How I got an Internship in Japan during COVID-19 (& You Can Too)
We are lucky to live in a time where finding new opportunities is as quick as doing a Google search on the internet. And that’s precisely how I found HENNGE’s Global Internship Program (GIP).
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” Wise words by the man who made my childhood, Walt Disney. But of course, you won’t get anywhere if you keep dreaming. A little effort is needed because your dreams won’t be handed to you on a silver platter!
Hello, I’m Krizza Bullecer, an Information Technology student at AMA University in the Philippines. I actually already have a bit of history with HENNGE, although probably without their knowledge. I discovered HENNGE towards the end of 2017, and the rest is history.
Discovery and Leveling Up
Way back in my early days at university, I had already started looking for internship opportunities. My seniors' reviews said their internship experience usually involved many data entry and clerical tasks. I wouldn’t say I liked that idea. I wanted to gain experience in real-world software engineering, so I put my mind to achieving that goal. Luckily, in this time and age, everything can be quickly searched at the click of a button. So I started looking into internship opportunities that would fit my ideal scenario. And lo and behold, I discovered HENNGE, which was called HDE then.
I remember thinking how sketchy it was that they offered a lot of amazing benefits for an internship program. Pre-pandemic, they even offered to fly interns to Japan (A rare opportunity that I missed 🥲)! But as I started to investigate more, I found credible reviews and feedback from other interns online. So if you’re a prospective intern reading this, they are indeed LEGIT! What blew my mind next was the minimum list of requirements they expected from interested applicants. It was definitely a shock to me since I didn’t know half the technology they were talking about. But discovering HENNGE became a major turning point in my life.
You could say that HENNGE was the trigger that allowed me to learn things that my university couldn’t teach me. I spent most of my free time learning the mentioned technologies and preparing myself to apply. But then the pandemic happened and they weren’t offering the internship program anymore! It was the saddest news I’ve heard all year, but I was still grateful to HENNGE for opening my eyes to the technology that I know now.
Fast-forward to the future and much to my surprise, I received an email notification about HENNGE’s “rGIP” which was the remote version of GIP. I was filled with excitement and immediately applied! After a difficult coding challenge and multiple rigorous interview sessions with their team, I finally received the news that I was included in 2022’s second batch of interns 🎉.
Internship Experience
Despite the remote nature of the internship program, I learned so many things that helped me grow as a software engineer. In our missions, I was brought out of my comfort zone by coding in a language that wasn’t Javascript and it was a challenge I accepted and enjoyed!
Apart from the challenges assigned to us by the mentors, the ETA team has also been very amazing and scheduled many activities. We got to meet the different teams at HENNGE and found out how different teams contribute to HENNGE’s success.
Getting to know the team
I managed to join two donut sessions with HENNGE employees and just chat and get to know them personally. It was a nice break from the missions we had to do as interns. I also observed that everyone I spoke with seemed happy at the workplace, which was similar to how I felt too!
Playing board games
There were multiple board game nights at the time of my internship, but I couldn’t join as many as I would have liked. The times when I did join were super fun! It was a nice break time to play games and just chat about everyone’s daily life. I really felt that HENNGE put emphasis on the idea of work-life balance.
Sharing knowledge
Apart from all the fun and games, we were given the opportunity to take the stage and share some of our knowledge with the team. I already knew of the Monthly Technical Sessions (MTS) as a frequent stalker of their blog but I really like the thought of allowing us interns to participate in such events. We also got to join the Frontend Discussion and they even offered to let us join the DevOps Discussion, although I missed that one!
To be continued?
Now my internship has ended. But the journey doesn’t stop here. I didn’t get to talk much about the missions we had to complete but that’s for you to find out when you yourself join as an intern!
Before I end my rambling, I would like to thank my mentors, who were very helpful to my growth as a software engineer. They maintained a perfect balance of their sensei mode while also sometimes being silly and having a good laugh with us interns.
As a remote internship program, everything definitely lived up to my expectations. I will continue to sing praises for this internship program, and if you’re ever interested in joining, just hop onto their website and apply (if they have slots 👀)!
Until next time, HENNGE!
Krizza Nicole Bullecer from the Philippines interned with the HENNGE Global Internship Program from March 14 to April 8, 2022.
