07 Nov 【Yaraku-Jin】An Australian Programmer’s View on the Multinational Team

Fostering Flexibility Through Diversity

The tenth volume of “Yaraku-Jin (やらく人)”, a series that focuses the people involved in Yaraku and YarakuZen, will introduce Joseph Scutella, a developer of the app team at Yaraku.

Yaraku-Jin＜VOL10>
Joseph Scutella
App team, Yaraku, Inc. 
Born in: Adelaide, Australia

What brought you all the way to Japan?

I graduated during the 2008 recession  and at that time it was very difficult to find a job in Australia. I had done a university exchange program in Japan previously, so I already had some experience in Japan and I decided to come back. 

Were you always interested in Japan?

Initially, I actually wanted to go to China for my exchange. I had more interest in Chinese culture and philosophy when I was younger, and I used to watch a lot of martial arts films.  But for logistical reasons I couldn’t go to China and instead chose Japan, which was my second choice. 

I don’t remember what triggered my interest in Japan, to be honest. I’ve been living here now for 11 years, so it’s been a long time. The longer I’ve lived in Japan the more I’ve learned about the culture and language, and I’ve gradually come to enjoy my time here more. It kind of feels like home, but not home, if that makes sense. 

Could you tell us what it feels working at Yaraku?

It’s more organized now, I think, at least for development. Now we have Red and Blue teams in development, whereas 3 years ago it was just one team. Previously the leadership hierarchy was not very clear at times, and goals or objectives were also not completely clear.
In these three years, we’ve formed teams, the management is more organized, things are more structured, there’s a lot of documentation for various things. So when new people come, it’s a lot easier for them to get started. 

So a lot has been changed and improved regarding our working environment.

I mean, it was never bad, but to me at least, I find it better now because I just prefer having some direction. For example, in the development team we have one-on-one meetings every week with our manager to discuss things we’re working on, or any other work-related issues.
Things like that are very supportive I think. It’s beneficial for your own personal development of course, but it’s also a good way to check in and make sure that your work is progressing without any hindrance. 

We heard that you worked at another company in Japan in the past, but how was it? 

Ah, it was completely different. It was a traditional Japanese company, and I was the only foreigner and there was no one speaking English. 

There were many things that I felt were stressful, but to pick just one: writing business emails in Japanese is quite cumbersome and needlessly time consuming. There is a lot of emphasis on word/kanji choice and which sentences to use, depending on the seniority of the recipient. 

―Japanese people also have the same kind of frustration! 

So, what do you think of the uniqueness of Yaraku?

I think diversity is probably one of the top points. The makeup of the development team, for example, has a lot of members from differing countries. I am not completely sure, but It’s probably unusual for a Japanese company to have this sort of ratio of Japanese to foreigners. So the diversity is a high point for me. 

When do you feel you are rewarded?

For me, it’s when working on a new project, or something using new technology. It’s basically getting a problem and then solving it in the most elegant way, I suppose.
Every day, at least in development, we have some kind of problem or some feature we want to put into the application and it’s that process of planning and thinking about the best way to that solution which is interesting to me.

Sometimes we work on these issues individually, but for larger projects the developers will usually work closely together in order to deliver a project in a timely manner and up to the high standards we hold.

What kind of people do you expect to collaborate with at Yaraku?

Somebody that is open minded and not afraid to take responsibility and ownership for their work. I think everyone in the dev team has that sense of responsibility. Maybe that’s why we’re successful; after all, YarakuZen is progressing in quality rapidly year by year.

I’ve been here for three years, and in that time we’ve only had three or four people leave from the dev team. I think it’s very low actually. In my previous company at least almost every month somebody left. We’ve been working with mostly the same members, which is a positive sign, I think.