Reflecting on work, family, learning, and more from 2018.

Work

2018 was the year that marked just over one full year since I became an Engineering Lead.

Engineer Recruitment

Through engineer recruitment that I resumed from the end of last year, I was able to hire one person over about six months from January to June.

I gained confidence in writing scout emails due to their high response rate. Since I’ll be resuming engineer recruitment again next year, I want to leverage the scout email creation know-how I’ve developed to work hard on engineer recruitment activities.

• Started a Tech Podcast for engineer recruitment purposes | CodeNote
• "狙い撃ち"で返信率50％。「1時間で話題が尽きるなら送らない」本質に立ち返ったスカウト術とは？ - scouty HR TECH LAB

On the other hand, since I started engineering management, I had my first two departures. While I didn’t hear any particular complaints about my management, only the departing individuals themselves truly know the real reasons. I experienced firsthand that engineer recruitment activities should also focus on efforts to prevent excellent engineers from leaving. Next year, I want to focus on new recruitment while also working on improvements to prevent talent outflow.

Warehouse Relocation Project

We had our own warehouses in both Japan and the US, but we partially relocated the Japanese warehouse to 3PL (third-party logistics) and completely relocated the American warehouse to 3PL.

Japanese Warehouse Relocation

• 最先端物流のシェアリングサービス、大和ハウスがロボット拠点で展開 | 日経 xTECH（クロステック）

I served as PM (Project Manager) for the Japanese warehouse relocation from April to October, and even after release, I worked with the 3PL company as PM to improve issues that arose during the operational phase.

It was my first time as PM on a project lasting over six months, so I had continued anxiety before kickoff, but supported by excellent team members, I was able to take the warehouse relocation project to release without any particular problems.

American Warehouse Relocation

I completely entrusted the PM role to an engineer who was staying at the US office. We shared information only on common points to consider for both Japanese and American warehouse relocations (mainly inventory management), and then proceeded as separate projects to release. One reason I completely entrusted this was that business-level English conversation was difficult for me, but this warehouse relocation also went smoothly without particular problems, which was a relief. A secondary benefit was discovering that the engineer who handled this was also excellent as a PM.

1on1

I continued conducting 1on1s from last year. I conducted 1on1s with the CEO, CTO, and engineers respectively. As a bridge between management and field engineer members, I particularly focused on how to share information between both sides.

As a result, my output about 1on1s on this site has also increased.

Family

Daycare pickup and drop-off for my child began in June.

Due to pickup/drop-off logistics, I moved my work start time 30 minutes earlier and focused on producing quality output during 9 AM to 6 PM work hours. I had almost zero overtime, and only when there was work that absolutely had to be finished did I handle it at home in the evening after returning. That was only a handful of times, so I consider it good.

Learning

Reading

Engineering-related

While these lean toward engineering organization books, I was greatly influenced by this year’s two highlights:

• 『エンジニアリング組織論への招待　～不確実性に向き合う思考と組織のリファクタリング』
• 『エンジニアのためのマネジメントキャリアパス ―テックリードからCTOまでマネジメントスキル向上ガイド』

I want all engineers to read both books, not just those in management positions.

1on1-related

While practicing 1on1s, I repeatedly reread the following two books:

• 『ヤフーの１ｏｎ１―――部下を成長させるコミュニケーションの技法』
• 『シリコンバレー式 最強の育て方 ―人材マネジメントの新しい常識 1on1ミーティング―』

E-commerce related

Since I devoted most of my resources to the warehouse relocation project, even though it’s been over five years since I started in e-commerce, I read through e-commerce related books again.

• 『SEがはじめて学ぶ在庫管理』
• 『先輩がやさしく教えるEC担当者の知識と実務』
• 『アマゾンのすごいルール』

Startup-related

Since I want to continue working in the startup space for a while, I read several startup-related books.

• 『逆説のスタートアップ思考』 馬田隆明
• 『起業の科学』 田所　雅之
• 『エンジェル投資家 リスクを大胆に取り巨額のリターンを得る人は何を見抜くのか』 ジェイソン・カラカニス, 滑川海彦, 高橋信夫, 孫泰蔵

I’m interested in various startups, so I’d like to try angel investing in the future.

As an approach for engineers to be involved with multiple startups, I’m also considering startup studios as an option. The book that led me to this thinking, 『STARTUP STUDIO』 | アッティラ・シゲティ, 露久保由美子, ＼QUANTUM Inc., I couldn’t finish reading and am carrying over to next year.

Coding

As the amount of code I write at work decreased, my motivation to write code privately increased. I created a GitHub Organization for private code and make it publicly available in organized public repositories.

• CodeNote.net - github.com

This was inspired by Annict. The difference is that I haven’t been able to release a service yet.

Summary & Next Year

Although it’s only been a little over a year since I became an Engineering Lead, I still feel that this year’s experience has been valuable and feel like I understand things.

Since there will be a milestone in the first half of 2019, I want to live each day consciously so I can make good moves while imagining what the second half of next year will look like from a medium to long-term perspective.

That’s all from the Gemba.