2024 Year in Review

For me, the overarching theme of 2024 was building infrastructure and reducing life volatility. While that sounds a lot like "settling down," I'd argue I'm going for the opposite: you can only do so many things at a time. If the rest of your life isn't in order, how do you expect to hit ambitious goals? The less random stuff you have to worry about in life, the easier it is to focus on what matters.

Anyway, enough yapping. Here are some highlights from 2024:

• I moved to Crystal City.
• I returned to Google after being away for 5 years.
• I started hosting parties for the tech community in Washington DC.

Recap of the year

Coming from last year's review, on the top of my mind was the need to leave the suburbs, make a notable career shift, and maintain the trajectory from the previous year. It's not much, but each of these was a major project.

Here was my thought process: where I live and where I work can be the two most volatile life variables. What if I could move to a place where I'd never want to leave, and what if I could have my work be less hectic than a tech startup? Then those two variables could effectively run on autopilot. I could focus on everything else.

(As per usual, I'm not going to publish many of the spicier details. But you're always welcome to ask me about them in private.)

Moving

Early in the year, I decided it was time to leave...to go to Manhattan. If I were to move to a city, what better place than New York? It didn't sit quite right with me, but I dismissed it as a matter of expanding my comfort zone.

By a stroke of luck, I had a friend with an apartment in Murray Hill that would be vacant for a few months. I took up his offer to stay there. The plan was to do a month-long NYC trial period and begin touring apartments. Less than an hour after arriving in the city, I realized I didn't want to move to NYC. You see, I don't believe in sunk costs. As a DMV-raised kid, I'm a bit of a clean freak. The place is too filthy. Seeing the average resident on the street was depressing: they just look so dead inside. I was having a bad day, yet I was the happiest person in Manhattan. Three days after arriving, I left the city. Longest month of my life.

The biggest learning from the trip was that I needed "boots on the ground" as soon as possible. I learn fast and can make quick decisions once I gather real experiences. The next candidate for where I'd live was Washington DC/Northern Virginia. So I immediately started going on apartment tours. No time for theorizing.

One day I was having dinner with a bunch of friends at Amazon in Crystal City, and we went on a walk after eating. We passed by a building under construction. It has signs saying that it was leasing, and that piqued my interest. The next day, I toured the place, and I realized that I'd found my HQ2.

Over the next couple of months, I'd move to Crystal City. Staying within the DMV was convenient, as I had plenty of friends to help with the move (and even do the interior design of the place). The place is lovely.

Work

Most of the second quarter of the year was dedicated to interviewing around. I figured it was time to leave Stairwell and return to Big Tech. When I had left Google the first time around, I believed that a person was either a startup guy or a big company guy. My belief is now that everybody has a certain number of "startup tokens" in their life that gets consumed for each startup they work at. I had already burned many such tokens, so it was time for a change of pace. And thus began the LeetCode grind.

The job market in tech has evolved in the past few years. From interviewing around, I've noticed many differences:

• Though the job market isn't what it used to be in the late 2010's, it's not that bad for senior folks. I didn't have much trouble gathering interest and landing interviews. However, I've that's not the case for new grads. I feel bad for them, because I'm not sure what I'd do if I were in their shoes.
• The interviewing "meta" has evolved for the better, in my opinion. Companies now openly say they give "LeetCode-styled" interview questions rather than saying some bullshit about coding questions being around fundamentals. The openness actually means interviewers end up asking better questions.
• Nowadays, FAANG companies require candidates to go through team matching before receiving an offer. Back in the day, it was the other way around. I find it pretty reasonable. But that creates the scenario where candidates who passed the technical interviews can be stuck in "team matching limbo" for an indefinite period of time.
• Despite the changes from COVID, remote work is not sticking as much as people expected. And generally, companies are trying to pull workers back to the tech hubs. However, it seems like hybrid has become the default for tech work.

All things considered, I didn't apply to too many places. My criteria was simple: go to a FAANG or FAANG-adjacent tech company that was either remote or had a DC office. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows: I tend to obsess over problems and fixate on worst-case scenarios. For instance, I temporarily developed a bit of a LeetCode "addiction" that impacted my physical health. And at times, I'd randomly worry about the prospect of having to break my lease.

