Yoshida, I'm quitting ISAO.

I am pleased to announce that I, Masayuki Yoshida, the lead engineer of the business communication service "Goalous", will be retiring from ISAO at the end of this year.

It was a very good company to say the least, but I left ISAO for the challenge I had envisioned since I was a student!

It is the first time that a retirement entry article has been published at ISAO. The reason why I wrote the article was because I was very positive about my retirement, and after explaining it openly within the company, I received a request from public relations to write a retirement entry article.

We will talk about why you quit, what you learned and how you grew after joining ISAO, and the Next Challenge.

Why Quit

This is to challenge the transformation of the education and welfare industry through a technological approach. In fact, I majored in social welfare when I was in college, and from that time on, I thought that an IT approach was absolutely necessary to improve the vicious cycle of this outdated industry. However, at that time, I was IT deaf and had no knowledge or skills to draw a specific concept in the first place, so I decided to hone my knowledge and skills in various fields as an engineer first. In my previous working experience, especially at ISAO, I grew as a person and as an engineer, and the soil was created, so I decided to change jobs because I thought that I should try what I wanted to do someday in the future.

Joining ISAO

I joined ISAO in the summer of 2016. The reason I joined the company was that I was attracted to the very flat organization of "Bali Flat", which is a characteristic of ISAO, and MVS (Mission Vision Spirits)I can mention sympathy. I thought that if I were to experience a flat organization when building a company organization in the future, it would be a valuable source of sustenance.

However, the last time I decided to join the company was thanks to the representative, Keishi Nakamura. After talking for a while with Keishi and another interviewer at the final interview, I asked him a reverse question, "I heard that there is MVS training, what exactly is it?" Then Keishi stood up quickly and said, "Then I'll actually do it now," and from there, the actual MVS training was conducted for more than 30 minutes. (The other interviewer left the room before it started, probably thinking he would get involved, bitter smile)

I was attracted to Keishi's "danger" and "passion" in a good way. This is because I believe that one of the most important factors in working is "passion". Because without it, you can't involve the people around you and accomplish important things. The driving force to move people in one direction requires both profit and passion, and I felt that Keishi was close to my own ideas.

What I achieved at ISAO - Learning and growing -

After joining the company, I participated in the development of "Goalous", a business communication service that allows you to share the progress of organizational goals, as one of the core members. However, at the time of joining, Goalous' application was already in a very legacy state. However, we had no choice but to prioritize feature development, so we squeezed out time and introduced mechanisms to increase stability and scalability from time to time, as well as performance improvements and code refactoring. I tried my best with the legacy framework, even though I was reluctant to do it.

The incident happened

Then, about a year after joining the company, a major turning point came. It was decided that the lead engineer of Goalous development at the time would be transferred to another project, and I was appointed as the lead engineer.

It doesn't stop there.

At about the same time, it was decided that an American engineer who could not speak Japanese at all would join the development team, which had been only Japanese until then. For us, it was exactly what could be called an "attack". This was because there was not a single member of the development team who could speak English properly. However, we cannot leave American engineers alone in Japanese communication. We discussed how to communicate within the team, and finally decided to change most of the chat and MTG for everyone, to English.

Please see the retrospective of that time on the recruitment site. https://recruit.isao.co.jp/engineering/

One thing I would like to say is that this situation cannot happen in ordinary companies. This is because it is clear that if you throw an engineer who does not speak Japanese at all into a development team that does not speak English, the development efficiency will drop significantly. However, ISAO has a policy that global human resources are needed to be able to work globally. In other words, all employees must be able to work in English in the future. As one of the experiments for the future, it was decided to involve American engineers in the development of Goalous. At about the same time, Brazilian engineers also joined, and it became international at once.

Looking back on that time, I remember that it was quite difficult to communicate in English. In addition, I was puzzled by the fact that Japanese and foreigners have different ways of thinking.

