2021 was a busy year. I did a lot of different things, studied a lot of different things, was a worker and then a student. It's hard to categorize this year as good or bad. It was a year with a lot of regrets and a lot of gains. I think I was put in a lot of uncomfortable situations and learned a lot by breaking.

1. Work

From January to September this year, I worked at a company called Moye. It's an early stage startup that provides a fashion pre-order platform. When I joined the company, I was the front-end team lead.

In the beginning, I think I struggled to find out what was wrong with the product and what needed to be improved first from my point of view. I was hesitant to voice my opinion to the technical lead or other team members because I thought, "Is this a real problem? Should I say this?" But as time went on, I was able to clearly communicate my thoughts on problems and improvements. I put a lot of effort into research and validation to make a compelling case.

At the time, the company wanted to rapidly expand the product's capabilities and tasks were always solved in a tight timeframe with limited staff, so I think I focused on how to reduce the complexity of the legacy and make it easier and faster to attach features, as well as how to change the process of working to be more efficient.

I love documentation, so I created a lot of internal documentation: research documentation for new technology introductions, archiving the strange errors I encountered while working on the RN project, and even on my last day, I was writing documentation. I left the company with a multi-page will and testament (...) document that summarized what was left to do and what I needed to focus on.


I think the insights and opinions that were exchanged through documents rather than verbally were quite important and lasted a long time because we were all so busy and frantic, so I think it was helpful for the team to create and share documents autonomously.

I learned a lot, but I also learned a lot. I wanted to give good reviews to my teammates, so I read and studied, and the quality of my code improved a lot. I learned a lot of points that are necessary to run a live service right away. I've gotten a better sense of why fallback UIs, exception handling, and error monitoring are important.

One of the most important assets I've gained from this bumpy ride is the confidence that "I can learn and grow anywhere".

Of course, it's slow and sometimes limiting for a junior to learn on their own in an early startup, so you need a good team and good seniors to make the growth graph steep.

However, I would say that my time at Moye was valuable in that it confirmed my ability to develop myself even in extreme situations where I was chased by milestones without enough team members, including seniors, and was able to make some contributions to the team and the company.

2. Problem Solving(Algorithm)

It was a year of studying algorithms. It's not much, but I think I solved about 300 problems in Baekjun, Litcode, and Programmer throughout the year. I did a little bit while working, and even after I went back to school, I solved quite difficult algorithmic problems and increased my PS skills a lot.

I always had a thirst for CS and algorithms, and I thought that the period before graduation was the last time I could study PS, so I tried to solve algorithmic problems steadily this year.

Originally, I was studying algorithms with the intention of applying for public exams at large companies such as Kakao Cote, but recently, the criteria for job hunting has changed a bit, so I've been solving coding problems mainly by practicing live coding.

PS solving is similar to playing a strategy game like StarCraft, where you have to make a clear solution with good judgment within a limited time, and one wrong decision during the problem solving process can make the problem unsolvable. The physicality of maintaining a high level of concentration for a few minutes or hours is also quite important. Practicing solving specific problems within a limited time has also helped me progress in my development projects.

I think one of the subtle benefits of studying PS is that you get a better understanding of the language you're using, and solving problems in JS has helped me practice a lot of methods and syntax that I don't often use in production development.

3. Returning to school and graduating

In September, I went back to school as a full-time student because I had too many credits left over to juggle work and school. I've been slacking off and procrastinating on things I should have been doing... But this semester has brought me one step closer to graduation.

Now that I realize that my major, English Literature, has little to do with my work in development, I feel like I can go through school with a lighter heart. I chose my major because I love the humanities and writing, but I didn't want to stress about my grades because I didn't think that getting good grades meant that I understood the humanities, the world, or other people.

So this semester, I actually liked English Literature more because I didn't care about the grades. However, towards the end of the semester, I was stressed because I had to study, and I had less and less time to develop, so I almost threw the final (...) But it was still a good time to reflect on why I like English Literature.

I've been in college for almost seven years now... I can't wait to become a college graduate this year.

4. maintain personal projects

Since September 2021, I've been working on version 2.0 of the foreign university end-of-term clock. I'm building it from scratch, starting with a boilerplate configuration. The Vue code I wrote two years ago is now code I'm embarrassed to show anywhere. Before I graduate, I have a desire to take what I've learned so far and make a good project in the direction I think is ideal, even if it takes some time. I also wonder if this is the last time I'll be able to work on a project at my leisure and at my own pace, since I'll have to consider milestones and my own productivity once I join a company... I'm also thinking about it.

We also recently moved our case summary Twitterbot EC2 server to Firebase serverless. The main reason was that we didn't have a CI/CD pipeline in place, so it was hard to modify the code, deploy it, and manage it, and the bill was $30,000 a month for almost a year (...) On the client side, we introduced SSR to dynamically attach thumbnails to reduce screen loading time, and improved the UI to be more mobile-friendly since most of the service's traffic is mobile.

We've been maintaining these two projects for almost two years now. We have about 900 users, including 300 followers of the Twitter bot and 600 users of the Bell Clock. I don't start a project because I want to practice a certain technology, but I learn a lot by maintaining my personal projects as I gradually figure out the right technology for the service. I think it's possible because we have a small but substantial number of users, and I'm thinking a lot about improving the project by thinking user-centeredly while collecting feedback from users.

This year, I also received emails like this one, which warmed my heart. I get a lot of satisfaction and happiness from giving users a good experience and value with good services. Thank you so much to all the users of Jonggangclock and CaseYojiBot and please feel free to give us feedback at !!!!

