Self Review

2023 was the year we completed the transition project for our online commerce market order/payment system. It took a total of three years. As a result, all the feedback from my colleagues was positive. Reflecting on the hard work, I also found myself saying only good things.

The top keywords in my peer reviews were passion, collaboration/contribution, and sharing/feedback. Here are some excerpts from my colleagues' feedback. Although I feel a bit embarrassed by the high praise, it feels good to be recognized for my hard work.

colleagues feedback

• Even when tasks might be tedious, you spare no effort in ensuring that your colleagues fully understand and acquire the necessary knowledge during work sharing. Thanks to this, we were able to disseminate essential project maintenance knowledge more quickly across various relevant departments.

• You structurally understand the parts of the project that need discussion and actively share this information with the team.

• Your proactive communication style helps tasks that could potentially be blocked to proceed faster than expected.

• Your exemplary attitude and broad activity are a great asset to the team. Leading from the front inspires team members significantly, and your ability to find solutions when problems arise is outstanding. Your fearless approach to challenges contributes greatly to the team's achievements. Your diverse roles, based on extensive activity, enhance our team's versatility.

• It is impressive how you voluntarily choose and complete tasks that others find difficult to tackle.

Areas for Improvement

In 2023, I worked harder and more proactively than anyone else, but once the transition was complete, I quickly felt exhausted, both physically and mentally, like someone crossing the finish line. So, I used all my annual leave in December and rested for three weeks, but even after returning, I didn't fully recover.

In January of this year, an issue with the order system occurred due to the sale of merchandise by a major streamer. I felt responsible and did my best with the follow-up actions. However, overall, my sense of responsibility was somewhat lacking. Although I resolved to do my best until the end, I didn't actually follow through.

Last year, if I encountered an issue I couldn't resolve, I would contact stakeholders directly to try to solve it, and if that didn't work, I would quickly inform my leader to ask for help. This year, however, I waited until the other party contacted me.

Looking back now, by the end of last year, my energy was already depleted, and I was just holding on with the sole focus of completing the new order system transition. During work hours, I often kept the monitoring system running, refreshing the screen every five seconds, anxiously standing guard. That process was the hardest part. Watching the screen flicker continuously made me feel like I was going to throw up. After spending a couple of months like that, my physical and mental strength deteriorated, and my sense of responsibility crumbled easily once the transition was over.

However, after completing the follow-up actions for the January order system issue, I had another chance to be evaluated. The streamer decided to do an additional sale in April, and that monitoring task was my last. Fortunately, this time the sale proceeded smoothly and stably.

New Challenge

I am moving to the Storage Platform team to develop an object storage service (similar to AWS S3). Previously, in this task force, I collaborated with Naver Financial Corporation, and moving forward, I will be working with Naver Cloud Corporation.

The Storage Platform team develops in golang and is closely involved with low-level development like file systems. While many things are unfamiliar, including the programming language, I feel confident that I can adapt well. My successful experience in previous projects gives me this confidence.

Many people have asked why I am moving to Storage Platform team. Since 2022, I have been attending graduate school. I have taken courses in distributed systems, Linux OS, file systems, and databases, and I enjoyed studying computer science through these classes.

Unlike my undergraduate years, having more development experience made it easier and more enjoyable to understand the course material. I asked my professors many questions, so much so that a friend in my classes jokingly called me Hermione. I paid $4,500 per semester, so it felt like a waste to just attend classes without fully engaging. Additionally, I knew it would be difficult to have such opportunities to ask professors questions later on.

Previously, the Storage Platform team felt like a wall, but taking these graduate courses gave me the courage to make the move. While I may not immediately handle core tasks, I dream of a day when, with consistent effort, I can contribute to file system development.