#3.5 Gensuke Toshiro, the Lead Engineer with intellectual curiosity sees Open Room

Hello!
This is Casey, and I’m now working at Open Room Inc. as an internship.

In this series, I aim to show what Open Room is doing through a model, who has no experiences in business, learning Japanese real estate industry, Digital Transformation (DX), and SaaS business in an international startup which tackles the DX in real estate industry that is said one of the most difficult venture in Japan.

Last time we introduced our CTO Jonathan, and this time also from the tech team, we will introduce our lead engineer, Gensuke!
I personally respect him a lot because his age is the same as mine, and he gains the trust from the members.  Let us take a look into his interesting personality.

Way as an engineer beyond the broad intellectual curiosity

C: Thank you for having time today!  As you graduated from Kyoto University, are you from Kyoto?

G: That’s my word.  I was actually born in a different place, but since I grew up there, I feel like a pure Kyoto person.  As the university was close to my house, I spent most of the time in the same area.

C: It’s impressive that you could enter one of the highest level universities in Japan with such a reason haha.  What were you like in your childhood?

G: I was rather quiet, and loved drawing or playing with LEGO.  I wasn’t serious about studying, and thinking about how to cut it instead haha.

C: That’s surprising!  I had a diligent impression on you.

G: My academic career went like that after all, but I have had my interests in other fields such as music.

C: In the previous interview article, you mentioned that you are interested in a wide range of fields.  Were you always like that?

G: It’s hard to explain…  I like something in the middle of them.  Not really philosophy, but rather the nature of things, I would say.

C: Interesting.  As I was in liberal arts program at the university and didn’t have a particular major, I was thinking that we look into windows of different academic fields, but the thing we see in the distance might be the same.  This could be a similar perception of yours.

G: I think it is.  That’s why I sometimes find it difficult to answer when someone asks me what my hobby is.  It’s like “I like math, I like music, but well…”

C: Do you have any experience with music?

G: That’s also difficult to answer because I have interest in a variety of genres and instruments.  Currently, I play the drums.  

C: Cool!  I heard your major was mathematics in university.  What was interesting about it?

G: I mainly studied a further abstract version of algebra which becomes closer to the field of philosophy, and that was very interesting.  But we would stray if we go deep into this topic haha.

C: Let me hear that another time!  You were already working as a programmer as a university student, but when did you start programming?

G: It was when I was in elementary school.  I was interested in PCs, and curious about how they work.  Adults tend to learn them with a certain purpose, but I was just looking into their mechanism and reading codes. 
I’ve never really verbalized that “I want to become a programmer”, instead, it became my job as I was doing something I like.

C: It was very natural for you to start it.  How did you get to know Open Room at the beginning?

G: If I remember correctly, a person in my former workplace introduced me.  I met Toyo, and thought the business was interesting.  Back then, we were developing a crawler while collecting the information of properties.

"Making people's home search experience better"

C: What is your average weekly schedule like?

G: I don’t really have a weekly schedule, but usually there are meetings in the morning so I work from home until lunch time or somewhere good timing.  Then I move to the office and work there for the rest of time.

C: So you have your own pace to work.  Do you meet other members?

G: When someone is appearing at the office, we would arrange the time.  Rob lives in Tokyo so we are often together.  Our members used to gather more, but the situation changed with the COVID-19.  The other day, we gathered because Jonathan was in Tokyo.

C: Open Room allows quite flexible working style.

G: Could be the ultimate haha.

C: What is the good thing about working in this company?

G: As I mentioned, the flexibility interests me as well as helps me a lot.  In general, software engineers tend to lose work efficiency if they cannot work at their own pace, therefore it’s attractive that I could adjust the work style.  Since there are less prejudices, Open Room is able to have bold decision making and hypothesis settings.  This could be true to other startups as well, though.

C: I see.  Referring to the service, what is Forest for you and what would it become in future?

G: I wish it is a bridge between the current work style and a more efficient one.  I think the company slogan “making people's home search experience better” is a wonderful idea for consumers, and hope we could spread our service with this idea.

C: Toyo emphasized the word “provide the options”.  That might connect to the openness.

G: Exactly.  It’s ideal if everyone uses Forest, but since that's a little bit difficult, I want to pursue the service to be there for anyone as a good option.

C: What is interesting and difficult about developing Forest?

G: There are always difficulties.  Because it is a software which is used by the people those who are not necessarily familiar with PCs, in our recognition, our service has a distance with machines.  It is difficult to develop it while concerning the entire balance of usage since there is a distance between the mechanical features such as image processing or OCR, and the UI and UX structures that define which button makes what function.  

