A Virtual Trip to the Land of the Rising Sun
I’ll begin by introducing myself. I am Aditya Vikram Choudhary, a final-year CS student from Kolkata (in India). I’ve been coding since my school days and enjoy building software, which I believe can be used to create a more “user-friendly” world. I am keen on taking up new challenges and that makes me ready to be learning every day.
This post is intended for everyone (mostly a prospective intern) who wishes to know more about the life of a GIP intern at HENNGE and should provide a fair overall description of my experiences during my time there. However, it will also include brief memorable experiences that could be specific to me and my time there, but they will nonetheless reveal fascinating details about the people and projects I encountered at HENNGE.
Now first things first… How did I hear about HENNGE? Or the GIP program? I’m sure most Indian (or even other non-Japanese) readers might have this doubt too. I reside quite far from the geographic influence of HENNGE which is a leading B2B Cloud Security company in Japan.
But as they say… The Cloud knows no boundaries.
It all started when I was looking up something on Stack Overflow (I’m there all the time 😂) when I noticed a post for the HENNGE GIP program. Although not looking out for an internship immediately, I followed the link nonetheless. It brought me to one of the best job/internship posts I have seen. Hitting the nail right on the head and clear with their expectations, I saw that HENNGE had already won my confidence. And even though it was in a foreign country, where unfortunately the entry barrier for outsiders is usually quite high, I could already sense the inclusivity of the program, encouraging me to apply. The registration process for a qualifying challenge did not take long, but not everything was so easy after all…
After signing up for the challenge, I got access to a unique 3-section take-home project (no time boundary was specified). I remember reading each task and getting increasingly thoughtful about each. After glancing through it, I was almost certain that this was not my cup of tea and immediately gave up (nearly). I was sure I had signed up for something that I wasn’t ready for. Nonetheless, somehow one afternoon, more than a fortnight later, I was suddenly reminded about the challenge and decided to at least make a start. Although I won’t go into the technical details of the project, I can assure you it was a great learning experience in itself. On starting it, I got lost with the progress I was making and finished it sooner than I expected. I’ll be honest; it took me something near midnight to complete the challenge (the same day), but I sighed with relief and followed the rest of the process (submitting my resume, etc) hoping to be chosen for further rounds.
Once I got in touch with the HR team at HENNGE, things became pleasantly smoother after that. An interview and a few short sessions followed. It was always a great experience interacting with the team (always: before, during, and after the internship) and I was hoping to explore this wonderful workplace. I wished to gain a new perspective not only in my tech skills but also concerning my outlook towards the software industry in general. A week after the interview, I was informed about my selection and I thought I couldn’t have been happier (but I learned later that HENNGE had more in store for me 😁).
Now on a different note, I’ll spend some time with the thought process that went into taking up an internship in Japan. This is usually a very important part especially when you are invited for an international opportunity, more so in-person (which is what is usual in GIP; see other articles for more details), but even for me as a virtual intern, this was important to consider. In general, the people of Japan are held in high regard in India because of the way they continue to uphold their culture in this highly dynamic fast-paced world and their work ethics. Now, apart from its reputation as a technically advanced country, for me, Japan was the distant magical country where my childhood friends Mario and Doraemon came from. And, from my own experience, I can tell you, despite all the work they never forget to play (and party 🤩) thus ensuring that Ren (or Jack) doesn’t become a dull boy! The love for comics and anime, which is an inherent nature in Japan, has pervaded boundaries and the consumption of such media has increased, so much that some of their popular comics have made their name in faraway lands like my own country. All this has influenced me and I was very keen to accept this offer and explore more.
New Beginnings (first 2 weeks):
As any other intern I was pretty nervous and excited to be a part of this Global Internship Program by HENNGE, and looking forward to it. As I mentioned, the onboarding team was very helpful and open to conversations. What was all the more exciting was the prospect of getting to know the work culture of HENNGE, which I had come to know, stands out from most other Japanese companies.
On the first day, we ‘toured’ around the office (virtually of course!). I’m sure I can’t say this enough, but the team was the most open, caring, and fun to work and talk with. A couple of my fellow interns were in the office and I was feeling like I was missing out, but it was ensured that we were having just as much fun as our in-person counterparts.
A little while later we were introduced to our projects. Honestly, I felt they were quite challenging and gave me the best opportunity to not only apply my existing technical knowledge but also learn beyond what I knew. Our mentors were more than happy to guide me in case of any trouble, and I got help from fellow interns as well. This was encouraged by the team because they kept reiterating to not take this as a competition but more like a learning exercise. I had to burn (light) the midnight oil (lamp) on several occasions and was at times working hard to finish the tasks but in totality, it was a fun and satisfying experience. To describe the project in brief, we were (each individually) tasked with building a full-stack web application developing the frontend (using Angular), backend (in Go), and also managing the deployment (using various AWS resources).
During this time, I was actively involved in many fun sessions with the team whether they were the Board Game nights, the fun donut meets, or even the coffee time discussions, and enjoyed my time there. The Board Game night was held every Wednesday. and although none of them were compulsory (obviously 😅) I attended almost all of them during my time here and would recommend participation for anyone who wishes to have some time with the team and enjoy a few light moments. Virtually, I did miss out on the free food and snacks though.😉
Towards the end (last couple of weeks):
After a presentation of our first assignment, we went on to the next one where we had to set up and manage deployment infrastructure as code using Terraform. This was extremely new to me and I often could not find what I was looking for either. But our helpful mentors came to our aid again, knowing exactly what we needed at every step. And once I found myself on track, it was really satisfying executing it. I continued participating and enjoying the Board Game nights and also other such sessions. Finally, after a long wait, we were fortunate to meet the co-founder and CEO (and CTO too) Ogura-san himself. A very passionate person who enjoys spending time doing a lot of different things, he received us very enthusiastically. We spoke with him quite candidly and clicked pictures with us. It was an important highlight of my internship, where I got to know about what HENNGE stands for and what it is (and what they are not; which is somewhat equally important).
Finally, on the penultimate day of our 4-week internship, we presented our achievements of the 2nd assignment too. On the final day, each of us interns was invited to speak about anything under the sun (mostly technical but not always) in the MTS (check out more about that in particular in a dedicated post for MTS #84). Following it we had a Beer Bash which is quite an affair in the office, but virtually too I enjoyed myself to the fullest.
This internship catalyzed valuable additions to my skill set and that too in a very short while. Besides, I enjoyed each one of the varied conversations we had there, from the onboarding team to the tech team, from the Customer Success team to the Business Development team, and even among us interns. I hope that what I learned here stays with me forever and helps me grow professionally (and personally too).
But I had one small grievance 😓… The pandemic has deprived me of more (in-person) fun experiences which I read about in all the ex interns' posts (I really envy them for that 🤣). I hope I can meet with the entire team in the near future.
