31

Year in Review 

My 30th year started 3 months into winter semester in London as a graduate student and ended 3 months into my new job as senior engineer in Austin. My role and location wasn’t the only significant change. A year ago I had an unmapped career path, uncertain if I’d pivot into software engineering or return to manufacturing. Now, I seem to have advanced past the fork in the road, with the fog around me lifting enough for me to see my career trajectory about a year into the future.

Resolutions for 30 scorecard:

• Engineer
• Graduate with distinction (GPA 3.7+) ✓ 
• Complete an artificial intelligence related capstone project ✓ 
• Land a job that I am interested in and fits my calling (生き甲斐）- in progress
• Find a specialization and map a career path ✓ 
• Adventurer
• Finish a Spartan 10K ✓ 
• Get a scuba diving license ✓ 
• Backpack the Italian Alps ✓ 
• Play as midfielder in majority of soccer games ✓ 
• Responsible adult and partner
• Propose to my partner ✓ 
• Set a marriage date and location ✗ 
• Settle in a city where both of us have good employment opportunities - in progress
• Limit mindless browsing and YouTube to 1hr/weekday, 2hr/weekend - halfway there
• Orator and multilingual
• Pass the HSK 1 and 2 ✓ 
• Be able to read a Japanese newspaper by 32 - behind in progress
• Financially responsible
• Buy another property ✗ 

Review of my 5 identities:

Engineer

I accomplished the two major objectives I set out to accomplish during my gap year. First, I graduated with distinction from my masters in CS. Second, I found what I believe is my career calling. With a whole year devoted to focusing on myself, I was afforded quite a lot of time to introspect, which I did. Here are 3 key insights I gained from this introspection:

1. A full pivot into an unrelated field will result in a career reset. In 2022, I had a foretelling one-on-one meeting with my first manager at Apple, now a director in a different team. I believe he has tremendous skill in steering his career. He’s likened career management to finding and riding waves. He quit Apple when he was my manager to join Tesla as a director in 2018 before Tesla’s stock skyrocketed. Then after the stock skyrocketed and he likely became a multi-millionaire, he returned to Apple as a director to manage a department under a rising VP that would eventually take over all of Apple product operations. When I asked about pursuing a masters in CS, he was supportive of it, but recommended I find a career path that builds on top of my experience. He defined my experience as mechanical, since I had a bachelors in ME and worked in manufacturing. So a career pivot to a design engineer would not be a career reset because it is still within the mechanical realm and the design knowledge can be built on top of manufacturing and mechanical engineering knowledge. Meanwhile he mentioned there is not much crossover between mechanical engineering and computer science. While this insight may seem obvious, I did not fully internalize it until I started applying for jobs in 2024. I was able to find higher paying roles at more interesting companies in manufacturing compared to software engineering roles. I also realized that software engineering can be an unfulfilling job mostly spent reviewing other people’s code and learning existing systems. Not quite as exciting as watching a production line you designed make 600 units an hour. Software engineering focuses too much on solving problems which other people created rather than using your understanding of the natural world to solve real world problems. Entry level software engineering can sometimes feel like an advanced technician's job. However there are many aspects of software engineering which are incredibly useful to know as an engineer, such as knowing how to setup and operate a backend and database.

2. There is no need to force a career pivot if the conditions aren’t right. Graduating with a masters in CS in 2024 was both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that I got to experience the AI wave as it was happening: I participated and won an AI hackathon, and made an AI-based capstone project which would have been impossible to make before 2022. The curse was that the tech-apocalypse was in full force at the time of my graduation. My friend who is a software engineering manager at a prominent startup in the bay area told me he got 12,000 applications for an entry level posting in a week. Of those, 200 he considered were exceptional. On top of this, software engineering salaries were off 30% from their peak. As market conditions were exceptionally bad in the US where I was planning to return for work, I decided I don’t need to rush into a switch. Sometimes landing a great job is about being at the right place at the right time, and an entry level SWE applicant in 2024 fit neither criteria.

3. Space exploration excites me more than the “high-impact” fields I found on 80,000 hours. My dream job as a boy was to become an astronaut. During my time as a graduate student, I went on a sci-fi consumption spree. I watched Dune 2 three times in theaters. I read The Martian, then the  Remembrance of Earths Past trilogy. For the first time, I pondered the possibility of there being sentient life beyond Earth. I binge watched The Expanse, which painted a vivid picture of what life beyond Earth would look like in the next 200 years. I did research on what Mars colonization would actually look like, and why terraforming it would be very hard. I came to the conclusion that a hundred years from now we will be a space-faring civilization, and a thousand years from now we will have traveled to plants outside our solar system. I realized that setting foot on Mars will be recounted like the discovery of the new world in future history books. From there I concluded I want to be a part of the team that puts a man on Mars. That’s how I ended up at SpaceX, which was also my first choice company when I was an undergrad.

Adventurer

My time as a graduate student afforded me the time to hone my physical health.

