Big in Japan: Here’s what being an engineer at Line is like

Line may be best known for its messaging app, but thanks to its new business vision dubbed “Life on Line”, the company has expanded into offering other tech-based solutions. These include cashless payments, mobile commerce, credit scoring, and even an AI receptionist, making for a do-it-all app.

“Line has many services, including in finance, advertising, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrency,” says Thavamani Guruprasath, a data platform engineer from India who’s currently working at Line’s Tokyo office.

To continue developing these “life infrastructure” solutions, the company is looking to the world’s engineering talent.

“Line is a global tech company providing services worldwide, so it is only natural that we embrace a multinational team with various cultural backgrounds,” explains Fujiwara Satoru, Line’s engineer hiring manager. “We pride ourselves on the engineer-friendly work environment.”

Here are the ways that Line invests in its engineering corps, both as professionals and as people.

Photo credit: Line HR Blog

1. Learning by doing

The meat of any role is in the daily tasks. Projects that capture the imagination and give a sense of fulfillment don’t just make for an enjoyable time at the office, but they also help employees pick up and polish many skills along the way. They also provide opportunities for colleagues and tech experts from different teams to work with and learn from each other.

For instance, Guruprasath’s job involves managing data to provide meaningful analytics for major Line services. He discusses how his team recently concluded a migration project. “The project was a great learning experience, with multiple challenges in a short period of time. It offered a good opportunity to collaborate with multiple teams’ technology evangelists.”

Armin Huneburg, a messenger and web platform engineer, concurs. “Besides increasing my knowledge in the technologies we use, I have also become a better team player.” He brings up code reviews, where engineers check each others’ code for mistakes, as an example. “My reviews were subpar before I joined. Now, I have improved a lot and am better at correcting my colleagues’ code.”

Specific tasks and their processes make a difference as well. In his roles prior to Line, Guruprasath could only use proprietary products to develop services, which limited his understanding of coding. The data project he was involved in ran on the Apache Hadoop framework of open source software, which allowed him to look into the actual code running the program.

In other words, instead of simply learning how to drive a car, he got the opportunity to look at the engine and figure out how everything functions.

“Here at Line, we encourage engineers to use open-source code,” Guruprasath says, adding that this improves his technical expertise and opens up more career development opportunities.

Fujiwara underscores that concept. “For an engineer to thrive, they must be allowed to take on challenges. Our engineers interact and communicate with their colleagues with an open mind, and treat each other with utmost respect and trust. We believe an open culture drives self-growth and development.”

Photo credit: Line HR Blog

2. Sponsored workshops and conference visits

Line also actively supports its engineers’ efforts to learn more in their fields. The company empowers experienced members of the team to share what they know through informal learning sessions.

“These don’t have to be technologies exclusive to those used in our work at Line,” says Huneburg. “For example, if you are really good at using tools like Git or Gradle, you can organize a session to share your knowledge.”

For new joiners, the first month is dedicated to training. It also allows them to get to know engineers from other teams – people whose expertise they can tap into down the road.

“There are also on-the-job training sessions in which core technologies and infrastructure elements are explained to provide an overview of the services you’ll be working with,” Huneburg explains.

The company has several learning initiatives, such as Line Dev Week and free online classes. But there’s one opportunity that stands out.

“Once a year, Line sends its engineers to go on a learning trip to any technology conference around the world, paying for admission, airfare, and accommodation for up to a week,” Fujiwara shares. “We support our engineers who want to stay on top of their craft.”

With Line’s spectrum of services, its engineers are never short on chances to learn or do new things. “There are many new tech career challenges and opportunities available to try,” Guruprasath points out.

3. Support that goes beyond the office

With more than a third of its engineers coming from overseas, Line also has programs in place designed to encourage its engineers’ personal development. This includes comprehensive orientation support – a necessity due to Japan’s complex bureaucratic procedures.

“The Overseas Support Team helps foreigners to settle in. From getting your place of residence registered to finding a permanent apartment, or even with minor inconveniences, they’re there for you,” says Huneburg.

Photo credit: Line HR Blog

The company also offers weekly language classes for English, Japanese, and Korean, but the language barrier isn’t as big a problem as one might expect. “Many foreigners work at Line, and most of the engineers speak at least a bit of English,” notes Huneburg. “Besides, the people at Line are usually very helpful. Even if they speak very little English, they will still try to communicate and help you in some way if you face any problems.”

Guruprasath agrees with his colleague’s assessment. “Our team has members from five different countries, so the communication between us is always multilingual. We use both English and Japanese in our day-to-day communication,” he says.

At the discretion of the company, employees may even be allowed to take a second job. Coupled with flexible working hours, this setup “offers our employees various opportunities to absorb, learn, and enhance their technology aptitude outside of work,” adds Fujiwara.

Line is always on the lookout for talented and enthusiastic engineers to join their team. Find out more about their global hiring efforts and other career opportunities at Line on their LinkedIn page.