Lifelong Engineer — A Phrase From My First Company, WEBIMPACT, That Came Back to Me
The other day, for no particular reason, I found myself thinking back to my early days at WEBIMPACT, INC., the company I joined as a new graduate, and a phrase that had been tucked away in the back of my mind for years came back to me.
“Lifelong Engineer.”
That was the message the company put forward when I joined.
Gone From the Corporate Site, Still Alive on the Internet
If you open the current WEBIMPACT site, the phrase “Lifelong Engineer” is nowhere to be found. Company messaging gets rewritten as the business evolves, so that part is unremarkable in itself.
But if you trace back to the old recruiting site, the phrase is still there, just barely. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine keeps a July 2012 snapshot of the “Who We Are Looking For” page on the recruiting site, which is where the phrase survives. For reference, the company site as it looked while I worked there (a March 2013 snapshot) is preserved as well. Here is the text from that time, translated from the Japanese original:
What an Engineer Is
Today, even in the IT industry, the “engineers” who hold up its foundations are in the spotlight. They go by many names, such as systems engineer or network engineer, but I will never dismiss them with such an easy imported label. “Being an engineer is a way of life.” That is what I have always believed. Their thirst for learning, backed by boundless curiosity, knows no limit to its growth. When a new technology appears, they reach out and touch it first, understand it, and even critique it. That is because a firm “philosophy” lives there. Guided by that philosophy, they keep working every day to create new technology. Because that is their way of life.
I distinguish engineers like these from “occupational engineers,” who are hired by a company and simply get through whatever they are told to do each day, and I call them “lifelong engineers.” I have met and worked with many lifelong engineers over the years, and whether famous or unknown, a lifelong engineer always makes history. Being able to work alongside such lifelong engineers is the greatest happiness there is. And I have no doubt that the potential to be a “lifelong engineer” lies in everyone.
Doing Meaningful Work
Humans are animals that work. Work is generally said to be receiving compensation for labor. But once you seek “meaning” in it, that general view is no longer enough. “Meaningful work” is something special, open only to those who have found “something” that outweighs the compensation.
The internet age is said to be the age of “knowledge work.” It is an age in which you can move the world with “intellectual power” alone, without relying on social status or financial strength. With that intellectual power we do meaningful work, and that in turn moves society and moves the world. The history of the internet proves it.
Our mission is to raise “lifelong engineers,” grow together with them, build limitless intellectual power, and, through the organization that is a company, earn profit as a result while contributing to society. We strongly hope to do meaningful work together with those who aspire to be “lifelong engineers.”
A message the company itself has moved on from is still being faithfully preserved out there. It felt oddly like running into words my younger self had picked up and carried, nearly 15 years later.
When Introducing Myself, I Still Say “I’m an Engineer”
Since I became a CTO around 2022, the share of my work has shifted toward non-coding activities: how to run the organization, whom to bring on board, which businesses to invest in.
Even so, the words that come out of my mouth when I introduce myself at a first meeting or an event are, naturally, “I’m an engineer.” I still write code day to day, I spend time inside the product using AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, and a large chunk of my thinking goes to the shape of the product. The CTO title has been added, but it is not a reason to rewrite who I am.
Titles change, but when someone asks what I do, the answer is still “engineer.” Looking back, I think I had been quietly carrying that “Lifelong Engineer” message from my first company all along.
Words I Want to Hold On To
Words carry a weight you don’t quite notice at the time. A single phrase I was exposed to as a new hire ended up shaping the outline of my professional identity 15 years later.
So I want to write it down: I want to keep “Lifelong Engineer” close. Before being a CTO, before being an executive, I want to be an engineer first. If my title changes again in the future, I plan to keep the first words of my self-introduction the same.
That’s all from suddenly remembering the phrase “Lifelong Engineer” that WEBIMPACT, INC. gave me as a new graduate, from the Gemba.