The other day I read a blog titled "Twitter で医師を拾ってきて Google のソフトウェアエンジニアにするだけの簡単なお仕事" (roughly: the easy job of picking up a doctor on Twitter and turning them into a Google software engineer).
(If you have time, read that post first and come back.)
It starts from a note that went viral about two years ago (?), "[Career change entry] I'm joining Google" — about an outstanding doctor (quoting the note: Tokyo University Faculty of Medicine grad, hematology specialist, former hematology head) who taught herself programming and, after twists and turns, mid-career joined Google.
That note is different in flavor from the countless "I became an engineer with no experience!" pieces — an extremely acrobatic career-change note.
The person who did mock interviews and prep courses for Google interviews in that note is the author of the hatena blog above.
The blog's first purpose is correcting some mismatches with how things were described in the note.
For example, on coding tests during interview prep, the note says something like "coding skills were already more than practiced enough for interviews" (quote) — but actually the author was surprised that "the coding style wasn't that of a practical programmer (too adapted to competitive programming)" (paraphrase), among other corrections.
Still, the blog doesn't stop at corrections — it goes into why the author does Google interview prep, and from there into comments on the low level of scholarship in Japan.
Episodes about professors and teachers heard through acquaintances are very thought-provoking, and there's also the unusual, precise keyword inaka shodan ("country first-dan": experts won't take you seriously, but you know more than a complete amateur) — fun.
My reaction is embarrassingly crude, but overall it was a blog with high intelligence, and very interesting. The profile, probably written long ago, is already fun.
Updates are rare now, but reading blogs like this raises my happiness — if you know interesting blogs, please tell me.
Personally, this passage stuck with me most:
"One day I spoke with a second-year University of Tokyo student. They asked, 'Would Google be interested in people like us?' I didn't really understand. And later, when I asked why women don't choose information science in the shinfuri major assignment, after various reasons they finally said, 'Because the Faculty of Science almost requires grad school.'
I never imagined someone born after the war would have grad school off the table as a life option, so I was truly shocked. Anger at myself for not noticing until past thirty made my vision go strange. Steadying my shallow breathing, I only said: 'Not being able to imagine learning this much computer science, thinking about what computation is, and seeing the landscape scholarship opens — that's a matter of dignity... of dignity.'"
I myself only have a bachelor's, and my university grades weren't good by any stretch.
But being bad at it and disliking learning aren't the same. Embarrassing to admit now, but more than once I thought it would be nice to become a scholar someday.
My undergrad major wasn't anything special (mostly because I couldn't make it special) — but at least a master's should have been an ordinary option on the table.
And I should have been more eager to find subjects that interested me, and dig deeper at the slightest tug on my heartstrings.
Of course you can learn for personal enjoyment — but once you're working, the premises change, and unless you re-enter university (or grad school), the learning environment won't be best.
Dig through a few paperbacks and mistake that for knowledge growth, and you're already at inaka shodan with no way back.
(Curiosity itself is good, of course — you don't always need to reach academic standards to satisfy it.)
Come to think of it, no one in my life ever recommended going for a master's. Mainly because I was in the humanities, and because I wasn't outstanding myself?
I didn't have much purpose of my own, and I won't complain that Japan doesn't respect learning — it's my own issue — but I wish grad school had been a frank, ordinary option.
I recall a former listed-company executive saying in a seminar, "Japan's prime ministers have low academic credentials. Overseas, a doctorate or double degree is normal."
Yasuyo Iga (Chikirin?), who handled HR at McKinsey, also said that in hiring Japan has too few signals compared with overseas, so university name is about all there is — and I've heard (source forgotten) that Google has to lower hiring standards only in Japan to hire people.
Setting credentials aside, I agree with what's said in the article: increasing Japanese people who know FAANG+M (and other US top-tier) company culture is urgently needed. And properly mastering a specialized field of study is one strong signal toward that.
Many parents who have kids want to give them the best learning environment — but today that often means a good university or foreign languages, not "get a master's or doctorate in a specialty."
Kids selected by the SoftBank foundation and the like are extremely lucky. (Of course their talent, not only environment, is first-rate.)
Even if they're an extreme case, having interest in learning and going on to a master's or doctorate to acquire a specialty as an ordinary option should be on the table.
On the other hand, controlling people defeats the purpose — parents forcing scholarship is the same structure as forcing SAPIX and middle-school entrance exams.
(Though if exam prep surrounds you with people who study, studying becomes normal, and you notice the joy of learning — that's a very common path, so it's complicated.)
Discussing problems with people is time I strongly enjoy — and discussing your own field with people who share a specialty (or a common topic) would surely become some of life's most important hours.
Writing this blog, I often wish I had a more concretely academic angle — and flipping that, without it I feel I may hit a ceiling sooner or later.
For my own life ahead, university transfer or grad school exams feel totally on the table — I vaguely want to go back to university and take a doctorate after a while.
The crucial "field of interest" is still undecided, so maybe I'll take Coursera and other MOOCs at random and look for something that might click.
I don't know yet, but it feels less like something business-adjacent and more like sociology, humanities, or the arts.
P.S.
Finally: when I was reading that viral Google-joining note and fishing through "how I joined/left Google" blogs, my personal favorite was this one, so I'll leave it here.
How I joined Google — and how I left
Re-reading it after a while, it was still interesting. Less a resignation entry than a quality essay.
Other Google join/leave blogs were all interesting in my memory too — if you're curious, search and dig around.
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