5. weekly technology trends


In January 2021, we started a technical session study. The name of the study is Weekly Tech Trends. The name reflects the retro sensibility...

Every Sunday morning, 8 people gather to listen to 2 technical presentations. We started with 4 people and it's grown to this point. Each week, we have junior frontline developers from various backgrounds like blockchain, machine learning, devops, etc. as well as web technologies like frontend and backend.

My favorite sessions were about on-device machine learning, DeFi, and ML Ops, which were all very new to me. It was inspiring to learn new things technically and helped me keep up with the latest trends in technology.

I was the original proponent of the study and organized the very first meetup. Actually, I started the study just to meet people and see my friends' faces once a week, even if nothing much happened (...) But now we've already had over 70 tech sessions, and we're collaborating with a recruitment platform to organize career content, so it's become bigger than I thought. It's almost as big as the name of the study, and I'm thrilled.

I've had working developers reach out to me after seeing the session materials, and I'm planning to host a small conference with my programming club this year. I love sharing my skills, so I hope to continue to organize good sessions and hopefully become a speaker at a larger conference in the near future. I think it's one of the best things I've done this year.

6. Job.

From the end of last year until now, I've been job hunting in earnest. I've been refactoring my portfolio, solving coding problems, organizing my experience, and polishing my resume.

I keep asking myself the question, "What do I want in a job?" I'm constantly exploring myself, whether I want a big salary, stock options, or what kind of work environment or company culture would be a good fit for me. I'm starting to have a clearer sense of direction and rationale for where I want to go.

When I first started developing, I think I had a vague idea that I should go to Naver or Kakao, but after experiencing startups and meeting and talking to many current developers, I realized that working in a good team that is growing steadily and well rather than just the size of the company can be more rewarding in terms of personal growth and even financially.

So it's a really tough decision, but I'm going to keep thinking about it and try to have good luck in my job search this year.

7. income and spending

After leaving my job in September this year, I became a student again and lost my source of income (...) I was pretending to be poor by telling people that I had to spend only 20,000 won a day. I had tasted money a lot and suddenly I had to live frugally, which made me sullen. Still, I wanted to focus on my studies in the second half of 2021, so I didn't work and continued to study and develop.

Since the spring of 2020, I've been trying to eat one meal a day of simply cooked natural food. When I was in the corporate world, I tend to relieve stress by eating, and it was a bit difficult to stick to it because of my work schedule. Now that I'm back to eating whole foods, I feel lighter, and it saves me money because I don't have to buy them. Right now, all I have in my fridge is boiled sweet potatoes, eggs, and cherry tomatoes.

I didn't have enough money (...) so I spent less, unlike last year when I bought a lot of things. I hardly bought any clothes. I think the situation was more serious than last year, so I couldn't move around much, so I didn't have many things I wanted to buy.

8. Productivity

In between jobs, I used to wake up at 7:30am and arrive at work around 9am. I'm usually an early riser, so I like to start my day early.

However, after I went back to school, I started working more and more on personal projects with open-ended assignments and flexible schedules, so I ended up sleeping later and later, which completely changed my rhythm, and my overall productivity suffered. I can't wait to get back to a morning routine.

But if I continue to stay up late, I'll have to wake up early some days to get my rhythm back into the morning, and I won't be able to do that well because I'll be sacrificing time to work on tasks. I'm living in a vicious cycle...

I've tried many ways to ensure productivity and manage my tasks. I've installed, subscribed to, uninstalled, and unsubscribed from so many different productivity apps. Lately, I've gone back to writing by hand to manage my tasks in an app.

9.

In 2022, I will have lived in Imun-dong, near my school, for five years. It was the first neighborhood I lived in when I moved to Seoul from the provinces, so I'm very attached to it. Recently, I feel that the shops I used to go to and the scenery I used to see are getting old, but it has been a good home for me in 2021. It's also a neighborhood where I can be with my girlfriend, who is very busy attending graduate school, so I decided to continue living here in 2021, and we haven't moved out yet. I probably won't move until my boyfriend graduates.

Soon-sim, who I met in this neighborhood, is growing up well. She's already over a year old, and I'm so grateful that she's doing so well.

10. What I want to do in 2022

I had a lot of goals last year, and I didn't accomplish them all (...), so this year I've narrowed it down to a few that are feasible.

• Find a job, work hard: I want to be a good team member in a good team, and I think I'll be working in 3-4 months at the latest.
• Graduate: I have one night class and a short thesis left, and I want to finish it successfully while working.
• Learn something new: I'd like to learn Rust or Go as a new programming language. I've been working on serverless this time, and I'm interested in serverless architecture, so I'd like to learn more about it. I'd like to be a developer who can make the right prescription for the service when it comes to infrastructure.
• Wake up well in the morning: I want to turn my life pattern around as soon as possible.
• Read books that are not related to development: I was able to read a lot of humanities books while going to school last semester and was quite happy. I want to continue reading books that are not related to development.

Closing remarks

A lot happened in 2021, and I feel like I lived a pretty good life. 2022 is a year where a lot of what I've been doing will come to fruition. I want to think well, move quickly, and make it a year of good results.

Thanks to my colleagues at Moye, my study group at Weekly Tech Trends, and many other acquaintances and friends who did a lot of things with me in 2021, I was able to have a fulfilling and fun year. I am very grateful to them. Last but not least, I would like to thank my girlfriend for always being there and supporting me. I hope 2022 will be a happier and more fulfilling year.