to catch up on what was going on.

- It’s a daunting story. How did that project end up?

Of course, we made it work. We finished the test before SMBC started using the service, and I remember feeling relieved.

This initiative was possible because of the openness of Atrae’s organization, and that all of our engineers were committed to the team’s success was also an important factor.
Moriyama-san and all the other engineers were always available for consultation, no matter how busy they were, and they provided me with the information I needed.

There was no foot-dragging or fighting for results there.
Everyone was working with the idea of contributing to the team. That’s a very comfortable point.

- Do you think the key to this is the leader?

Yes, of course, it’s not just a single person’s power, but Moriyama-san has very good people skills.
It’s kinda awkward to praise him too much, so extract in one thing, he is a person whose enthusiasm is conveyed by his actions.

I think he pays close attention to his team members and always thinks about the whole picture. And it’s not just about thinking, it’s also about demonstrating through actions, not just words.
If he thinks something is not good, he has the courage to stop immediately. If he notices some members are not doing well he will talk to them. And when he finds something interesting, he will try it right away.

Anyways, he is a man of action.

- Lastly, what would you like to try in the future?

I want to keep looking for “what’s ahead,” and I want to be someone who can create that.

It is very much a matter for me of what this wonderful organization called Atrae is going to accomplish in the future.
I would like to grow Atrae in both the organization and the business by building a strong business axis in parallel with the organization.

For wevox, I am aware of what comes next when engagement is increased.
Currently, wevox is very much about increasing work-related engagement in the business domain, but I think it’s not enough.

We need to contribute to increasing engagement in life.

In order to enrich people’s lives, only focusing on work is only half of it.
Work accounts for a large percentage of our lives, but we need everything else in our lives to be fulfilling to say our life is rich.

By taking this into account in the axis of our business, I would like to think about how we can make the leap from the realm of HR tech to people tech (a business that expands people’s potential through technology).

Of course, not by only me, but by the entire team, all of us at Atrae.