A Second-Year Developer’s — The Retrospective on 2022

Hello. I’m Yongtae, a second-year backend engineer. 2022 was a meaningful year filled with change and growth: project leadership, a job change, a new domain and language, starting a relationship, and establishing new routines. Here’s a brief retrospective to share what I learned.

Career

In Q1 at UniqueGood Company, I led a voting system project from planning to deployment, my first time owning a project end-to-end. It launched successfully and saw solid usage, which made it especially meaningful.

In Q2, I focused on job hunting — writing resumes, taking coding tests, and interviewing multiple times.

In Q3, I joined Ably. After onboarding, I adapted to a new domain and a new programming language, and then moved into production work.

In Q4, I worked on multiple delivery-experience improvements, quickly prototyping and shipping several experimental features to reduce friction for users.

Recommendations based on my experience:

• UniqueGood Company: Great for developers who want to drive a product in a psychologically safe environment and grow alongside excellent senior engineers. You’ll think deeply about delivery speed, code quality, clean architecture, and development processes.
• Ably: Great for developers eager to pour energy into a fast-growing product. You’ll experience high traffic in style commerce and learn how to build quickly in a legacy-heavy environment.

If you’re interested in either company, feel free to reach out. I’m happy to share more details and help where I can.

Productivity

In the first half, I started using Notion as my “second brain.” I now record journals, routines, experiences, knowledge, thoughts, and memories there — it practically replaces my memory for many things.

In the second half, I began a Zettelkasten system with Obsidian. It’s still early, but I’m slowly building a richer box of notes as I capture more knowledge.

I also established a routine and kept it for the entire year. Sticking to it helped me protect the fundamentals that drive daily productivity, especially sleep and exercise. Here’s the routine I maintained:

• Weekdays: wake 5:00 / work 6:00 / lunch 13:00 / leave work 18:00 / workout 19:00 / dinner 20:00 / shower 21:00 / sleep 22:00
• Saturdays: personal time
• Sundays: coffee chats with new friends or personal maintenance time

2023

There were both happy and difficult moments, but looking back, 2022 was fulfilling. Many things began this year, and I’m moving forward toward experiences that will make me stronger and more well-rounded in the year to come.

I’m excited for 2023. Thanks for reading, wishing you a wonderful new year.