Though everything panned out perfectly in the end. I returned to Google in their DC office. It was almost 5 years on the dot since I'd originally left. Readjusting to Google was pretty easy. I'm having a great time.

Travel

Travel was relatively light this year. The first half of the year was completely dedicated to moving and interviewing. It's probably better that way: I'm not the biggest fan of traveling, as it breaks a lot of good habits you form from your normal routine.

Besides various trips to NYC and the Bay Area, I took my annual Defcon trip, and I did an Asia trip where I visited China and then went to Thailand for the first time:

• This Defcon, I went as a member of the press. How? I'm a journalist for this blog!
• In China, I went to Beijing, Wuxi, and Shanghai. They all have very different vibes.
• I visited Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand. Like with China, the cities all have different vibes. I also saw live Muay Thai for the first time.

Hobbies and Projects

When it comes to hobbies, this year felt overshadowed by last year. There wasn't anything wrong; 2023 was just such a good year that it was hard to compete with. I started so many new things last year, so this year was mostly continuing what I started. I continued to do improv, albeit less due to other life changes. I got my fourth stripe in BJJ and went on a hiatus due to moving.

Something new that happened was the creation of DC Tech Parties. Washington DC doesn't have the same tech community that SF or NYC have, so I figured there was an opportunity to construct a social center of gravity. So a few DC friends and I began party hosting. As with all new endeavors, you expect it to be a dumpster fire. But instead, we ended up having multiple events with hundreds of people.

On the piano front, I'm building a new repertoire. When I resumed playing last year, I focused on relearning pieces I had previously played. However, I no longer need a teacher; I can self-teach pretty much any song. It's quite liberating: I can teach myself all of the bangers. Earlier in the year, I taught myself Liebestraum No. 3 by Liszt, and after that, I learned Fantaisie-Impromptu by Chopin. Liebestraum is in a good-enough state (video below). While I've learned the entirety of Fantasie-Impromptu, it's not performance-ready quite yet.

What's next?

Well this is embarrassing. I haven't thought that far. The end of the year was filled with one-off social events (including ones that I hosted), so it's pretty easy to get lost in the weeds. It'll be easier to mull things over in January.

I have two initial thoughts that don't offer much closure, unfortunately. First, my life baseline is pretty good, so it's pretty hard to complain. Maybe I should just enjoy the moment. Second, a lot of things require maintenance (BJJ, hosting, etc.) so I can't arbitrarily drop the good things I have in pursuit of shiny new conquests.

This is all a fancy way of saying that I have no clue what I'm doing.

Miscellaneous learnings

• Showing up is literally half the battle. Showing up again is the other half. (This is especially important for me, since almost nothing in life seems to go well on the first try.)
• Respect your social battery. I'm an introvert who can trick people into think I'm extroverted. But if I burn out my social battery, I'll end up paying with my health.
• I'm actually neurotic as fuck whenever I experience cognitive dissonance. I suspect that's the case for most seemingly "emotionless" people.
• Fear of rejection is worse than rejection. I'm pretty good at taking rejection, but I'm bad at putting myself at risk of rejection. Besides, my life is objectively too good to be sad about rejection.
• Rumination is waste of time. You should be focused on the present or the future. Though rumination isn't the same as reflection or introspection. When examining the past, it must be in service of organizing your thoughts or forming a strategy for the future
• Power dynamics and market forces apply to almost everything. And seemingly small tweaks can drastically shift those dynamics. For example, my thought process around apartments were totally different in NoVA compared to Manhattan. In the former, I got to be picky, since there were too many good options. Whereas the question I kept asking myself in Manhattan was "what can I tolerate?"
• Direct strategies usually beat out indirect ones. Boots on the ground. You learn much faster by trying something out, failing, and iterating. On the other hand, making grand plans tend to be a waste of time, since they usually get flushed down the toilet in lieu of real world data.
• Never drink the Kool-Aid. This isn't a new learning, and I've included it again because I struggle to follow this.
• Investing money into your external appearance is worth it. This not just limited to clothing and can include aspects such as your living situation.
• Improv and party hosting are life changing. I'm happier. It's easier to talk to people. It's easier to make other people happy. It took me a year to realize this, and I'm including it because it's such a big deal.