Code, Sakura & Nucleocapsids [Part 2]
This is part 2 of ‘Code, Sakura & Nucleocapsids’ by our ex-intern, Yuri Soares. You can check out the first part here.
2nd week
“A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.” ― Mark Twain
The 2nd week arrived and, with it, our new routine was much more cemented. Monday and Tuesday (6th and 7th days) were a pretty standard day: working on our assignments, talking to mentors, and enjoying occasional mingles over coffee. The 7th day also featured our 3rd GIP lunch, at another awesomely suggested restaurant.
On Wednesday (8th day), additionally to the usual routine and the 4th GIP lunch, we had a meeting to talk about the exact task I am doing right now: writing the GIP Medium blog post. They provide some helping guidelines but the content of the post is entirely up to us. Due to increased concerns regarding the pandemic, board game night was not held at that night.
On Thursday (9th day), we had the final meeting of the 1st assignment, where we presented our app and talked about some of its features and overall challenges.
On the last day of the 2nd week, the whole pandemic situation was starting to pick up pace, so we had an exceptional meeting with the GTM team to talk about it. As a precautionary measurement, all the remaining 4 weeks of our batch would be conducted remotely, by using video conference software as needed. After that, we headed out for our last in-person and 5th GIP lunch and, on the way, got stunned by the blooming sakura everywhere.
Before ending our last day of in-office work, we met the mentors for the 2nd assignment. They gave us a brief introduction of the new assignment and a hands-on DevOps training.
3rd week
“DevOps, DevOps, whatcha gonna do?” ― (not) Bob Marley
The 3rd week marked the start of our GIP WFH phase. While going to the office and interacting with other members is certainly fun, the telecommuting internship experience wasn’t as dull as it sounds. For one thing, most of the routine remained unchanged: we were still reporting our daily working times on Slack, having meetings, GIP lunches, and even virtual board game nights! Also, saving up commuting time and avoiding crowded trains was a bonus.
On Monday (11th day), we got a more clear view of the 2nd assignment. It can be seen as a continuation of the 1st one and, similarly, I would summarize it as follows:
In the 2nd assignment, our task was to containerize our application with Docker and deploy it on AWS. The container image was pushed to ECR, running on ECS in a VPC and Security group with an ASG. Lastly, we would utilize Redis ElastiCache, Load Balancer and Route 53. Most importantly, instead of using the AWS console, we would provision all infrastructure as code (IaC), using Terraform and AWS CLI.
Apart from untangling the AWS alphabet soup, I personally thought the 2nd assignment was more challenging than the other two. I never had such a solid DevOps experience, managing real infrastructure and deploying an application with scaling and security requirements that are quite similar to real production scenarios. As a consequence, this assignment was a precious opportunity to learn new things that are usually not taught in an academic environment.
Tuesday and Wednesday (12th and 13th days) were quite similar: we were having daily standup meetings (although we were mostly sitting at home) to talk about the 2nd assignment and spent most of the time working on it. We were also having virtual GIP lunches (6th and 7th) through group video calls. Although not quite the same as having lunch together in Shibuya restaurants, the virtual lunches were still nice and a good way to unwind while meeting other HENNGE members (and lunch expenses were still reimbursed by the company).
On Thursday (14th day), besides the usual remote work on the 2nd assignment, we had a “post-2-week” talk. This was a casual check-up meeting with one intern, a GTM member and an HR member. We had a friendly talk about career, future prospects, and whether I was considering joining HENNGE again in the future. So this meeting is a great opportunity to ask all of your burning questions regarding full-time positions, especially if you are interested in converting.
On the last day of the 3rd week, we had a slightly bigger 8th GIP virtual lunch with 5 people and the final meeting of our 2nd assignment, which would mark the end of our DevOps training. In this meeting, we presented a live deploy of our application and shared some feedback of the training with our mentors.
And since it was Friday, we had a virtual beer bash!
4th week
“Staying in this room is what will make you sick!” ― Spirited Away
At this point, we made through half-way of the GIP, with only 3 weeks remaining. Training is over, time to get real! In these 3 weeks, we would mainly work on our 3rd and last assignment. However, in contrast with the first two assignments, I won’t give much details about this 3rd one. The reason for this is that the 3rd assignment is quite open, largely depends on which team you join and everyone gets a pretty unique experience. For this reason, the remaining of my log will focus more on the other activities and will be shorter.
On Monday and Tuesday (16th and 17th days) I got to know my new mentors and learned more about their work in HENNGE. We also talked about the final assignment and they were very open to my input the whole time. Basically, the very own assignment description was continually developed throughout the days, with ideas being dropped or incorporated depending on the current flow. This was a great thing: not only did I get to talk more with my mentors and could contribute my own ideas, but it also felt more like real fluid day-to-day development, instead of a more fixed and predetermined task.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had our last two virtual GIP lunches and they would certainly be missed in the last two weeks.
Wednesday (18th day) was also a pretty special day, as all the newcomers had our virtual executive session with the co-founder and CEO, Ogura-san. Needless to say, this was a good opportunity to hear more about the company history, values, and the direction it’s heading. Ogura-san was also very open to our questions, talking to us over a broad range of topics and showing genuine consideration for us during this atypical moment in history.
