【Inside beBit】Product Development - Ikeda-san
Inside beBit - A project in which we ask 10 questions about a beBit member's work and personal life. We hope that “Inside beBit” will provide an opportunity to get to know more about the individuals you work with.
In this issue, we asked Ikeda-san from Product Development to answer our questions!
日本語の記事はこちらから！
●Nickname：I simply go by “Ikeda-san” (in English) as there are many non-Japanese speakers in Product Development
●Department & Position：Product Development Software Engineer
●Year Joined：2018
●Birth Place：Sasebo, Nagasaki
１：Tell us about your background
I was raised in Sasebo, Nagasaki until high school, then attended Osaka University and received my degree in engineering. Afterwards, instead of attending graduate school, I started my career working in a Heavy Industry company at their Research and Development Division located in Yokohama. I worked on the research of automated inspections using image processing while learning about technologies to measure the dimensions of heavy duty materials for ships and bridges and promoting the use of these technologies at factories and other facilities as well. After leaving R&D and experiencing the quality control department, I got my qualifications for nondestructive testing (Penetrant Testing), which is rare (and quite useless) at beBit.
After about 10 years passed, I decided to change my career and join a big data analytics venture called Tridea as a data scientist. It was a very interesting change for me that was possible because of Nishioka*, whom I met in our gymnastics club during college.
*beBit and Tridea merged in 2018. Nishioka-san was the CEO of Tridea at the time.
Reference: Press release about beBit and Tridea’s merger (Japanese)
２：Why did you join beBit?
I joined the company in a very passive way as a result of the merger between Tridea and beBit. When I joined, I didn’t know what UX was and I had very little experience in programming. I would have never found beBit if I had searched for a job the standard way so I’m very thankful I was able to find this position!
３：Please tell us about the work you do at beBit
I work on the development of USERGRAM. Not the platform team that supports the infrastructure from behind the scenes, but on the team that builds features for USERGRAM. I work as somewhat of a team leader in one of the scrum teams. It’s both fun and challenging to work with the business side to sort out the requirements and develop necessary functions for the future of USERGRAM. With limited department resources, it’s a daily struggle to determine priorities to maximize value in SaaS operations and focus on successful releases.
４：What surprised you the most when you joined beBit?
The most surprising point was that I was able to level up my skills dramatically.
At the first company I worked at, I felt I was not able to look at myself objectively. With my career change into a software engineer, I feel I have found my true calling.
Also, I know that many people started working remotely after Covid struck, but in my case, I started my remote work when I joined beBit. I was aware of the term “remote work,” but I had never imagined myself in that position. Because of this, working beBit has brought change to my personal life as well. Before working remotely, my wife would take care of the children alone on weekdays, so my QOL has increased dramatically as I am able to spend more time with my family.
５：What is the most memorable or rewarding job you’ve done at beBit?
I have been involved in the development of USERGRAM for about four years now, and I have lost count of the number of features (both large and small) that I have released with my team. Out of all, I feel the “Behavioral Funnel Analysis” feature has been successful from the release and has continued to improve continuously, which I find very rewarding. I feel we have a good spiral of continuous use → request for improvement → improvement and further use → and so on. I hope we can keep this cycle going.
(On the other hand, if you go through the trouble of requesting for improvement but it is never realized, your motivation to submit a request for improvement would be reduced. As a developer, I am very concerned about this point. )
Reference: The press release of when the "Behavioral Funnel Analysis" was added to USERGRAM (Japanese)
６：Tell us one thing you like about beBit
I’m very comfortable with the scope of my influence and how proactive I can be. Compared to small ventures and sole proprietorships, I enjoy the feeling of working together to advance the business while compared to large companies, I find it rewarding that my work is leaving an impact on the members of the company. In addition, as I have never been involved with UX prior to this company, it has been very exciting to see how passionate our employees are about UX!
７：Which of the 16Personalities are you?
INFJ-A: The Advocate. While I haven’t done this in a while, looking back at my notes from 5 years ago it seems I got the same results. I love coming up with ideas, and in the development of USERGRAM, I have proposed various small ideas that have come to mind. When my idea is approved and released as a feature, it makes me quite blissful when many people react (I hope that all of you will leave reactions on my Slack messages when you see them)! My desire to hear about issues and resolve them may be bigger than I had known.
８：How do you spend your free time?
I spend a lot of my time with my 10 year old daughter. I focus on the sweet spot between “what I enjoy doing” and “what I can do to help my daughter grow.” The experiences that I had when I was in my teens and twenties feel completely different when I enjoy them with my daughter. In addition, English and programming education has changed dramatically over the past 30 years, so I enjoy thinking about how I can help my daughter both learn and enjoy those skills.
To be more precise, I spend time exercising with gymnastics, trampoline, and juggling while also playing video games, programming apps, and learning English on YouTube with my daughter. I’d like to continue following the words of a certain Master Roshi who stated “Work hard, study well and eat and sleep plenty.”
９：What makes you the happiest? Or, tell us about when you were happiest recently
I enjoy video games, but I enjoy moving my body, as it also relieves my stress. Backflips, flips on trampolines, skin diving in a clean ocean, and acrobatics are my favorite (even if it's not acrobatics, I enjoy walks and hiking as well). As I reach my late 30’s and feel my energy levels depleting, I enjoy these activities with the hopes that I can stay healthy for longer.
On a side note, my philosophy of gymnastics is “to get injured is gymnastics, but to heal is also gymnastics.”
１０：Tell us about any challenges you would like to attempt
I love the AFTER DIGITAL trend. Unlike the era of mass production, we are now in an era where we can have instant access to whatever we want. I would like to contribute and support beBit’s efforts in furthering the understanding of UX in users while continuing to live a healthy and happy life with my family and build a body that can enjoy backflips and somersaults forever.
beBit is looking for more members to join us!