Work at M3 USA

Transcript

1. Work at M3 USA @jooohn1234
2. M3, Inc. @jooohn1234 • CTO at M3 DigiKar • Love immutability • Worked at M3 USA (NY) for about 3 months
3. NYC
12. http://entermeus.com/112556/
14. M3 USA (NYC) • Maintaining MDLinx • New small team with less than 10 employees ◦ 1 frontend engineer + Chris!!! • Location ◦ ~ Dec 1: WeWork @ Penn Station ◦ Dec 1 ~: The new office @ Madison Square Park
15. Issues of MDLinx • Using old technology ◦ ColdFusion ◦ On-premise servers • Poor service level ◦ Service unexpectedly stops once in a week (in my impression) • Poor UX design ◦ Specialty based sitemap • Poor authoring system ◦ Need additional development to add an image to an article! ◦ => New CMS Selection
16. New CMS selection • Compared several options ◦ Contentful, ContentStack, WordPress, SiteCore, etc. ◦ => Contentful looked the best • Developed workflow supporting feature ◦ Show page preview ◦ GoogleDoc integration
17. English
21. It was not easy • “What did you say?” ◦ Couldn’t catch what was said again. • Heavily depends on its context / guess ◦ Couldn’t participate in “discussions” • Recognized how bad I was at English ◦ Ability to watch movies without subtitles was required
23. Workarounds • Workarounds ◦ Confirm my understanding after discussions ◦ Create Confluence pages ▪ Easier to have text-based discussions ◦ Create prototype ▪ Working examples tell many things ▪ Has drawback • Overheads ◦ No need if you’re good at English enough
24. Improvements • No, or few improvements ◦ No magic happened ▪ Stayed 3 months ▪ Watched 5+ Netflix series with English subtitles ◦ Just showed the reality of my English ability • Keep practicing ◦ If you want to work abroad, start practicing NOW!
25. Summary: English • Realized how my English ability is insufficient • Managed to make some values somehow ◦ With higher English ability, we could make more values. • Keep practicing ◦ Just living in the U.S. doesn’t improve your English ability much.
26. 下手糞の 上級者への 道のりは 己が下手さを知りて一歩目
27. Tech skills
28. Tech skills in U.S. • Everyone has its specialty ◦ Peter (Frontend Engineer) ◦ Some interviewees • Meetups ◦ React NYC / 2w ◦ VueNYC ▪ @youyuxi talked at Vue X’mas! • Japan engineers are competent enough ◦ With their generality / specialty ◦ Especially in this phase. https://www.meetup.com/vueJsNYC/photos/
29. Tech skills save you! • Complemented the disadvantage of language ◦ Building prototypes quickly, and prove its capability. ◦ Prove our competency. • Drawbacks ◦ Showing prototypes made participants focus on detail. ▪ Caused endless requirements list ◦ It’s important to clarify what is the purpose of a discussion ▪ Control expectations
30. Summary: Tech skills • Japanese engineers are competent enough in the U.S. ◦ Other than language difficulties ◦ (I don’t know about big companies like GAFA though.) • Don’t try to solve every problem with tech skills.
31. Issues
32. Decision making • Ambiguous decision making process ◦ Endless discussion with endless requirements ◦ Took too long to decide one thing • Making perfect system from the first ◦ No SaaS offers the perfect solution for us. ◦ “Done is better than perfect” • => Want to make a more agile team!
33. Engineering Resources • 1 Frontend Engineer, and that’s all • What were Japanese engineers for the U.S. team? ◦ Difficult to contribute in the Time Differences ▪ Does it mean there’s nothing we can do? ◦ Assumed minimum engineering resource • => Want to prove we can contribute to the U.S. team from Japan!
34. Summary
35. Summary • Practice English ◦ so that you can contribute to the team. • Practice Tech skills ◦ so that you can contribute to the team • M3 USA is still like a startup. ◦ There are lots of spaces you can contribute to.
36. We’re hiring!