No word describes this year's version of me better than 'superposition state'. In quantum systems, superposition refers to the property where particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously, like being both a particle and a wave—an uncertain state that possesses characteristics of both rather than being confined to a single state. Like a particle in the quantum world, I want to evaluate this year as one where I struggled within multiple superimposed states simultaneously.
With three identities—a software engineer, an undergraduate student who hasn't graduated yet, and a technical research personnel fulfilling military service—I found myself in ambiguous situations multiple times. In the second half of the year, after completing my military service and returning to school for the first time in three years, I commuted weekly between Seoul and Daejeon, balancing work and studies by utilizing both office attendance and remote work.
Looking back through my packed calendar, this year was another busy one filled with various attempts and endeavors within the given time. Nevertheless, when I reflect on this year, there's a lingering bitterness because it was a year where I felt more stagnation than the sense of achievement I had aimed for. There were certainly good aspects and accomplishments I achieved. However, reflection isn't about boasting. Setting aside the desire to write only positive things, I want to write down my honest and straightforward thoughts as I look back on the past year at year's end.
A Brief Look Back at the Year: What Did I Do?
In January this year, I moved from Benefit Silo, where I had worked for a year, to the Ads Platform Team. Having worked in a silo organization that rapidly developed and experimented with B2C products for a year, I requested a move to a team that serves as an advertising platform (while the boundary between team and silo at Toss has become much more blurred than before, they differ in that experimental organizations do 0 to 1 work, while teams play a role in advancing relatively stable products from 1 to 100) because I wanted to experience a complete cycle of the advertising domain on the B2B side. As a foundational team that manages and integrates advertising products across various teams rather than dealing with a single product deeply, I was able to solve more challenging problems while simultaneously expanding both technical depth and breadth. The timing was also appropriate because Toss, which had grown through a mobile-based super app strategy, began focusing much more on business users (B2B) this year, so I was able to join at the right time and contribute. While developing Toss Ads, I was able to collaborate with marketing and sales teams at a higher level to understand advertiser needs and work with great team members. Although there were several other options during the organizational restructuring in the first half of the year, moving to the Ads Platform Team was a good decision in many ways.
When I joined in December 2022, Toss had just entered the advertising business centered around benefits tabs and app tech, and as a latecomer in the advertising industry, had the difficult mission of growing revenue without harming user experience. Internally, we also had to convince others about why we needed to do 'advertising'. Two years later, with monthly revenue of 140+ billion won and growth of over 200%, the advertising domain has grown to become one responsible for Toss's revenue [1/2]. Personally, it was a time when I could learn AdTech knowledge and concepts related to advertising platforms (e.g. targeting, bidding, budget, creative) and develop interest in this market while advancing the product.
Superposition State
As mentioned in the introduction, I spent the first half between three identities, and in the second half, I lived in a superposition state geographically, traveling between Seoul and Daejeon. Thinking about why I found myself in such a complex state, two factors come to mind.
First was the desire to use limited time as valuably as possible. With the intention of maximizing life opportunities, I wanted to maintain my identity as an undergraduate student in addition to my role as a working professional, keeping various possibilities open. The more I worked, the more I felt that a graduation certificate didn't hold much meaning for me at this point. If bigger opportunities were offered right now, I would consider taking another leave of absence and postponing graduation. At this young and passionate point in time, I tried to explore various possibilities and gain broader experience and learning.
Second was fear of uncertainty. In situations with high uncertainty, rather than settling into a single identity, I wanted to create a safety net to prepare for future changes by maintaining both engineer and student identities. While others might see me as already building my career well, I had thoughts about wanting to distribute the risks that could arise from choosing a single path.
I expected to create synergistic effects by strategically utilizing my chosen superposition state and made efforts to maximize this. I sought to gain broad perspective and insights that would be difficult to obtain when focusing on just one thing. While listening to lectures in classrooms, I often reconsidered things I had taken for granted while developing in the office, and gained new insights through interactions with students from diverse backgrounds (who were more fresh and young). I also thought deeply about efficiency, priority setting, and the core goals I should pursue.
