On My Experience at HENNGE
4AM, Friday.
As I double-checked my bulging suitcase, I found it difficult to leave the place I used to call home. Time flew by with coding sprints, daily standups, board game nights, and day trips — only to realize that the six-week journey had come to an end. It was time to say goodbye…
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Although the fall semester was drawing to a close, I still had no internship for the summer. After countless hours of surfing Telegram, I surprisingly stumbled upon an unexpected opportunity at HENNGE. Who would have thought, right? Yet, a long road lay ahead, from tackling the programming challenge to navigating technical interviews. By the end of the academic year, I already had my visa, flight tickets, and accommodation ready; I was days away from embarking on a journey to Tokyo, Japan.
From the very first day, the newcomers were welcomed with a bagful of gifts and merch, accompanied by a series of onboarding tasks. Almost forgot I was here to actually work! For the following weeks, the other interns and I were buried in different types of assignments. I still reminisce the go-to dinners at the kebab shop nearby, where the room buzzed with discussions of our latest updates.
While the first half was project-based work aimed at familiarizing with the tech stack used at HENNGE, the next week involved deploying this on the cloud using the infrastructure-as-code approach. Every day was full of new insights, guided by mentors who fortunately had also gone through the same struggles before. In the last two weeks, each intern joined a specific team to address issues associated with the internal tools.
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Apart from indulging in coding sprees, I also enjoyed get-to-know-you luncheons twice a week, where I met people from various backgrounds. It was a great chance to introduce them to my hometown — Uzbekistan. (I was the first intern from there!) On top of that, I would spend my Wednesday nights at the office, pondering my hand of cards as I felt another board game loss was hunting me down. Regardless of my social anxiety, I was also fortunate to give a speech at monthly technical sessions. Yay!
To be honest, weekends were my favorite. After a week of grinding over the monitor, I would allocate this time for exploring the city and outskirts with my fellow interns and friends. Other than the major tourist attractions around Tokyo, I had a chance to go on packed day trips to Enoshima, Kamakura, Hakone, and Nikko. I fell in love with Japan — and even picked up some Japanese. Fukuro wa irimasu ka?)
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Watching the summit of Mt. Fuji from the porthole, I suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia occupying my heart. In fact, the community at HENNGE turned this short experience into a lasting chapter of my life story. As I returned from one home to another, I knew this was not the end but the beginning of many more adventures to come. And perhaps, someday, I will actually find myself back at HENNGE, ready to close another ticket.
Dilmurod, from Uzbekistan, (Studying at Westminster International University in Tashkent), interned with the HENNGE Global Internship Program from June 2 to July 11 2025.
