Remote Intern, Close Friendship
My name is Daniel. I am from Taiwan. This remote GIP was definitely a very unique and unforgettable experience despite the fact that we are all currently in a very difficult situation.
Due to the pandemic, a lot of “HENNKA” (変化）or change is happening and affecting our daily lives. A lot of companies have started adapting and developing their remote work style, including HENNGE. As the second fully remote GIP batch, I feel that the Global Talent Marketing (GTM) team is still trying different approaches to help us get involved. Thanks to their hard work, not only did I feel involved in the HENNGE family, but it also surprised me that people could connect and feel so close to each other through the Internet.
The beginning
To be honest, I didn’t actually intend to find an internship in Japan in the beginning. The way I got into GIP was through a sequence of accidents. I heard about GIP from my friend who was seeking a full-time job in Japan, and I already had another intern offer in the US then. However, I found the coding challenge quite interesting and since I had never seen this kind of recruiting process before, I decided to apply for it. Later on, COVID-19 hit the world and my previous internship offer got canceled. The job-hunting season has already passed by then, but thankfully, among hundreds of rejection letters, I passed HENNGE GIP’s coding challenge and got to the interview process, and as a result, I passed the interview and joined the 2021 1st batch. A few weeks later, I received a package from Japan, HENNGE’s welcome package. That was the start of my HENNGE journey. I would say that’s an accident, but what a beautiful accident that got me here, having this amazing internship.
The first week
It’s been a month to the moment I am writing this article, but it seems like it just happened last week. In my opinion, the first week was the busiest week throughout the entire program. There were about 10 welcome/onboarding meetings during that week while we were also starting our first assignment at the same time. It got us so busy but also allowed us to familiarize ourselves with everything really quickly.
A unique work experience
For me, this is my first working experience in a large company with more than one hundred employees. It’s also my first overseas job. The remote working experience makes it even more special to me. These three things together also made it really challenging for me. I had to get familiar with the workflow in a big team, with members from different cultural backgrounds, using a foreign language, and working on a project I wasn’t familiar with. But I think that is also the part that makes GIP so valuable. You can meet people from different cultures, learn things from them, and extend your global network.
Other than that, the GIP experience is still a very unique experience, compared to other companies. GTM team arranged/invited us to join a lot of non-work-related events such as “Hello, Good Morning” meeting, virtual GIP launch, Ogura-san’s (CEO of HENNGE) executive interactive session, boardgames night, helping us get to know the members and the company. I didn’t really have internship experiences in any other company, but in general, I think my imagination for an internship is just doing projects and assignments, showing your skill to your mentor, and trying to get a return offer. But with HENNGE GIP, it’s more like a full experience in this company. They want us to get familiar with the members and everything related to the company as soon as possible, and not only to the division you are in but to the entire company.
Working remotely
Remote work seems to be a very new term for many companies. But for HENNGE, they already have adequate experience on that and are well prepared. The remote working experience here is very smooth. The communication channels are clear. I can always find the right person to ask whenever I have questions or need feedback. The code review took place through GitHub’s pull requests. You could invite members other than your mentor to have more comprehensive feedback. Overall speaking, I didn’t feel much difference in remote work from an onsite one, except that you could only see your colleagues in a 200x100px rectangle on the screen and you could not walk by your colleagues intentionally to have a casual chat (you need to create a zoom meeting room for doing that remotely).
MTS
The Monthly Technical Session (MTS) is one of the events I was looking forward to the most before the internship. MTS is where everyone shares their recent ideas, findings, experiences, or anything they want to share. MTS mainly focuses on technical topics, but there were also some non-tech topics and beginner-friendly sessions. However, I didn't expect be making a speech on our first week, especially since we were busy on the first assignment. I eventually gave the HENNGE members a short tour of open-source conferences in Taiwan. I received some nice feedback after that. Everyone is missing the days when we still can participate in the conferences.
GIP lunch
Prior to the pandemic, the GIP lunch took place physically. You could get a free lunch with HENNGE members, having a nice Japanese meal in the Shibuya area. But since everything went online, we did the GIP lunch virtually as well. In the beginning, it was a bit awkward for me to sit in front of a screen, eat and chat with other people through a zoom meeting. But after I got used to it, I liked this event very much. We talked about the food we were eating, talked about the anime we were recently watching, talked about my previous experiences in Japan, and anything. Through this event, I learned more about HENNGE, about HENNGE members, and about their interesting life stories.
HENNGE Taiwan office
Although this was a fully remote internship, since I am located in Taiwan, I was very lucky to get a chance to visit HENNGE’s Taiwan office, having GIP lunch physically with a member of the Taiwan office. I could finally see someone’s entire body.
Not the end
Though I keep saying “fully” remote internship, GIP has actually been separated into two parts: the remote part and the in-person/on-site part. After finishing the first two assignments, the remote part of GIP ended. The third assignment will take place when Japan’s traveling restrictions are relaxed. We will also have a chance to go to HENNGE’s Shibuya office to have our last assignment in-person then. We are all looking forward to that.
Fellowship
Last but not least, I want to mention three other partners in the same batch — Asif Hummam Rais, Yoel Susanto, and Rika Dewi. I feel that because we could only meet online and through messaging, we had more conversations than we would have had if we had been in the office. I learned a lot from them. They all have very different personalities and have different experiences to share.
Saying in the end
To my surprise, people seem to get closer than before through the Internet. You can contact anyone you miss at any time by typing him or her a kind message. You can share your thoughts any time through social media. During this internship at HENNGE, what I experienced was more than learning how to work efficiently. I feel like I am already part of the HENNGE family. Although I was working remotely 2000 km away from Tokyo, I made a lot of friends here and had fun with them as if I met them in person. Four weeks is short, but the experience and friendship are lifelong. I am glad to have participated in this program, gaining hands-on experiences with new technologies, meeting interesting people, sharing ideas, and working in an open-minded culture. I want to say thank you to all the people shaping this experience, especially to our mentors for coaching us to organize our work well, and to the GTM team for taking care of all our needs. Hope to see you all in Tokyo in the near future!
Daniel Chen is a Taiwanese student, studying at the University of Southern California. Daniel took part as one of the four interns of HENNGE Global Internship Program for the first batch of 2021 that was held remotely from January 18th– February 12th, 2021.