However, it was also a factor that made me grow a lot as a result. At that time, I was stubborn about development, which sometimes led to opposition from foreign engineers. I thought I couldn't continue like this, so I became conscious of acknowledging diversity rather than denying other people's ideas. As a result, the situation gradually improved, and the members gradually began to be proactive in saying, "How about this kind of code?" and "I want to improve the development like **". That's when I realized. He said that he was the one who insisted on the members that proactive activity was important in development, but hindered that aggressiveness. To be honest, I wanted to go in if there was a hole.

However, if it weren't for that event, I think I would have ended up as a small person.

Growing as a Lead Engineer

In addition to my technical skills, I have learned and grown as a lead engineer, and there are three main points I have learned.

• Out of the box
• Engineer-driven
• Ability to complete challenges

Out of the box

It is also said to be a state of thinking away from preconceived notions and preconceived notions, but in my case, I often use it as a term to "have a high perspective and see through the essence of the problem". For example, if there is a bug in the system, it is usually done by fixing only the part where the bug occurred. However, we have to think about why the bug occurred in the first place. You should find out why the code that causes problems is generated, and take measures to prevent code that causes similar bugs in the future, including other parts. To do this, you need to have a high perspective and a bird's-eye view of the entire system. It is not "looking at the trees and not the forest", but looking at the forest from the sky and seeing through the problem.

Engineer-Driven

After joining ISAO, I began to think more about how to use technology to solve problems and achieve goals. That's how the idea of engineer-driven was born in me. Engineer-driven is not simply a development initiative for the product owner. In order to realize what we want to do as a service, the development team first proposes a technical approach.

Here are some specific examples: Goalous was a little difficult for new users who had just registered, and it was also a service that was difficult to convey its appeal unless it penetrated the company to a certain extent. Therefore, in order to make the service friendly to new users, we came up with a plan to create tutorial functions and strengthen sales support. On the other hand, in order to solve the problem from an engineer's point of view, I decided to create a new demo environment that is exactly the same as the production environment. In the demo environment, users can freely operate it as a test, and there is sample data prepared by the operator, so you can imagine what will happen if you continue to use the service. This proposal was also appreciated by the sales side, and it was released promptly. We will continue to promote this kind of engineer-driven approach even in new companies.

The Power to Complete Challenges

About two years after joining the company, the system that had been developing functions while deceiving was about to reach its limit. In particular, the design and front-end were in a critical situation, and after discussions with the whole team, it was decided to carry out a large-scale renewal of both the design front-end and the design.

However, it took a long time because it was implemented with few resources and in parallel with the development and improvement of functions in the existing system. Also, it was a development that was unprecedented in other places, so I experienced the pain of childbirth, but I was able to complete the renewal release this year. The story of the design renewal with Angular × Atomic Design There are still many parts that need to be replaced, but releasing this renewal is one of my great confidences and experiences.

And to the Journey

ISAO has allowed me to grow greatly as a person and as an engineer. That's why I decided to retire because I felt that I should take on the Next Challenge "now".

The company I am changing jobs to is still a company that was just established this year and plans to engage in building a child-rearing support platform. The platform is jointly used by users (parents and children), nursery schools, and local governments, and we will first digitize paper and work to improve efficiency between the three parties. The challenge of making an impact on the industry with a technological approach starts here.

There is one last episode.

After reporting my resignation to the company, it happened that the timing coincided and all employees were evaluated every six months. In the midst of this, my evaluation was also carried out even though I was retiring for some reason. Moreover, as a result of a long discussion between the evaluation implementation members, including the representative, it was decided that I would be promoted as I was scheduled to retire, which was impossible in a normal company. I was also in the field, and what impressed me during the discussion was the words, "Of course, this is impossible in a normal company, but ISAO should purely judge the grade of the employee regardless of whether he or she retires."

While thinking that it was like ISAO, HR made a shocking statement at the very end. Mr. Yoshida, I don't meet the TOEIC score, which is a condition for promotion! So I'm promoted, but my salary remains the same. . .

Yes, in fact, ISAO requires you to meet a certain TOEIC score as a condition for promotion, and if you do not meet it, your salary will not change in the form of a provisional promotion. As a result of a lot of discussion, everyone present was in a state of stiffness.

I like that kind of ISAO lol