Moreover, maintaining such a superimposed life required effective management of limited time. For example, during the four hours spent traveling between Seoul and Daejeon every week, I tried to use time efficiently by listening to audiobooks or podcasts while thinking. (As an aside, long-distance travel itself wasn't a big difficulty. I enjoy driving, and traveling during non-congested hours was actually less burdensome in terms of time and physical energy than commuting within Seoul by public transportation. Thanks to this, my activity radius expanded to 150km, which might serve as a buildup for preparing for a wider activity radius in the US in the future)
However, this superimposed life brought confusion and exhaustion. Just as quantum mechanical superposition states collapse into a single state when observed, I too had to choose one among multiple roles, but the process didn't work in my favor. At work, I couldn't dedicate 100% of my resources or overperform, and at school, I often neglected classes due to work or started exam preparation only the day before. While I had originally decided to pursue both with the mindset of 'selective focus' for 'graduation requirement acquisition' and continuing my current work, I realized that the parallel pursuit itself wasn't true focus. In the end, while I somehow managed to finish one semester, I didn't achieve the results I expected in both areas, leaving lingering regret.
Additionally, the lifestyle of traveling between Seoul and Daejeon brought many constraints to relationships and life patterns. While working and looking forward to returning to university after four years, recalling college memories, I felt a sense of emptiness on campus, as if I was merely attending classes briefly while balancing studies and work. My connections in Daejeon had faded during four years of Seoul life, and the tight schedule of about three days per week in Daejeon was woefully insufficient to build new relationships with good people. This lifestyle pattern added loneliness, and I ended up emptying my Daejeon room and coming back to Seoul with the end of the semester in December, finishing the year as if escaping.
In his book "The ONE Thing," Gary Keller says that the key is focusing on one most important thing rather than trying to do multiple things well simultaneously. He argues that multitasking reduces efficiency and disperses energy, and that people who achieve the best results always focus on just one thing at a time. This year was when I felt this point more acutely. Going forward, instead of superimposed identities, I intend to focus on what's most important to me to achieve true results and satisfaction. While this year's experience was certainly a valuable learning opportunity, it's now time to establish a simpler and clearer direction in life.
On Work
Domain Knowledge & FE
As an engineer aiming for entrepreneurship, there's an ongoing dilemma I've always had. Should I build deep technical capabilities as an engineer with specialty, or should I contribute broadly as a Product Engineer with a wide perspective, understanding everything from product planning, design, development, to operations? This dilemma stems from subtle differences between current and future goals. I decided to do frontend development utilizing my aptitude and interests in technology and art, and while I really enjoy doing this work, I wanted to build product-level and domain knowledge if I ultimately want to become someone who does business. If I had wanted to extremely leverage the former, I would have chosen to be a UX Engineer at work, implementing in-house design system libraries at the UI level and working more closely with interaction designers (this was one of the options during the January organizational move), but I chose to work as a Frontend Developer on a team where I could actually handle and grow products because I still wanted to handle and grow products.
However, Frontend Engineers find it harder to acquire deep domain knowledge compared to Backend Engineers and Data Engineers. Due to the nature of the role focusing on user experience and interfaces, there's a trap of not thinking deeply about domain knowledge when focusing on these areas and solving related problems. This connects with a question that became controversial on Twitter in the past: "Why are there more CTOs with Backend developer backgrounds?" There's a clear difference in the areas that FE and BE each focus on. Unlike BE, which handles areas directly related to domain knowledge such as data processing, business logic, and system design, focusing on scalability, reliability, and availability to draw the big picture, FE designs systems with greater attention to UI/UX design, performance, and accessibility based on user-centric thinking, thus requiring technical expertise in user experience rather than depth of domain knowledge. Therefore, this isn't about ranking different roles based on whether they deal deeply with domain knowledge or not. To use an analogy, it's like the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics. Furthermore, it's not that FE truly cannot build domain knowledge. Recognizing this tendency, one should continue communicating and learning with DAs or PO/PMs to broaden domain understanding while simultaneously providing insights at a higher level.
As I've been doing, I want to more consciously check product metrics and build domain knowledge. And as a product-level engineer, I'll consciously practice systematic thinking and drawing the big picture, contemplating my direction at several crossroads that will come up. So that I can develop a balanced perspective that deepens technical skills while understanding products and business overall.
— (2025.01.05) I personally prefer to be called a Product Engineer or Interaction Developer rather than a Frontend Developer.
AI
Also, the cause that brought the most contemplation and change related to 'work' this year seems to have been AI.
This year, AI's development pace was faster than ever before. As someone who actually used ChatGPT in academics and work and benefited greatly from it, the speed of development in results is frightening. Various AI-powered services are emerging, and forecasts suggest that AGI achievement is not far off. Amid these changes, I expanded my thinking range as follows:
- Frontend Developer & AI: How will the role of 'frontend developer' change and to what extent can it be replaced?
- Software Engineer & AI: What will 'developers' do?
- Human & AI: Will there be work left for 'humans'?
This was a year when I asked myself many fundamental questions about the future that AI will bring, the role of humans, and the essence of labor.
