Toru Ochiai has been at Indeed for eight years now and was one of the first few engineers to be hired on the Tokyo engineering team.

He currently works as a Senior Software Engineer on the Challenge Markets team in Tokyo, focusing on the local market there. 

“My team focuses on a lot of localization work, but it’s not just about translations,” Toru explains. “We also look into features specific for the Japanese market, adding to existing products or sometimes changing a product entirely to meet the Japanese standard. It’s informative and innovative work.”

 

Toru got his first taste of working with technology back in high school. 

“Back then, the internet was not yet common in Japan, so the very first time I got to see what the internet was, I realized this is what I wanted to work on,” he recalls. “Even then, I knew the internet had a really, really high potential to add to our society and I really wanted to work in the internet industry.” 

After Toru graduated from university, he started on his path to being an engineer. His first role was as a software support engineer. He admits while it was interesting work, he found it boring as the internet was still unchartered waters.

 

Fast forward to 2021, Toru says the landscape has completely changed as more engineers are understanding the impact and value of what they can bring to the internet and tech industries. 

In 2012, Toru was employed as an engineer at Recruit, and when Recruit acquired Indeed, he was transferred over to help build out the team. 

He says the two biggest reasons for him taking on the opportunity at Indeed was to work on something new as well as being able to work in an English-speaking company so he could get better at the language. 

“When Indeed was set up in Tokyo, Recruit was really respectful and didn’t want to change Indeed’s working culture,” he says.

“From the beginning, I was impressed with Indeed’s data driven culture and its mission of helping people get jobs.” 

Since then, Toru has witnessed the many changes and development that took place at Indeed Tokyo’s engineering organization. 

“We started with about four engineers and have now grown so much; it’s been really exciting,” he says. “We grew very quickly, and established a lot of the structure and systems that we are working with today. It’s been such an experience for me.”

Over the years, Toru says he’s noticed the most successful engineers are those who are eager to discover new things. 

“One of the most important things is being open to learning new things,” he says. “Because the industry and company are constantly changing, you need to keep learning, improving your skills and building your work experience… and Indeed is a great place to do that.” 

Toru’s passion for learning doesn’t just end with his peers, but extends to the next generation of tech talent. 

He says one of the most rewarding things he has been able to work on at Indeed was a workshop for local high school students, where they were exposed to the world of engineering and learning how programming works.

“It was amazing to see their eyes light up the first time they wrote code and made something happen on the computer!” he recalls. “The event reminded me of why I wanted to be an engineer, how our job makes the world better and the first precious moment when I wrote my first code. It was fantastic.”

Looking forward, Toru hopes more younger talent in Japan will consider engineering as a career. 

For those seeking opportunities in engineering, Toru’s advice is to remember that while they may start working on something they are not entirely passionate about, remaining flexible, open to learning and staying open minded will go a long way. 

“I believe you can still learn from working on something you are not passionate about if you remember those three principles.” 

to see all available engineering opportunities at Indeed Japan, click here.