Amazing People, Amazing Company
My HENNGE Global Internship experience as a Computer Scientist from the United States.
What brought me to Japan
I studied Japanese language in high school and university but hadn’t reached a level that I was satisfied with. I had traveled to Japan as a tourist many times, and it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to achieve my language-learning goals while living in the United States. In 2019, after completing my M.S. in Computer Science, I decided it was time to take on a new experience of living in Japan and being immersed in Japanese language and culture to further my Japanese studies. To that end, I enrolled in the Japanese language program at the Kyoto Institute of Culture and Language.
Why I joined the HENNGE Global Internship Program (GIP)
After completing my language program, I had begun looking for work to help build my tech career in Japan. One of my goals that I had set for myself this year was to learn more about cloud computing and I felt that HENNGE GIP would be a great opportunity to gain experience in regard to this goal.
Thoughts on my GIP experience
I am incredibly happy to say that I had a wonderful GIP experience! I learned how to build a web application from scratch (using Golang for backend and React for frontend), how to deploy the application to AWS and manage the infrastructure as code. I was able to improve on my project planning and design pattern implementation skills and grow more confident in my abilities over the course of the internship.
There was definitely a lot to learn and my mentors were both positive and proactive in regard to answering questions and generously supported me throughout the internship.
Also… I loved getting GIP swag!
Thoughts on working remotely and in-person
I spent the first three weeks of the internship working remotely and then traveled to Tokyo for the last week of the internship. My team was able to stay connected by using Slack, Zoom, and Google Meet. We could also optionally join “Fun Donut” sessions which randomly matched us with two other HENNGE employees for a fun, non-work-related chat.
Additionally, there were after-work events such as a weekly board game night which was held online, hybrid style, or in person (during my last week). I absolutely love board games, and I’m happy to say that I was able to participate every Wednesday!
It’s definitely harder to bond with coworkers while working remotely, so I was glad that HENNGE provided many opportunities to come together outside of work, no matter where in the world we were working from.
I loved going to Tokyo and working in the office. The HENNGE offices were spacious and had a modern aesthetic. Each working space felt quite comfortable, and I primarily chose to work in the “forest” full of artificial trees and plant life. I had access to some of the best equipment, such as a MacBook Air, huge monitors, and ergonomic chairs, which were available to use at any time. Most importantly, everyone was especially welcoming and kind. I greatly appreciated that there was always someone to have lunch with, and I loved meeting everyone in person :)
On my last night of the internship, there was a fun 日本酒 (nihonshu) party where I was able to have a mini good-bye celebration (it was also someone’s birthday! :D) and chat with people who I did not have an opportunity to speak with previously. This was an incredible way to close out what I consider to be an amazing internship experience!
Advice for future interns
Take the leap, you will have no regrets! Time passes by very quickly and it’s important to make a plan for successful completion of the assignments. Also, if you are joining the internship program and have a mostly theoretical computer science background, I highly recommend getting experience building real-world web applications on your own, specifically focusing on CRUD operations and API design, prior to beginning the internship.
Final thoughts
I absolutely fell in love with HENNGE during my internship. My GIP experience has helped me grow exponentially as a developer and I am so thankful for all of my mentors, the GIP staff, the CPRD and IIT teams, all of the teams that I was able to meet and learn about along the way, and especially HENNGE CEO/CTO Ogura-san for providing this wonderful opportunity!
Camille Rosewright is currently a software engineer at HENNGE. She is originally from Chicago, Illinois, USA and studied Computer Science at DePaul University. She interned with the HENNGE Global Internship Program from July 11th through August 5th, 2022.
