I resigned from Toshiba Corporation at the end of March 2024.
I would like to thank the very many people who helped me during my almost 9 years at Toshiba Corporation. Thank you very much.
Toshiba Operations
How I Joined Toshiba
The story of how I joined the company goes back to a summer internship during my first year of my master’s degree.
In the summer of my first year as a master’s student, I was trying to decide between a web-based internship at Speee and Rakuten. A pre-listed startup or a mega-venture? I was informed that Rakuten passed the internship selection process first among all applicants. At that time, I happened to find that Toshiba, a large company, was holding a web-based internship program. I decided to go to the internship programs at both Speee and Toshiba, thinking that I would look at two options: a pre-listing start-up that takes a large risk or a large, stable company.
I participated in an advanced internship program for engineers at Speee, where I spent three fulfilling weeks developing a web application with a team of very talented people. I then participated in a summer internship at Toshiba, where I developed a plugin for Redmine, which I completed in about a week.
I chose Toshiba as my first career because I was surprised to be able to engage in Web-based development at a large manufacturing company, and I felt that I could be involved in a wide range of business areas and that I would enjoy working with a section manager with high tension.
Assigned Department and Duties
I was assigned to the same department as during my internship, the Digital Innovation Technology Center (commonly known as DITC, formerly Software Technology Center). This department is responsible for solving problems within the Toshiba Group in the form of commissioned research, with the mission of raising the level of technical capabilities within the Group. In this special environment, where the majority of employees are master’s and doctoral holder, we are able to engage in contract research in a variety of industries and fields.
There were also outstanding people on the staff, including a Linux kernel maintainer, an openSUSE maintainer, a Ruby committer, a graduate who skipped the old Imperial University, a career visiting scholar at an Ivy League university, and a working doctor who received an outstanding completion award. I think the results of recent research and development are summarized in the Digital Innovation Technology Center | Toshiba.
One training program that has a large impact on younger workers is called Work Assignment (commonly known as WA), an educational program that lasts about six years.
WA is a system that promotes the improvement of technical and problem-solving skills through the process of solving actual business and technical problems under the guidance of senior mentors. At each of these milestones, the candidate is required to present the results of his/her research and development in front of all DITC members. (Reference: Employment: Education System | Digital Innovation Technology Center | Toshiba )
During this WA interview, I was asked by the center director, “There are two paths: a specialist who focuses on one thing, or a generalist who looks at the whole picture. The director of the center asked me, “Which is it? Since I had decided that I would eventually become independent, I responded that I would be trained as a generalist. I decided to become a full-stack engineer in my first year with the company.
I was loved by my seniors, and they really trained me as I wished, and I was able to engage in software development from the upper layer (web-based) to the lower layer (HDD Firmware), infrastructure layer (development using public cloud), and AI development. I was able to work from the upper layer to the lower layer, which is something you can never experience in a startup and is a real thrill that only a large company can offer. I really appreciate it.
I cannot write much about the details of our work, but in terms of collaboration with people outside the Center, offshore development with a Vietnamese subsidiary, discussions with people from Google, a leading IT company, and a major strategy consulting firm, I was able to greatly broaden my previously narrow perspective. Thank you very much.
I think there is a big image that a large Japanese-affiliated company has a bad development environment, but don’t worry. When I first joined the company, I had 4 GB of RAM, but after consulting with my boss and others, I was able to obtain 32 GB of RAM, which is a human right. If you can give a reason, some of us had access to high-performance GPUs that were good enough for Deep Learning, and we were allowed to borrow them from time to time. I don’t think that those who are going to join us will have any trouble with the development environment.
It is rare for a large company to have access to AWS, GCP, etc. without any hassle. The environment was good, except for the mandatory use of Teams, Outlook, and MS Office, which was very stressful.
I was granted about 24 days of annual leave per year and was able to use all of them every year. I took 11 days off during the GW vacation in the middle of the Corona disaster, and rode my BRIDGESTONE TB-1e bicycle 1,300 km from my Toshiba research laboratory (Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture) to my parents’ house in Kumamoto City, Japan. I guess you could call it a petit caribbean break. I was sometimes made fun of by people saying, “There really is a guy who is going to use up all his annual leave.
In retrospect, the working style was very white. Maternity and paternity leave could be taken for several years, and some of the employees were covered by the so-called “shortened working hours” system, which allowed them to shorten their working hours by two hours until their children reached elementary school age.
Returning to my work, most recently, I was awarded a business commendation with the center manager for my superiors and colleagues in a Toshiba TEC contract project, whose main business is POS cash registers, because I was very compatible with them and was recognized for my ultra-fast and agile development. After that, I was transferred to my current position in Toshiba TEC’s CDO (Chief Digital Officer) office (so-called “executive office”) in my 8th and fastest year with the company.
Awards and Achievements
I think Toshiba TEC was very generous when it came to education. Toshiba TEC has a system that fully subsidizes the cost of public cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) certifications, and I took full advantage of it and was able to complete all of my AWS certifications in about a month. If you are interested in learning more about how to study, please take a look at this page.
