Why Should You Intern at HENNGE?
To begin my story, I’m Hiroon Wijekoon, a software engineer from Kandy, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰. As a passionate “IT-holic” since childhood, I completed my bachelor's degree as a software engineering graduate at Plymouth University, UK. I worked as a GIP Intern at HENNGE from 11th July to 5th August 2022. Let me tell you about my entire experience.
👨💻 How did you find this internship opportunity?
As a person who loves Japanese culture, I was searching for job opportunities in Japan as a way to move into Japan. In searching for a full-time job opportunity in Japan, I found this unique internship at HENNGE. Among all the ordinary job advertisements, I came across this extremely fascinating internship opportunity at HENNGE, which claims to be Japan’s most diverse and inclusive tech internship program. Even though I had no intention to go for an internship program then, all the details in the job post changed my mind, and I wanted to learn more about the company and this internship program. So, right away, I searched everything about this interesting company called HENNGE.
🏙️ What is HENNGE?
HENNGE, formerly HDE, Inc., is a leading cloud-based security service in Japan that doesn’t have a typical stressful work environment. It's a company that values work-life balance. So everyone here at HENNGE does their best work, driving the company toward success. HENNGE uses English as its official language while pride itself on being international, flexible, and casual.
⚙️ What was the Selection Process like?
The selection process for this internship is very straightforward, and they even mention all the steps of this selection process in their internship job postings as well. There are three main steps,
1. Admission Challenge
Admission Challenge is simply a coding challenge to test the understanding skills & thought process of the applicant. After successfully completing the admission challenge, you’ll get a link to upload your CV and Cover Letter.
2. Phone Screening
This is just a friendly conversation with the ETA team, where you can share everything about yourself and ask questions about the company and the program.
3. Online Interview
An online interview is more like a technical conversation with engineers of HENNGE. In this interview, you’ll be able to share your work / academic experience and ask technical questions regarding the internship program and the company.
After two working days of the Online Interview, I got an email saying that I GOT THE JOB!🎉
💼 How was the onboarding process?
Prior to one week of the internship, a meeting was held for all interns along with ETA (Engineering Talent Acquisition) team and CPRD (Cloud Product Division) team, which was like an icebreaker, so that everyone could get to know each other before the internship started. In the meeting, they informed us about the way forward, including how the program was going to be and basic information about the assignments as well.
🎁 Did you receive any welcome gifts?
After a few weeks of starting the internship, suddenly, there was a vast mystery box in my mail. When I opened it, there were some cool, welcoming gifts, such as a nice handwritten welcome card, cute laptop stickers, a reusable bag, a metallic cup, and a nice hoodie.
💻 What are the assignments in the internship?
There are two main assignments in this internship program. The first assignment is a 3–week assignment that is focused on building and deploying a full stack web application using Go language for the backend with any frontend framework we prefer. The second assignment is a 1-week DevOps training program that is focused on the management of cloud application infrastructure as code with Terraform, where we can get hands-on experience in properly deploying an app to the cloud. DevOps training contains three missions, and only two missions are compulsory to do. If you finish both mission one and mission 2 in time, you’ll get the chance to do the extra 3rd mission, which is focused on CI/CD. These assignments were challenging, but I had a lot of fun, and I could improve my skills and knowledge as well.
👨🏫 How was the mentorship during your assignments?
We had mentors assigned to us to guide us through both the first and second assignments. We had daily standup meetings via Zoom, where we gave updates on our progress with our assignments and asked questions about the assignment. Despite their busy schedules, mentors responded promptly to our questions on Slack and reviewed our code in GitHub and guided us to be perfect. They were really supportive, and they genuinely wanted us interns to have a great time learning new things.
📂 Were there any documentation that you could refer to for the assignments?
The first and second assignments have detailed documentation to guide us through the entire assignment. Assignment documentation was well written and well organized to make it easier for us to understand. Since the mentors are consistently updating these documents, all the steps and reference links are always up-to-date. Mentors always look for ways to improve the assignments by taking our feedback regarding the assignment documentation.
🧙♂️ Are there any knowledge-sharing programs?
HENNGE conducts a MTS (Monthly Technical Session) where anyone can share their ideas and thoughts. I had the opportunity to share my knowledge as an Ex-Power platform developer, so I talked about the Microsoft Power Platform and how it will be the future of app-building. I also enjoyed listening to my fellow interns’ presentations, and I could actually learn a lot just from the active discussion in the session.
Other than that, we were also given the chance to attend the Inspire Matsuri , which is a company-wide event where people are encouraged to create business ideas and HENNGE can help those people make their ideas a reality.
✨ How is the work culture at HENNGE?
What makes HENNGE very special is its diverse, fun, and friendly work culture. They always try to help you with everything you need. They perfectly fit the phrase “Friend in need is a friend indeed.” There are many events to improve the bond between co-workers, such as Fun-donuts, Weekly board game nights, Beer bash, and more. Other than that, there are so many slack channels, such as fun-cats, fun-dogs, fun-gaming, fun-memes and etc, where you can share your thoughts about your favorite things.
🍩 Fun-Donut
Fun-Donut is a casual chat between 3 random co-workers every week. Here we get the chance to discuss all the fun things and meet new people every week.
🎲 Board Game Night
Board Game Night is a fun event I enjoyed most during this internship. It happens every Wednesday after work, and we get to play many board games with co-workers and have a lot of fun.
🎓 How was your last day as an intern at HENNGE?
As every good beginning has a sad ending, we wrapped up our four weeks of internship at HENNGE amidst all fun and challenges. The GIP Honor Day program was held to honor our service by awarding a certificate of completion and opening the platform to honor our mentors for their amazing support throughout this journey.
💬 What is your overall impression about HENNGE?
HENNGE is a unique Japanese tech company that highly values the work-life balance of its employees. This internship set a positive blueprint for me about HENNGE, where I experienced different backgrounds and different cultures. I also had the chance to improve my existing hard and soft skills and new additions to my skill set. In addition, every enjoyable conversation I had, from the onboarding team to the CPRD team, the Customer Success team, the Business Development team, and even among us interns, will hold a special place in my memory.
In my opinion, all of the above ever-lasting, never-ending experiences and memories with HENNGE Global Internship Program reasons out why anyone should participate in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Finally, I would like to take a special moment to appreciate HENNGE for this amazing opportunity and as well as my friends CC, Camille, and Olivia for being wonderful intern buddies! I hope to see you guys again in Tokyo someday!
If you’re ready, please don’t hesitate to apply for this program since you’ll have one of the best times of your life with this HENNGE Global Internship Program!
Thank you for reading, and good luck with your application! A fantastic adventure awaits you here. Bye bye!
Hiroon Wijekoon from Sri Lanka, interned with the HENNGE Global Internship Program from July 11th through August 5th, 2022.