C: Having two types of users, real estate agents and end users, might also become a factor of thinking about the literacy and needs of them.

G: That’s a perspective I have for product making.  And the technical matters behind that should also face the same direction.  We cannot leave the users behind by merely pursuing a high quality.

C: So you have to constantly think about the users.

G: Being able to do that thoroughly is an interesting part of a small company, and a difficult part on the other hand.

C: You take part not only in the tech job, but also in the marketing and advertising job, and what do you do there?

G: At first, I joined there to cover up any measures of marketing in application or landing pages, but currently I adjust things in order not to have any inconsistencies as I know both the front and the back of the product.

 C: In that sense, you may have a chance to see more aspects than other members.

G: Possibly true haha.  It helps me to have other perspectives by participating in the weekly marketing meeting because I would become dull in those fields if I only do engineering work.
 
C: Interesting.  You have a broad perspective.

G: I feel the joy of working cross-sectionally because it becomes hard to think about other things if I work like a cog in a wheel as the experience of previous work places.

Company culture of self-discipline and cooperation

C: In the former interview article, you mentioned that the deciding factor of entering the company was Jonathan.  What do you think is his talent?

G: First thing to say is he was different from the people I had met before.  In the programming field, there are many people who are particular about a certain language or framework, but I felt Jonathan was flexible enough to compare several choices while having a good understanding of each.  He looks into the essential problem so that he doesn’t stick to a fixed idea.  And I still have the same impression.

C: He is able to have creative ideas as he has many options that he can take.

G: I guess it is one type of approach.  There is also a way to refine one measure, but instead, he keeps the perspective broadly and adopts good points.  We get along well, maybe because I take similar approaches with him.

C: It’s interesting to figure out his personality because I don’t usually have much contact with Jonathan at work.  How would you describe Rob?

G: He is easy to talk to, and we chat often.  He is very likable.  Compared to Jonathan, who is specialized in engineering, Rob is closer to a person I would say haha.  Jonathan and I are rather geeks so that Rob balances out us not going too much.  Also he documents things very well.

C: Do you mean that they are easy to understand even for non-engineers?

G: That’s also true, but even among the engineers, there are some people who document like crazy.  I wouldn’t document at all if no one tells me.

C: He has a quite different character with you and Jonathan.

G: I think he and others feel the same way.  He also has a good work-life balance.  If there were only Jonathan and I, we would overwork ourselves.

C: He balances out things in that way, too.  It seems that you tend to be a bridge between the tech and the business team in both work and language.  Is that true?

G: Everyone says so and concerns that I get too much tension, but actually I don’t have the feeling of becoming a bridge, at least compared to the past.

C: Is that because the number of team members has increased?

G: That’s also true, but I think the tech members got used to translating and reading the Japanese messages.

C: I see. There are factors like such.

G: There is a possibility that we may have a similar issue as having more members to join, thus I would like to utilize the learnings I got.

C: How is the working environment of Open Room?

G: I don’t feel any uneasiness.  Each member takes their responsibility a bit wider, does not depend on others, and is self-disciplined.  I’ve never thought “What happens if I leave this?”

C: That’s a good description.  Jonathan said that since there are no particular divisions, there is the culture of cooperation.

G: It’s also true that we didn’t have any other choice than that haha.  I’m excited how it changes as the company becomes larger.

C: The company should be in the phase where it becomes bigger, and what kind of person do you think would fit in Open Room?

G: Instead of assuming the company style is such that such a person would fit in, I think if one finds own place and passion, the team changes its shape.  No matter who joins, as long as he or she is willing to follow our communication style and to drive the team with his or her speciality, that becomes a new strength of our company.

C: It might be an odd example, but I came up with an image of a gathering of specific cells that leads to the existence of a certain tissue or an organ haha.

G: I get that.  Literally an “organization” right?  Anyway, I can say that it’s not a top down organization.

C: True.  I have the impression that everyone is independent.

G: If it’s a person who doesn’t feel reluctant to become the center, s/he can bring a good result to the whole by doing something s/he likes.

C: That’s all for the interview.  Thank you very much!  I was able to capture the team by your descriptions.  It was interesting to talk to you.

G: I was able to talk without becoming nervous thanks to you!

I was impressed by how gently Gensuke chooses words.  Thanks to his descriptions, I became able to the team from another perspective.
I hope that you are getting the feel of our members, and look forward for the next interview!

Casey

If you are interested, check the recruiting page