In addition, the entire Toshiba Group learned about AI in general through the Toshiba AI Engineer Education program, which is taught by a professor from the University of Tokyo. This education consists of two pillars: after several months of lectures, each student implements AI on his/her own and presents the results of his/her work. Those who give excellent presentations at the results presentation meeting are awarded for excellence by the executive officer.
While many people from my center who were section chiefs and above were also taking the course, there were no winners despite the fact that the institute had not had any winners, so I decided to go for the prize and took the course when I thought I could get it, or when the time was right, so to speak. I was able to successfully become the first recipient of the award from my center.
Awards received include the following
- —– ▼ Toshiba Corporation —–
- Jan 2024 AWS Certification All Crowned (First from Toshiba Corporation and second from within the Toshiba Group)
- Mar 2023 Toshiba AI Engineer Education (in collaboration with the University of Tokyo) Session A, 2nd place (First recipient from his center. About 20 people attended from within the center)
- Dec. 2022 Toshiba CTF (Capture The Flag) 5th place out of 68th (based on SecBok2016, equivalent to CISO top level)
- Apr. 2022 Toshiba Software Technology Center, Operations Award, Excellence Award
- —– ▼ Students ▼ —–
- December 2014 DPSWS2014 Best Poster Award
- Aug 2014 DICOMO2014 Best Paper Award
- Jul 2014 DICOMO2014 Best Presentation Award (1st out of 293th)
- Sep 2013 Spee’s Award (Senior Internship Winner)
- 2012/01 Seed Acceleration Program, MOVIDA SCHOOL 2nd Generation
- 2006 Supercomputing Contest Finalist, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University
Since joining Toshiba, I have had a hard time winning awards, but in the past few years, I have finally blossomed. I believe that if I work hard, I will be able to develop enough skills to be accepted outside the company. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Board of Education and all those involved in my work.
Reasons for leaving Toshiba
follow one’s instinct
Why quit when things seem to be smooth sailing? The reason goes back to when I was an intern at a startup.
Immediately after entering graduate school, I actually took a leave of absence to intern right away. The company that left a strong impression on me was Akatsuki Inc. (TYO: 3932), a social game development startup with about 30 employees at the time. I joined the company at the time of the transition from mobile phones to smartphones. In 2015, Akatsuki was the leader in the TMT industry in Japan and was named the fastest growing company in Japan. company in Japan.
Akatsuki delivers products to people around the world based on the concept of “in the hands of people around the world. As engineers, we all want to deliver our products to as many people as possible. I had decided to do this when the time came.
At Akatsuki, I learned firsthand that if you are going to do a startup, you need to enter the market at the dawn of the market, in other words, timing is of the utmost importance. Ever since I joined Toshiba, I have been waiting for the right time. I believe that market upturns are cyclical. If you look at stock prices on a macro level, they rise in a 10- to 12-year cycle. I was expecting that wave to hit roughly around my 10th year with the company, and as I thought, the three markets of generative AI, spatial computing, and cryptocurrencies launched at that timing (2023-2024).
The personal development of a generative AI system released last year (2023) was picked up by some listed companies’ web media, etc., and the number of registered users exceeded 2,700, which convinced us from primary information that this wave of generative AI is indeed coming.
My intuition appealed to me to do it exactly now.
Don’t let noise of others opinion drown out your own inner voice.
by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc.
And most important have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.
However, although I had decided from the beginning to become independent and joined a company, I wondered if it would be all right for me to quit a very large company. I was also anxious.
In the midst of this situation, I received an attractive offer to work overseas for three years as an employee to help launch a new business. However, although I judged that I had already gained enough skills as an engineer and wanted to be involved in the 0 → 1 of the business, I was reluctant to spend the company’s money because the seniority system had taken root and my position as an engineer would continue, and the existing business was in a difficult situation (semi-self-register sales would not be possible from FY2024, etc.). We felt that it would be difficult for us to spend the company’s money under the current difficult circumstances.
I am at the border of my career, the market is rising, and I have made up my mind to follow my instincts and live by them this time and take a career break here.
Retirement Benefits
Toshiba is famous in the general affairs community for having a very low retirement allowance + company pension. The amount transferred was a single-digit million yen (the market rate for major companies is 4 million yen for voluntary resignation and about 10 years in the company). I am grateful to have a retirement benefit system and will do my best to live.
Future Outlook
As for my future prospects, I am not sure what is right or left, as I will be unemployed for the first time in my life.
So, I have a request.
I would like to ask you to please comment on any problems you are facing or things you wish could be done better.
No matter how trivial the problem is, it’s fine.
For example
I am trying to lose weight and use an app to record my meals, but I can’t help but eat.
To solve this problem, Vision Pro app can automatically take a picture of what you eat, record it, and automatically calculate and display the calories next to your plate,
and has function “Can I eat against my goal?”
Please feel free to comment!
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