✅ Liked — What I Liked
2024 brought significant changes to my life. I finished my working holiday in the UK and returned to Korea while adapting to an unfamiliar environment, continuing to learn, and meeting people from many cultures. It was an opportunity to grow not only as a developer but also as an individual.
Living with roommates from Ecuador, Romania, Ireland, and Japan was one of the most valuable parts of the year. Sharing a home with people from different countries taught me how to understand and respect each person’s culture.
Working at a local restaurant let me experience the UK’s practical and systematic work culture directly. London is home to people from many backgrounds, so every staff member had to know the allergy information for every menu item accurately. Because it was directly related to customers’ health, the system was managed strictly. Each person’s role was also clearly defined. In Korea, people often take on several roles flexibly, while in the UK it was common for each person to carry out only the work assigned to them. As a result, the workflow and management were systematic.
The UK’s relaxed culture was also interesting. At first, frequent train delays and a slower pace of work felt frustrating, but over time I came to understand it as a way of using time efficiently rather than always rushing. The culture of separating work hours from personal time made me think of work-life balance as an important value.
Traveling through Europe and encountering the different character of each place was another good part of the year. In January, I visited Porto and Lisbon in warm Portugal. The sunset from Porto’s hills and the atmosphere of the small city are still vivid to me, and its food and relaxed mood made me want to return. In August, I saw Gaudi’s architecture in Barcelona and was more impressed than I expected. I had not been very interested in architecture, but seeing and studying the buildings in person made me wonder how they had been created. Mallorca’s blue sea and natural beauty were so beautiful that I could forget the heat. The beaches were special enough to remain my “beach of a lifetime,” and the food and experiences there remain unforgettable memories.
💡 Learned — What I Learned
I also learned by running and planning study groups. I operated a frontend article study group for one year, until August 2024, where we read articles and discussed different topics each week. Talking about what we read helped me remember it and use it when I needed it. In another study group, I learned how to implement UI components such as Shadcn UI and integrate them into a design system. Documenting components with Storybook taught me the importance of a well-designed design system. After returning to Korea, I created a frontend developer retrospective study group where I organized what I studied each week and shared it with other developers. It helped me grow and gave me a chance to learn from other people’s experiences.
While in the UK, I also attended various developer events. London had an active tech community, with new meetups and conferences every week. JS Monthly introduced me to current JavaScript trends and new technologies. React Advanced London gave me practical insights into React strategies and performance optimization. At London.JS and CITYJS, I heard directly how London companies used JavaScript-related technologies in practice. ReactJS Girls gave me a special opportunity to share perspectives and experiences with women developers. London GraphQL introduced real-world examples of GraphQL in large-scale services, including the problems teams faced and how they solved them.
These community activities gave me more than technical knowledge. I learned how developers from different backgrounds think and got to understand the local development culture. British developers’ views on work-life balance and their attitude toward new technologies also gave me a lot to consider.
Over the past year, I grew as a frontend developer by applying different technology stacks to real projects. Working with tRPC, Storybook, Turborepo, Next.js 14, and other technologies helped me understand not only the tools themselves but also their background, strengths, and trade-offs. My experience introducing FSD (Feature-Sliced Design) was especially memorable. The new structure was difficult to adapt to at first, but over time I felt its benefit in managing code more systematically.
The biggest thing I learned during that year of studying was how to learn. At first, I focused on picking up new technologies quickly, but gradually I came to value the fundamentals more. Reading official documentation carefully, applying what I read, and then sharing and discussing it with other developers worked best for me. AI tools such as Perplexity, Cursor, and ChatGPT were useful, but I also learned that relying on them too heavily could be harmful.
🧩 Lacked — What I Still Need to Examine
My job search in the UK was much harder than I expected. I experienced many resume rejections and ran into several difficulties even in the interviews I managed to secure. It was difficult to explain technical concepts or complex algorithms logically in English when unexpected questions came up. Some of those topics were difficult even in Korean, and expressing them in English led to many moments when I could not communicate smoothly with the interviewer.
Live coding tests were difficult because I had to solve the problem while explaining my process in English. Performing the coding and real-time communication at the same time was much harder than expected. I learned that communication ability matters as much as the ability to solve a problem.
Having less than one year left on my visa was another major barrier. Interviewers repeatedly asked about the visa period regardless of my technical ability, and this factor outside my control worked against me in the hiring process. I had built theoretical knowledge, but I did not have enough project portfolio work to demonstrate it. I still need to strengthen my portfolio because I was not able to show my learning and experience through concrete results.
Although I did not get the employment result I wanted, I tried to address my weak points through networking and feedback, and meeting different people gave me new perspectives. This experience, including the failures and frustration, made the preparation I need clearer. After returning to Korea, I judged that I at least had an environment where I could focus on job searching, which gave me a way to prepare again based on the challenges I faced in the UK.
🌱 Longed for — What I Want to Do in 2025
In 2025, I plan to prepare for new challenges with clearer goals. I want to work toward employment while focusing on fundamental growth instead of continuously chasing new technologies.
First, I will strengthen my fundamentals in JavaScript and React. Rather than focusing on flashy technology stacks, I will understand core principles and build problem-solving ability from them. I also want to write one technical blog post each week and contribute to open source, using the process to share knowledge and understand it more deeply. I plan to challenge myself with mentoring so I can grow with other developers and discover and fill my own gaps.
I plan to find a frontend development position, share knowledge through my blog, improve the performance of my personal projects, and build sustainable services. I also want to keep running study groups and continue learning and networking. My direction for 2025 is to grow not only as a frontend developer but also as a balanced developer with broad development knowledge.
📝 Lined — A Book and Lectures I Remember
The book “Modern React Deep Dive” and several lectures about frontend testing gave me new perspectives on development beyond being simple learning materials. They also reinforced my sense that checking fundamentals, applying them directly, and sharing them with other developers stays with me longer than learning a technology quickly.