Meeting Three Korean Developers in Berlin ②
Cover photo source = fotolia.com
About getting to Berlin, and the startup and developer culture experienced in Europe
What is it like to work as a Korean developer in Europe? We met three Korean developers who are active in the fintech sector in Berlin, Germany, to hear their stories. The protagonists are Gwangtaek An, a Senior Data Engineer at European insurtech leader Element Insurance AG; Junseok Oh, a Payment Engineer at Delivery Hero SE (which acquired Korea’s Baedal Minjok); and Sujin Lee, a Junior Developer at tax filing mobile app Taxfix GmbH.
※ Continued from [European Startup Chronicles] Meeting Three Korean Developers in Berlin ①.
What is it like to work as a developer in Europe? We met three Korean developers active in the fintech sector in Berlin, Germany, to hear their stories. Photo = fotolia.com
What is it like to work as a developer in Europe? We met three Korean developers active in the fintech sector in Berlin, Germany, to hear their stories.
- In a way, it feels like a battle against the bureaucratic European administrative system. The “fast-paced culture” you already experienced in Korea probably helps in driving innovation at a startup.
Gwangtaek An (An): Working in Berlin as a developer, there was a truly shocking piece of news. In 2019, the computer system of the Berlin Federal Court was infected with a Trojan horse virus, forcing them to urgently handle operations using typewriters and fax machines. This happened because the Berlin Court was still using the ‘Windows 95’ operating system at the time. Despite experts’ warnings that updates were recommended and that the system was vulnerable to viruses, they ignored them until the disaster occurred. This incident remains a symbolic event showing the conservative nature of German bureaucracy. On the bright side, it made me realize how much work there is for software engineers to do here.
Junseok Oh (Oh): I once read news that a local bank in Japan used floppy disks until 2020. In comparison, Korea changes incredibly fast. I believe there will be just as many things we can do.
- Did you have prior knowledge of your company’s business domain? How much does a developer need to understand the industry?
An: I worked at game developer Neowiz, then moved to Nexon before coming to Berlin. Later, I transferred to Rakuten Deutschland, a Japanese e-commerce company. In a way, I challenged myself with a new field every time I changed jobs. When I joined Element, I didn’t have much prior knowledge of insurance. I studied hard during my probation period. However, because the fundamental tasks of a developer do not differ greatly from company to company, I had no major difficulties. Nonetheless, to perform data analysis and build pipelines, you must understand the business and how products are built, so I studied insurance a lot. Usually, every single product has a complex algorithm. To implement this, understanding the business is essential. In the beginning, there were many manual operations, but lately, we are doing a lot of work to transition them to data science-based systems.
Gwangtaek An, Senior Data Engineer at Berlin insurtech startup Element. Photo = Gwangtaek An
- Is there any educational support provided by the company?
An: There is a curriculum. There is an educational process, and every team has its own sessions. If you want, you can ask your manager or teammates to apply for insurance-related workshops. Rakuten, my previous workplace, also had educational programs, providing opportunities to receive training or mentoring if you were interested in a specific position. In the case of Rakuten Germany, the company had offices in both Bamberg and Berlin, allowing employees to work remotely and receive training while traveling between the two offices. If you want to receive specific training or need someone to lead a project, you can apply to HR or your direct manager, saying ‘I want to do a project with this person, I need a lead,’ and you will get the opportunity to learn.
Sujin Lee (Lee): We also have support for that. Since it is a global workplace and communication is vital, they basically support English classes. I have been taking a company-sponsored ‘Business English’ class once a week since I joined.
- How did the other two of you come to Berlin?
Oh: I worked at Kakao in Korea. I was in charge of tasks related to web search. There was no pressure regarding schedule settings and workload distribution, and the work-life balance was good. However, I felt the technology used in my department was outdated. Also, my work performance didn’t significantly impact the quality of the service. I grew anxious and began questioning what vision I held as a developer. In particular, as I learned about software engineering philosophies and Extreme Programming, I realized that Europe would be a better environment to practice them than Asia. That led to a long contemplation, and I started researching. Since I didn’t think my English was fluent, I excluded native English-speaking countries. That left Singapore and Berlin as candidates. I decided to head to Europe, so I came to Berlin. The fact that visas are easily granted was also a big factor. The process of finding a job was smooth. It took about six months from my arrival in Berlin to get a job. Now, I do overtime work, which I didn’t do in Korea.
