The above is Director Nguyễn Minh Huy's direction for the younger members of his Division. Although I was appointed only six months ago, I was able to get various grades. Today, let's interview about the road to division manager and future direction!

Hello, Chief Huy! I am honored to have been interviewed. Could you please introduce yourself a little?

Hello everyone. My name is Huy. I'm the manager of the 2nd Development Division. Previously, I was studying HEDSPI, a joint project between the Japanese and Vietnamese governments, at the IT department of Hanoi University of Science and Technology. After graduation, I worked at GMO Run System Co., Ltd. for two years. After that, looking for a new challenge, I decided to join GMO Internet Group, Inc. in Japan. I have been working at GMO for a total of 9 years and have gained a lot of experience.

May I ask what prompted you to apply for the HEDSPI program?

Today, IT technology is developing rapidly around the world, and products and services that utilize that technology are expanding. However, due to the aging society, Japan is facing a shortage of IT engineers. (According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the shortage of human resources will reach 300,000 in 2020 (article).

Therefore, using offshore development services in Vietnam is one of the solutions, and many Japanese companies are using it. The purpose of this service is to reduce costs, make use of human resources in countries with abundant young human resources such as Vietnam, and improve system quality in order to compensate for the shortage of IT human resources in Japan. On top of that, many universities have introduced courses to teach Japanese to university students majoring in IT.

I seized the opportunity to study the HEDSPI program at Hanoi University of Science and Technology. HEDSPI is a cooperative project between the Japanese and Vietnamese governments, and the purpose of the HEDSPI project is to educate university students majoring in IT based on the standards of IT engineers in Japan.

What made you decide to go to Japan? What do you think you have achieved while working in Japan?

I've been studying Japanese language and culture since college, but I've never lived in Japan or had any practical experience, so it was tough at first!

Japanese people always demand 100% perfection of products. In addition to that, the Japanese teamwork, reporting, communication, and consultation (ho-ren-so) skills are well-known all over the world!

As a C# developer, I'm not good at Japanese, but after working hard at GMO Japan for 7 years, I was appointed as a team leader of 10 people at GMO Japan, and finally a project manager!

While working in direct contact with customers, my Japanese improved steadily, and I was able to get a much higher score than my goal on the N1 exam. (smile)

What made you come back to Vietnam?

My goal in going abroad was to gain experience, develop myself, develop my career and find opportunities. Seven years ago, I decided to go to Japan because I was passionate about it when I was young.

I learned a lot about life and work, and learned how to solve problems on my own, so I feel I made the right decision. There were some tough times, but I was able to pull through until the end. Gradually I got used to the job and made great progress in both my professional and soft skills (teamwork skills, communication reporting, discussion, management).

Before returning to Japan, my life was basically perfect. My job was stable, and my children were exposed to the Japanese environment, so I didn't become rich, but I had a little leeway.

At that time, I felt the same as I did seven years ago. If things continue like this, there will be no opportunities to challenge them, and they will be too accustomed to grow.

Life was great back then, but I still felt like something was missing. After thinking about it for a long time, I decided to return to Vietnam to take on new challenges, change myself, and find purpose in my 30s in order to apply what I learned in Japan to Vietnam!

After meeting and talking with Dien, a friend from college and his CEO at Kiai, I could see the similarities between the two. That is the image of a professional company and the ideal environment for young people to grow. After working for 10 years, I have a desire to create a sharing environment where young people can challenge, experience and reach their potential. After talking with Mr. Dien, I became very interested, so I decided to go home.

→ Leave the safe zone and return to Vietnam.

(But looking back now, what I thought was safe was actually dangerously easy!)

After returning to Japan, will Vietnam be more difficult or more interesting than Japan?

Regarding the living environment, I have lived in Japan for a long time, so it takes some time for some people to get used to it when they return to Vietnam, but I feel very familiar with it, and I always want to come back to Vietnam. Maybe it's because I have strong adaptability and integration (laughs).

Japan has convenient transportation and no traffic jams, so I commute by train every day. Even after returning to Vietnam, I gradually got used to commuting by motorcycle, and although it is a little cold in winter, I wear a thick shirt, so there is no problem (laughs).