I ran a Spartan 10K in May of 2024. Then I built off the conditioning for that race a habit of going to the gym once a week and following a training plan. I then upped going to the gym to three times a week when I returned to the US in October and have mostly continued the habit since.

I also continued playing soccer one to two times a week and probably upped my game by playing with higher skilled players in the UK. I also got my open water cert and backpacked the Italian Alps where I made core memories with my friends and proposed to my partner.

Overall 30 was a good year for health and travel. The most valuable takeaway, I feel, was developing the habit of regularly going to the gym. At first I went to the gym to condition for my race, but nowadays I go for the mental benefit and confidence in my looks.

On a somewhat related note, I finally found a hairstyle I like and learned the importance of a hair drying routine. The key finding is that I need to use a diffuser to dry my side hair to prevent it from puffing out. And that hair clay is better for styling my front hair than gel, wax, or pomade.

Responsible Adult and Partner

I proposed to my partner in the Italian Alps at a beautiful location called Lake Braies. My bros from US flew out to explore London and backpack the Alps with me. The weather was impeccable, luckily, even though it had poured the night before. It's nice when things go right.

I could have done a better job planning my wedding while I was still unemployed. At the time of writing, we planned our wedding and have set a date and location with our wedding planner. However this was done after my birthday.

My outlook on Austin so far has been mostly positive. People seem happier here than in the bay or London. There are also many young people and young families. I attribute these two observations to the fact that Austin has a lower cost of living compared to the salary. Currently there is an over supply of apartments, which has made living in Austin affordable despite it being a tech job hub. It seems like a more sensible place to raise a family. The one downside is that my network here is tiny as most of my friends are in California or other countries. Also I hear the summers are hellish, though I like to think my summers spent in Tokyo, Taiwan, and Hong Kong have prepared me for hot and humid summers.

My personal screen time has gone down as a result of my work. I average about 3-5 hours a day on my personal phone these days. However I find that when I come back from work and after I’ve finished my chores I don’t have much mental energy for doing anything other than watching YouTube, anime, or soccer.

Orator and Multilingual

I passed the HSK 1 and 2, but dropped the habit of practicing Chinese shortly afterward. I also try to do Japanese flashcards daily, but I only practice about 1/3 of the time.

Now that I have a somewhat predictable schedule, I will try my best to improve these habits.

Financially Responsible

I did not purchase a house, but I do have a substantial cash pile built up. At the time of this writing, the market is experiencing historic volatility due to Trump's tariff rollout. 

Resolutions for 31

This year, I am revisiting my identities to better reflect my life priorities. I have less time now that I have a job again, so I need to plan effective systems that compound daily habits into identity-defining accomplishments. 

My top 3 identities that I want to focus on this year are:

• High value engineer
• Physical strength
• Orator and multilingual

The next 3 identities are stretch goals. I can drop these to prioritize my top 3 identities, except for my wedding of course:

• Great partner and friend
• Skilled soccer player
• Financially independent

As I prepare to become a father in a couple years (hopefully), I have changed my "financially responsible" identity to "financially independent". I want to be able to make the best decisions for my family with money not being a limiting factor.

I'll be using soccer as a tool to de-stress. I'll dedicate 1 hour to games plus 1 hour to practice every week. Skills training will focus on ball control: wall passing with both feet, juggling, turning, and feint skills.

Here are my resolutions for 31 and how I plan to achieve them:

Identity	Goals (Resolutions)	Process
High value engineer	- Transition or boomerang to Starship, or have a concrete plan to do so - Phase 3 factory intelligence	- Make contacts in Starship, find the right opportunity to transition - Set aside 40% of my time for factory intelligence - Mentor a mentee who will take over my current responsibilities - Code at least once a week, on weekends if necessary
Physically strong	- Bench press my body weight (137lb for 5 reps) - 10x chest to bar pull-ups - 10x clean dips - 1x clean muscle-up - Increase my body weight to 145lbs	- Make a progressive training plan for bench press and muscle up  - Work out 3 days a week - Eat a substantial breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day centered around eggs, avocado, protein shakes - Always keep my fridge and freezer stocked with protein
Orator and multilingual	- Be able to read a Japanese newspaper by 32 - Pass HSK 3	- Anki 30x every day - One JP article every day - 2x Chinese lessons on weekends - No excuses!
Great partner, great friend	- Have a fun and memorable wedding - Make a substantial network of friends in Austin	- Plan our wedding - Answer "yes" by default to any recreational invitation
Skilled soccer player	- Be the top 3 player at any pickup game	- Pickup soccer once a week - 1hr skills training / week (based on training plan)
Financially independent	- $100k in cash flow by 40 - $10M by 40	- Buy another property - Concentrate Robinhood holdings into a few to-be-winners - Put as much money as I can into SpaceX stock through ESPP and non-qualified ESPP - Setup automatic payment of principle $1.5k/month - Setup dollar cost averaging into US/International stocks and crypto