On Friday (20th day), besides the usual work in the 3rd assignment, we — the entire company, in fact — were invited to virtually attend a presentation from the Sales team, in which they demonstrated how they introduce the company’s current flagship product: HENNGE One. I decided to join on a whim and it was a much better decision than I could expect. Firstly, it gave me more insight about HENNGE’s transparent and open culture, where anyone could directly see what other teams (on this occasion, Sales) were up to and even give suggestions and feedback. Secondly, I realized that the product handled a very modern and common corporate need and it tackled it in a very effective way. (I hope this last sentence did not sound like an ad: I was absolutely not paid to promote it!) And knowing the people who made these platforms made me particularly glad to have joined the GIP in the first place.
5th week
“Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.” ― J. R. R. Tolkien
The penultimate week of GIP and 2nd week of the 3rd and final assignment arrived and with it… nothing much actually. Turns out this week was pretty uneventful, with just the regular 3rd assignment work and virtual meetings happening.
Notable exceptions were: Wednesday (23rd day), when we had another awesome virtual board game night playing Jackbox; Thursday (24th day) with our virtual photo session; and a casual catch-up virtual lunch with GTM and all interns on Friday (25th day).
6th week
“The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing.” ― Alan Watts
The last week of GIP! This last week absolutely flew by and I couldn’t help but feeling nostalgic that the whole thing was ending.
The first three days of this week (26th to 28th days) were the last days I had time to work on the final assignment, so you can bet that I was working on it. On Wednesday, I also attended my last board game night, with more Jackbox goodness.
On Thursday (29th), the second-to-last day of GIP, we had the final meeting of the final assignment. It unfolded similarly to the previous assignments: a presentation of the developed features to the mentors, followed by a conversation regarding the assignments’ hardships and learning outcomes.
As you may already know, GIP interns must also make a presentation on MTS (Monthly Technical Session) so I also took some time after the final meeting as well as on Friday morning, to finish up my presentation slides.
Finally, it was here: 30th day, last day of GIP! On the last day, we went back to the office after almost 4 weeks of working from home. I confess that I even forgot which trains to take and had to query Google Maps to refresh my memory (“Of course, it was Yamanote Line! How could I forget that!?”).
Upon returning to the office, there were some tasks to be done: resetting our equipment to default configuration and returning all of our devices to the team. The GTM team and the mentors had set up a lovable surprise for us: a small farewell lunch with unbelievably splendid food. After feasting, each intern had back-to-back exit interviews. This interview was a 1-on-1 conversation, to talk more broadly about our GIP experience and also to share any feedback we could have.
After that, the virtual MTS started, featuring presentations from each GIP intern as well as from other members. If you’re interested, all MTS editions are also posted in the Medium blog, and you can check them out here.
And the last item in our schedule for GIP was… Yes, you guessed it right: virtual beer bash to say farewell to everyone!
Some sort of conclusion
Well, that was my whole GIP chronicle, describing my journey of this 30 intense, but unforgettable, days. I do hope that this text could help you, my dear reader, by giving any information that you craved. Small disclaimer: I tried to be mostly objective in my accountings, but we all know that true neutrality is a myth. The text is sprinkled with my personal views and opinions but I hope you could easily see what was subjective and objective and still enjoy reading it. Also, even regarding the factual accounts, keep in mind that every GIP batch is different as the company and the program are continually evolving.
Lastly, I would like to show my gratitude for this experience. I won’t even begin listing names, as I would certainly fall short.
So, my sincerest thank you to everyone at HENNGE, for the GIP, for all the moments, for the support and kindness.
Bonus: a few of my favorite past GIP posts
Oh, are you still here? Well, as I talked earlier, I was fascinated by how wildly diverse each GIP post is. When thinking about which focus I should give in my post, I decided to try a more descriptive approach because, well, I didn’t have much of an option. You see, as I mentioned many times, our GIP batch happened right during the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic and, besides working from home, we were encouraged to stay home even on weekends in accordance with authorities’ recommendations to decrease the spread. (No need to feel sorry for me, this was not my first time in Japan. ☺️) Therefore, in an attempt to honor this historic moment, I opted for this journal format in the hopes of giving some more value to future readers.
When reading past GIP posts, I couldn’t help but think “Why the heck am I even writing this? These people’s posts already give all the information and they are much more articulate (and funnier) than me!”. Or something like “This is such a good piece of info, maybe I should mention that as well”. But then, I realized I was overthinking everything and going down the rabbit hole of trying to “compile every possible useful information into one GIP post”. Fortunately, I could stop right there and, instead, simply decided to mention some of the past posts.
I did not read all past GIP posts (very far from that), but I did skim through quite a few. I choose to include a somewhat representative set of posts that highlight the diversity that I mentioned. Poetic, down-to-earth, instagram-ish, contemplative, or simply hilarious, there’s a past intern that flavored their post in every way imaginable. I thank you all for the good reads, hoping that mine will find its place. It feels good to be part of this history.
Some nice past posts that I found, ordered by date:
May 22, 2018, by Yogi
Oct 3, 2018, by Michelle
Nov 15, 2018, by Arvind
Nov 15, 2018, by Camilo
Nov 20, 2018, by Siang
Apr 3, 2019, by James
Jul 9, 2019, by Din
Yuri Soares is from Brazil and studied at Universidade Estadual De Campinas, Brazil. He interned at HENNGE Global Internship Program from 16th March to 24th April, 2020.