To be honest, I'm not optimistic about the development ecosystem that AI will transform. I think it will bring disruptive changes not only to developers but across industries. While some treat AI like previous no-code tools—as merely a tool that can improve developer productivity—I'm very wary of such perspectives. Arguments like "We've always found answers and things will be fine" are overly optimistic views that underestimate the speed of AI development.
AI is likely to bring a massive paradigm shift beyond simple technological progress. This means an era where only those who properly prepare according to trends, like during the early introduction of smartphones, can achieve great results. There's also a high possibility of falling behind if you miss the wave of change. For example, as devices like Rabbit R1 and Humane (though evaluated as failures, I think they were ahead of their time) have shown, it seems like a time to fundamentally reconsider interfaces and interaction methods with AI. Beyond simple on-screen design, designing and proposing interfaces of various modalities might become the new normal for client-side interface development.
This past year was a time of deep contemplation and intense preparation for these changes. However, now it's time to move beyond simple preparation to create concrete execution plans and actions. Next year, I resolve to clarify my unique role and direction within this massive flow and make it a year of putting these into practice.
Fragmentary Thoughts
- What I felt while having coffee chats with startup CEOs who establish US-based corporations or target the US market is that America is definitely a different dimension in terms of opportunity size and speed. Small starts could directly lead to global-scale results, with very large upside potential. It's easier to secure possibilities and resources to realize visions. I want to more actively seek opportunities to expand to the US. The turbulent domestic situation strengthened these thoughts. Originally, I had planned to travel to New York from Christmas to New Year's to directly experience and interact with locals, but due to personal circumstances, I couldn't go this time. I should prepare step by step and challenge myself at the right time.
- In the second half, I spent a lot of time studying investing. I might have studied it more than schoolwork. The trigger was a big loss I suffered from being too greedy with the profits I was lucky to make during the fluctuating political situation a few weeks before the US election. While I don't have greed for wealth (I believe wealth is not a goal but something that naturally follows when you live earnestly), the momentary big loss shook my mind. With the thought of recovering more than the principal, I began earnestly exploring by reading macro trends and adding various chart indicators. Through losing a lot and earning some as a novice investor, I learned many things on my own—how to read charts, macro political situations and market flows, principles of derivative products, and even human psychology. It might sound funny, but I felt like I learned some truths of life through the process of investing with ups and downs. The charm and attraction of finance seems to be that you can directly connect what you learn to monetary rewards.
- But I think I was a bit too immersed. Since my biggest asset is myself, let me invest in myself.
- If I were to work in a domain other than advertising that I'm currently doing? The two fields I'm most interested in right now are finance and healthcare. When I eventually want to do work that solves problems I've defined in the world (= entrepreneurship), I think I'll try to find problems in these two domains.
- finance: A domain where my interest naturally increased while doing a lot of stock/coin trading in the second half. The finance I'm talking about includes not only traditional finance but also crypto finance, and while I'm not studying as hard as at my previous job, I'm still keeping an eye on related technologies and market trends.
- healthcare: Through acquaintances working in the medical field, I've long known that many legacy systems still exist in the medical industry. Traditional medical systems seemed to have much room for improvement through digital & AI transformation. I've worked on several healthcare projects in the past and am currently working on a new related project.
- I seem to have 'cognitive busyness'. I have too many thoughts, making it difficult to focus on one thing. With high goals on top of this, I become harsh on myself and often get overwhelmed and tired faster than expected. When consciously focusing on one thing, let me reduce transitions and divergence to other thoughts. Next year, I should develop the habit of efficiently immersing myself in one task.
- This year I went to Sydney in February, Hong Kong in April, and Turkey in July. Next year, after finishing a Sapporo trip in January, I plan to focus more on finishing my studies in the first half. Travel probably won't be possible until the second half. For my next trip, rather than simple tourism, I want to have a deeper experience with one special theme (e.g. Silicon Valley IT company tour, Japanese architecture trip, volunteer work/projects in developing countries, etc.).
- Around summer this year, thanks to a close junior colleague and former colleague, I worked out almost five days a week as a post-work routine near Gangnam Station, building up my body and becoming much healthier. Although I deflated like a rubber balloon after losing leisure time from returning to school in fall and not exercising... Since I felt the fun of fitness for the first time in my life, I should continue steadily in the future.
Looking Ahead to 2025
I have expectations that next year will be a time when this superposition state is somewhat organized, and various constraints and uncertainties that existed for me will be resolved. Since the superposition state that existed until this year has ended, I hope that next year, instead of trying to do multiple things well simultaneously, it can be a time to focus on one most important thing and make an impact.