Hello! This is Lisa and today I interviewed Mike, Trim’s enthusiastic engineer!
Always quietly and diligently doing his job, sharing the desk with Macro, Mike may seem shy at first glance, but he is very intelligent, open-minded and most importantly hard-working!
‘Loving your job is the most important skill one should posses!’, Mike concluded.
First of all, please tell us a bit about yourself and your education!
Mike: I have been keen on engineering since I was a child and then I entered university in the engineering field. I earned my bachelor’s at Asia University Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering and completed my master’s at National Ilan University
I came to Japan one year ago, and I have been working in Trim ever since and I really love my current job! I also have my family here in Japan; I am living with my wife and our newborn baby.
Mike, you seem to have an amazing life in Japan! Impressive!
Yes, I love my life in Japan!
Not only have I gained a lot of hands-on experience by being part of such a great team at Trim, but I have also fulfilled my dream of having a job in Japan.
Tell us how you found out about Trim?
Mike: I joined Trim one year ago, when I arrived in Japan and I came across it thanks to Wantedly!
What are your main responsibilities at work? What exactly do you do?
At Trim, I am in charge or software and hardware engineering, website development, actually everything related to engineering- in short a full-stack engineer!
This is my first job since I graduated from master’s and I really enjoy my job, my time inside Trim and being part of this company!
Definitely it is a bit difficult for foreigners to find a job right after graduation.
On a basic level, what kind of skills do you need for your job?
Do you need a lot of skills beforehand?
Mike: Of course! You need a lot of basic skills prior to start working as engineering and you obviously develop them further during work. Basically you need to understand the code, its logic, how it works.
However, given that I completed my undergraduate and graduate studies in the engineering field, I already had the necessary knowledge to perform the tasks of an engineer, but I have also kept researching and learning a lot during my free time, continuously improving myself!
It’s impressive that you keep researching and working so hard!
How did you manage to achieve your skills?
During my education years, I participated in a lot of research and website projects, which helped me acquire rather practical skills, but there is one project I am really proud of! One University in the United States, I participated in a project where I had create a system for online examination, used by teachers and students; it was a very enhancing experience, one of my greatest achievements during my college years!
So I understand you already had a good grasp of engineering skills before getting a job, but what are some of the new competences you obtained by working at Trim? How did you achieve them?
Mike: To be honest you really need to be in a continuing learning process as an engineer! By learning and researching by yourself, even in your free time, you get new skills every day. Since I started working at Trim, I have picked up a lot of expertise about hardware and software engineering, learnt about image processing and much other technical expertise.
At Trim, you are quite free to choose your projects and to organize your time accordingly!
The liberty of deciding the tasks by yourself and also finding the means to achieve them- this is what I really love at my work at Trim!
Your work seems very interesting and you really love what you do! That’s amazing!
Could you please tell me a few words about your thoughts regarding the work as engineer in general and also part of Trim?
Mike: I think that most importantly, in order to be a good engineer, is to love what you do, to love your job as a whole, even that it might be a bit tedious sometimes! What is more, you should always be learning, researching- as technology is forever changing, you must keep up with it! In short, you have to be curious and be ready for new challenges, even if they might seem difficult at first!
Being part of Trim, I have been able to accomplish these ambitions, to use my problem-solving and analytical skills and I am very lucky to be working in such a relaxing atmosphere, with kind team members, where everyone is valued.
Finally, what advice can you give to prospective candidates thinking to work as an engineer?
Mike: You should love what you do, your work, never give up and always have a thirst for knowledge!