Lee: I wasn’t originally a developer. I worked in product planning for about three years, but seeing no future there, I changed my career to development. However, in Korea, even if I passed the technical interviews, prejudices such as ‘she wasn’t originally a developer’ persisted. That made landing a job abroad much easier. Before coming to Berlin, I worked in the data visualization team at a state-run media outlet in Singapore. The work was interesting. However, because it was a state-run media outlet, it was conservative. Since Singapore is very small, there was also a lack of news. Although I wanted to stay because I believed Southeast Asia was the future, I felt certain limitations and considered changing jobs. Around that time, a Korean acquaintance at Taxfix recommended me, so I interviewed and came here.
Looking back, finding a job was easy in both Singapore and Berlin. And I still believe that at the same level, the barrier to landing a job abroad is much lower than in Korea. This is because they don’t look much at a person’s background. They only look at ability. In our company, there are developers who used to be DJs, bartenders, and taxi drivers. The junior developer on our team is in their 40s and used to drive a taxi. This person became interested in development while driving, listened to development lectures via audio during work, and self-studied at home after work. Then, a passenger who heard the audio lecture introduced him to a developer meetup in Berlin. He learned about our company at that meetup and applied. I have seen many people change their careers like that. And he is actually very good at development.
Sujin Lee, developer at Berlin tax filing app startup Taxfix. Photo = Sujin Lee
- That is a truly fascinating story. Is there a reason why people from other fields can develop so well?
Lee: Since I didn’t come from a development background myself, I am very interested in how others develop so well. As I observed closely, I realized the tasks the company assigns to us are different. When I worked briefly as a junior in Korea, I only remember doing chore-like tasks. I spent too much time on very simple tasks like organizing meeting notes and coordinates. I was never given a task where I had to discover insights and contemplate the process on my own. Even if I brought my own ideas, the decisions came down from the top. Here, however, they delegate truly important tasks even to juniors. Even for assignments, they provide high-quality data and throw problems that the company is genuinely struggling with. And they make you present without exception. I have done so many presentations since joining. It is an environment where it is hard not to improve. When developing a feature, I have to handle it end-to-end. While it has its advantages, it is also very exhausting. In Korea, there is a concept of a senior mentor who guides and directs you from start to finish, but here it is so free that I often wonder what to do. Still, I think this Berlin system has more advantages. Doing it a few times rapidly increases your skills. I feel that I am growing and succeeding together with the developers around me.
- I envy that culture. In a way, it seems to be a unique ‘developer culture.’
Oh: Because of that uniqueness, many people seem to use the term ‘developer culture’ as a separate concept. While ‘culture’ sounds vague, it is generally about an individual’s attitude toward work and how an organization executes tasks. The biggest things I felt after coming here are transparency and flatness. Of course, there is a big wall between management and working-level staff. However, among the working-level staff, almost all information is shared. In Korea, some argued that even within the same company, if you belong to a different department, you shouldn’t be allowed to view their source code. The flat communication is also impressive. Shortly after joining, I saw a neighboring engineer directly talking to a manager of another department they didn’t know because they had a question. In Korea, you would have had to spend time overcoming the barriers of departments and ranks. Since you can share anything and talk to anyone, communication is very clear.
Junseok Oh, Software Engineer at Delivery Hero. Photo = Junseok Oh
An: In Rakuten’s case, sharing information and interacting with each other is considered extremely important. It is the most important corporate philosophy envisioned by the CEO. That is how the company’s educational process was built. I understand that not all German companies have such a culture. Listening to acquaintances, there are places without training or mentoring.
Lee: That’s true, and because it is a startup, we try various ways to grow together. We try many different ways of working at our company, and I have experienced a method used at SoundCloud. For example, an engineer spends 70% on their main tasks and 30% trying out other tasks. Even if I do front-end, if I am interested in data, I spend 30% of my tasks participating in the data community. By observing and studying the work there, you build job competencies. Since I only worked on admin tools, I didn’t know how service tools operated. So I went to the service app team, handled tasks, and learned how code runs and how services operate. This helped me study holistically and significantly increased my understanding of the company and business. I have seen cases where this became a career path, leading to transitions to other roles. However, that project eventually failed. Because everyone became too busy with their main duties, they lost the leisure to allocate time and energy to other tasks. Instead, we now run a learning community. Work is work, and learning is learning, handled separately.
※ Continued in [European Startup Chronicles] Meeting Three Korean Developers in Berlin ③.
Eunseo Yi eunseo.yi@123factory.de
This article was edited and adapted from the “European Startup Chronicles” series in BizHankook.