Henka in the Heart of Tokyo: My Journey with HENNGE
When I initially applied for HENNGE’s Global Internship Program (GIP), I didn’t have many expectations. Sure, I knew what I was applying for — on paper — but I also often tend to romanticize things in my head. I had also not seen a lot of Japan, apart from a 1-week visit to Kyoto the year prior.
Anyway, my primary reason for applying to HENNGE’s GIP was wanting some change in my life. I felt the urge to try something new and exciting. To challenge myself, again. And so I did.
I arrived in Japan just one day before the start of the internship, so there was not a lot of time for me to get settled down. Trying to get to my hotel near Shinjuku station, late at night, was almost traumatizing, honestly. You could only image how happy I was to move into my share house the next day.
On the first day of the internship, we (the interns) were welcomed with a small ceremony after which we immediately got to work. There was a lot to do, such as setting up our company provided devices and attending several meetings to get us up to speed with the first assignment. Speaking of which — although I cannot reveal too much — we were going to spend the next three weeks working on our own full-stack application. We were split up into two teams: the Go and Python teams. As for the frontend, we could pick whatever we were comfortable with. I chose to go with classic TypeScript-React.
A great thing about the GIP is that you have the opportunity to experience HENNGE almost as if you were a full-time employee. There are GIP lunches where HENNGE members take you out for lunch to their favorite places near the office, team introduction meetings where you get to learn about the various teams within HENNGE, their members and operations, and let’s not forget about the many ‘bukatsu’s’. In short, a bukatsu is a subsidized fun event. There are tens, if not more than a hundred different kinds of bukatsu in HENNGE. My personal favorite one was the board game night, every Wednesday evening.
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Of course, I also did things outside of the internship. The other interns in my batch were each incredibly kind. It also did not take long before I made some good friends at my share house. Together, we ventured into the city, and even went on some one-day trips.
By the time the first three weeks had passed, the internship was already half-way over. As we started the second assignment — which builds on top of the first assignment — we also started preparing for our Monthly Technical Session (MTS) talk. Participating in MTS is a great opportunity to sharpen your presenting skills and share something new and interesting with HENNGE members.
I was lucky to be in a GIP batch which interns for 6 weeks. This meant that, after completing the first two assignments (which are personal projects), I had the opportunity to work on a third assignment. While each intern was assigned a different task, we all got to work on internal tools. This was our time to really shine and prove our worth. I was, again, lucky to be assigned to a project which I found to be very interesting: Salento.
Not only were the last two weeks the most interesting — I got to apply a lot of the knowledge I had gained in the previous four weeks — they were also the most fun. Being able to work on an internal tool meant working together with other HENNGE developers and project stakeholders.
And so, the internship ended. As quickly as it started, it was over. It is understandable that some people might hesitate to jump into an unpaid internship, thinking it is an easy way for a company to get free labor, but the GIP is nothing like that. For me, it has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, in great part because of the people I have met, and that is something money cannot buy. I had gotten exactly what I was looking for. Something new, exciting and above all challenging. It has had a profound impact on me personally. HENNGE’s name is derived from the Japanese word ‘henka’, meaning change or transformation, and the English word ‘challenge’. A coincidence? Probably, but in hindsight, it’s almost poetic.
Luca, from Netherlands (living in South Korea), interned with the HENNGE Global Internship Program from June 2 — July 11, 2025.
