🇰🇷 한국어 버전

I first encountered Ruby on Rails in 2013 while developing the KakaoTalk client at Kakao. At the time, I was the youngest member of a team creating a KakaoTalk client for Nokia Asha, a low-cost mobile platform. As a client engineer, I was an error-prone junior who struggled with composing UI according to the design.

Although my main job was client development, I repeatedly asked the server team to check logs. This led to a desire to set up a server locally and test it myself. One of the server team members kindly answered my questions whenever they had time, and thanks to that, I was able to set up a server locally and test the client. It was during this process that I first used Ruby on Rails.

Ten years ago, when I was doing server development with Rails at Kakao, there was a client developer who would come to my desk and ask annoying questions about things like Rails deployment methods.

It was a bit bothersome (haha), but I think I taught him diligently.

As time passed, he joined the KakaoTalk server team and we ended up working together… He became a colleague who was a great help to me.

However, soon after, Microsoft acquired Nokia, and the Asha platform disappeared, leading to the dissolution of our team. With two years of experience, I decided to transition to server development and started working in a team that used Ruby on Rails and Java.

In making this decision, whether Ruby on Rails was widely used in the industry or whether it would benefit me in the future wasn’t particularly important. What mattered most to me at the time was the opportunity to experience a service used by 48 million monthly active users worldwide, a service used by the entire nation. I was convinced that this would be the biggest asset in my career.

Since then, except for using Python/Django while developing medical AI at Lunit, I’ve mostly developed with Ruby on Rails in most companies. Currently, I’m still developing a service with 18 million monthly active users at Karrot Market, making good use of Ruby on Rails.

Looking back, I think I was also lucky, but whenever I changed companies, I always prioritized what the company did and how meaningful their work was over the language or framework they used. In the end, what’s important is not the technology itself, but what experiences you can gain and what value you can create through that technology.

Now, I’ve come to like Ruby on Rails, not because of any special affection for the language or framework, but because it allowed me to gain meaningful experiences. Fortunately, I’ve been able to have great experiences at good companies so far, and in the process, I naturally became familiar with Ruby on Rails.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that it’s not about which language or framework you use, but what value you can create with it. For me, Ruby on Rails has been a tool that has enabled meaningful experiences, and I believe it will continue to do so in the future.