“Sun is out - feeling good.”
What excited you about joining Dreams AI?
I first found out about Dreams AI at the Harvard Job posting website as I was looking for a job during my gap year. Reading through the company’s website it seemed like a much more dynamic role where he wouldn’t just be like working on a very specific project working under very strict rules. It was more like whatever needs to be done and there would be a lot of different tasks and projects given my way. I’ve had past jobs where things got quite monotonous quite fast and this sounded like it will be the opposite of that – it will be dynamic work.
Then I received a very personalised email from Jack (one of Dreams AI employees). That email got me very engaged and then the interview process was quite unique - that made me intrigued, I liked the freedom of the take-home task it was different and I liked it. It wasn’t like we will stare at you as you try to solve this problem we just gave you - it was more like here is this open-ended task do whatever you want with it and see what you can create in a week. Which is a more realistic kind of gauge, it’s not just how you instantaneously solve problems. Because coding is problem-solving but also engaging with the problem and caring for it and building and adding things for it which is not something you can do with a typical 45-minute coding interview where you have a complicated problem to solve right there right now. This allowed me to get passionate about the task and actually care.
His working experience so far
I like the agency and freedom that I have with the company. I am making the same contributions that all these other engineers are and feel like an equal contributor – which isn’t something you get with internships and at such an early stage of your career. I feel like I have a significant role in these projects, there are a bunch of things that need to be done and I can pick them up and have a go at them if I want.
People he is working with
Because of the pandemic I am currently working with Jack in New York (the company got us a place there) so I’ve been half way across the world from our offices in Cambridge and in Hong Kong so I still haven’t had the chance to meet the team in person.
I’ve been mostly working with Jack, and so far I’ve really enjoyed it we are half working and half chilling. He would give me specific tasks, (sometimes) ones he doesn’t know how to do yet so after completing them I would go and explain how I did them and if I have a question I would just ask Jack and we would go on a tangent of some other computational concept that I didn’t know about and I feel like Jack has a lot of knowledge in a lot of different fields and it is really cool to have this free flow of information between us.
Music
I’ve been a musician for a while now. It is something that I always end up doing even if I didn’t necessarily set up the time for it – I always end up in the software making ideas, making music.
I make chill electronic music about all types of subjects. The songs are mostly about thoughts that I’ve had – relationship stuff, personal stuff, bettering oneself – introspective things really. I approach music in a very picturesque way – on this project that I have coming up now Isle of Mind there is a song about being in a tropical beach in the middle of nowhere and I use the lyrics to kind of build this world.
Initially I was making music under my name and there I released some of my proudest work – I made a concept album about my mom’s immigration from Korea called Akero.
https://open.spotify.com/album/13q59pcXVbeK1DZoRNyFNO?si=PVcEVxDxSqKQczKALRAXwg&nd=1
I made this whilst I was still in high school, which was quite exhaustive so I took a hiatus after. Then I realized that I just want to go in a different direction with my music so I currently release music under my new moniker – Kotiēr.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6yiQLc8QqofCG6ob7D1Rcu?si=8T2Sj5qGSIq1dzXvpZyiGw&nd=1
I started studying at the University of Michigan and then transferred to Harvard. During my time at Michigan, I opened for the end of the year concert (spring fest) the headliner for which was A$AP Ferg and I got to play in front of a crowd of 2000 people which was quite thrilling. However, performances are a different world to making music. And I see music kind of as a tool to balance my life and bring in new experiences. It is the type of thing that I will put in the time and if it develops into something I can pursue more seriously – sure, why not. However, I am not planning it too much, just putting in the effort and seeing where it goes.
Currently, I just finished an EP just as I joined Dreams AI and I will release that soon. The first single of that is dropping on April 9th and the rest of the project will be released in summer. Hopefully, you guys like it.
