My first six months of experience at GoJek

GoJek is Southeast Asia’s Super App founded in Indonesia and is the country’s first decacorn company. There are more than twenty services provided by GoJek but some of its major services include GoRide, GoFood, GoPay, GoSend, GoPlay, etc. If you want to know more about GoJek then just google it 😄.

Let me tell you my insights and experience of working here for the past six months. So, being a fresh college graduate I always wanted to join a company where I could have a steep learning curve📈 and also gain a lot of experiences of working in a cooperate world but apart from these I always wanted to enjoy the things that I’d do. I still remembered the day when I got selected as a Product Engineer at GoJek after several tests and interviews and now I’m really feeling privileged of working in a company where people are placed above all, where employees are taken care of and creating a positive impact on the lives of millions of people is the major goal🎯.

The beginning:

I joined GoJek on 1st July 2020, due to pandemics it was a virtual onboarding but my excitement🤩 was the same as earlier. As you can imagine, the first few days were very tiring due to the document works and several sessions. After that, the main journey started but it was not a usual journey as one expected because before getting into our corresponding teams we went through a two weeks Pre-Bootcamp session(a glimpse of the actual Bootcamp) and it was a complete learning experience where we got to know about some of the principles that we should use in Software Engineering like the FIRST principle for Test Driven Development, KISS (Keep It Simple and Stupid), DRY(Don’t Repeat Yourself), etc. We had several introductory sessions of each team and open source projects that GoJek owned and we were always encouraged to ask a lot of questions since it’s the best time for us to learn.

Post Pre-Bootcamp:

I was onboarded into my corresponding team by my manager and buddy but I must say it was a very smooth virtual onboarding that one could imagine because instead of giving me tasks on the real projects from the very first day, my manager created a three-week onboarding plan to make me comfortable with the programming languages that we use, get familiar with the REST APIs, creating certain projects from scratch, read several books that could be helpful during my day-to-day work in the team, and most importantly the KT sessions regarding the projects that my team owned. Until this time, I was in an intense learning phase only but I knew that these learnings would definitely help me in the future. But, apart from these, my team has daily standups where one need to share what they did the previous day and what are they planning to do the current day, weekly IPM where the tasks are decided for the current week, and most importantly the chai-time where we chit-chat and also play some games within the team.

So, after around one and a half months, I was ready to work with the team on some real tasks and projects and I really was very much excited to see how my work would impact millions of peoples’ lives. I’m going to tell you about one of the most used practices in GoJek which is Pair Programming which means you would be paired up with one of your colleagues on any task, and according to me, it would be very helpful when you’re at the beginning of your career because you would learn a lot of new things from the other person and also the real-world practices we should use while solving any problem. According to my experience, I can definitely say one thing: GoJek is a jungle of knowledge and if you really wish to gain from it then people here are also very helpful in sharing things with you but you should be curious. If one is really interested in solving real-world problems and ready to face challenges then I honestly say GoJek is the place for you because here you can push your limits and cross your boundaries💪.

The Bootcamp:

Now, let me tell you about the Bootcamp in which all the new joiners were enrolled in October and it was one of the most memorable and exciting periods for me here. One of the most extraordinary things about GoJek is its Bootcamp which is an intensive learning program for all the college grads who joined here. Before the pandemic, it used to be a two to three months program but ours was a month only. We had a schedule that we need to follow every day throughout the Bootcamp and there were punishments defined by us for late-comers and those who didn’t finish their homework (yea we had homework too😅). We were divided into three groups (Pasti, Ada, Jalan means There is always a way) and in each group, we were given certain activities and tasks like code cycle where we were given a problem statement and we need to solve that following some non-negotiable etiquettes like following TDD, using version control, following group conventions that we created, and so on, along with other engineering principles for writing clean code. Another activity was a typing drill where we test our typing speed and seriously it helped me in increasing my speed to 45–50 words per minute. To improve our communication skills, there was one more activity where we were encouraged to speak on any argument of our choice and if the summary given by the other three people were the same then we passed otherwise failed and in this, there were three stages and I passed the first stage in my third attempt but passed the second stage in my first attempt (bounce back 😁). All those activities were meant for our overall development and I really mean it. One of the coaches already told us “whoever you’d become will be the side-effects of this Bootcamp”.

Bootcamp at GoJek would be such a time which one would never forget in his/her life. But, sadly this was for only one month but it is worth mentioning here. We also got our performance reports and feedback on whatever we did in the Bootcamp. But, apart from all those, I came to know about my strengths and weaknesses and also in which areas I need to focus on for my better performance and growth.

Post-Bootcamp Phase:

I again joined back my team and had a meeting with my manager regarding my performance and what all I did and gained from the Bootcamp. One of the good things here at Gojek is that you’d get continuous feedback from your manager through one-one meetings and that would definitely help one in understanding their performance and what needs to be improved. In that meeting, my manager introduced me to the Individual Development Plan which is basically designed for one’s personal development plan and helps one to effectively contribute to their personal growth as well as the company’s growth. So, in my opinion, nothing is better than when any company focussed on their employees’ growth to this extent.

After I joined back, I worked on several tasks and I guess in every task I got to learn something new which motivated me daily and parallelly, I was also involved in doing tasks that I mentioned in my IDP. I agree sometimes it became tiring for me but when you’re working in an environment where everyone is passionate about whatever they are doing then it would definitely become the source of motivation for one and I admit it. My journey at Gojek till now is like riding a roller coaster where I got so many problems to solve and so many challenges to face but I’m really enjoying my work here. Last but not least, I found everyone here very supportive and it means you can ping anyone at any time and they wouldn’t mind and instead always ready to help and that’s one expectation from the team they are working with😇.

Sorry, I forgot to highlight some of the company cultures that show how GoJek cares for its employees. So, during this WFH we have No Meeting Friday which means no meetings🤩, last Friday as a holiday and we even got the last week of December as holidays🥳. We even have monthly Townhalls with our co-CEOs where they discussed how are we doing and what are our plans and most importantly you can directly question them if you’ve any, so the level of transparency we have is incomparable. I really feel privileged of working here and be a part of GoTroops (that’s what we call ourselves here at GoJek)💚.