I feel a big change in my working environment. In Japan, even if you work for a long time, there are few colleagues and customers, and there are not many opportunities for people to interact with each other due to the Corona crisis. There are many energetic young people in Vietnam, some five years younger than me, some ten years younger than me, but there is no generation gap and we all share work and life.

The more I work with them, the younger I feel. Young people have many sources of information and are very agile and creative!

I think the decision to go back to Vietnam is a wise decision.

As a division manager, how is your day-to-day work at Kiai?

Before I start to work, I would make a cup of coffee, look at my list of projects, and just think about this! The reason why I can relax and drink coffee is because I have a lot of teammates at work. My mission is to support and create an environment in which young people can reach their full potential. (And their job is to get me time for a cup of coffee lol)

After a cup of coffee and a confidant, I started working.

Starting with the project I am responsible for, I need to read and process project information in a split second.

Now I feel that managing project information is not as difficult as understanding why people have always worked well but not today. The most difficult problem for me is the human problem. For example, developers, testers, and commuters, are you usually cheerful but aren't you smiling today? Sometimes it's family, sometimes it's love (laughs)... It's really hard to manage people, manage people's motivation. Managing numbers is no longer a difficult task. Because numbers are fixed. It is humans who bring new things every day.

As I sat there, I remembered that he has three or four meetings today, so I'm going to prepare for them.

My daily job is to support team leaders and PMs. During the week, we have department meetings where PMs, team leaders report on project status, and everyone discusses general departmental issues, hiring issues, upcoming events, and more. For example, Vietnam is currently preparing for the New Year, so my department is also preparing. Musical Performance in Preparation for the Gala Dinner YEAR END Party - Yosakoi Dance!

One good day, when something goes wrong with your project, you can't let it go and you need to jump into analysis and action. Seeing the tension of young people reminds me of myself many years ago. I worry about them because they are as responsible as I am. Having overcome difficulties alone, I now strongly desire to help young people overcome difficulties calmly, knowing that there are always supportive people by their side.

Once you've solved all the problems, the day is over in no time.

I have a ping pong table at my company, so I'll play it with my colleagues after work!

By doing those activities together, people get to know each other better.

Every day at Kiai is fresh!

Six months after it was officially established, how did Div 2 build its culture and activities?

Currently, we have a reading club, a Japanese learning club, and an AWS learning club.

It was my first time in such an open environment, so I had to do some self-study. I feel that today's youth are very eager to learn.

As an old man like me, blending into Kiai's youthful environment makes me feel the desire to study, grow, and change again.

We hope that this sharing learning activity will grow more and more, contribute to the growth of all employees, and help achieve the goals of Kiai200, 300.

Aside from studying, they are also active in sports activities. There is a badminton club every Sunday afternoon and a soccer club every Wednesday night, with 25-30 members participating. Join us and divide into 3 teams of 7 people each and compete for about 1.5 hours!

The company also has a table tennis club.

Everyone was excited to participate.

How are your current customers?

Compared to before, I have worked with only one or two loyal customers for a long time, but now I am a general manager and have to deal with more customers and more project lines.

My department currently works on projects with clients in the advertising, real estate, social networks, M&A and construction industries.

Programming in many languages and diverse frameworks like php, python, ruby, c#, swift, kotlin.

Each client is unique and very interesting.

Customers often come to Vietnam to play, so I often go to serve customers, but this is also my first experience and it is very interesting! I usually only do MTG with the customers on video, but it's more fun to see each other face-to-face because there's a sense of trust!

Some customers have been with us for only a short period of time (customers who continue to work after in-house development), while others have been with us since the first day of business.

As a new manager, what do you want your department to look like?

Department slogan: smart and strong

The meaning of the slogan is also the direction I am aiming for. I hope that everyone in the life and work department will be able to manage the situation well while staying healthy both physically and mentally.

In the future, I would like to take on the challenge of developing a business division.

I wish you to develop a spirit of sharing, help each other in life, work wisely with a strong spirit.

In the future, I also want to develop my division into a stronger one. Let's contribute to the company's goal of Kiai200 and Kiai300 so that we can increase the number of employees to 70 in 2023.

I wish you to develop a spirit of sharing, help each other in life, work wisely with a strong spirit.

Thank you for interviewing me. I wish you good health so that you can lead the 2nd Development Headquarters and strive for further development of Kiai and become a first-class offshore company for the Japanese market.