Preface

Hahaha, August has arrived in a hurry, and my mid-year summary is finally being written. A lot has changed in this past half year, and my personality has changed quite a bit too. It's been another half year of many gains. Moreover, during this half year, plans always failed to keep up with changes. Sometimes it felt like the big hand of the times was pushing me forward, not allowing me to change anything according to my own ideas.

Changed Three Jobs in Half a Year

At the end of last year, I planned to learn English on my own and then aim for an offer from a foreign company. So, in my on-and-off study life, I was learning how to speak and listen to English. To be honest, I made great progress, but later when I was job hunting, I discovered that there was still a long way to go before I could get an offer from a foreign company. After the New Year, I applied to many foreign companies in the Guangdong region and didn't get a single offer. Only one company was willing to do a pre-interview English communication test with me online. Of course, I didn't pass it, so I didn't get the interview either. However, from my own perspective, my English has improved a lot. It's just that my foundation was too weak; wanting to communicate with others in English and land a job at a foreign company was overestimating myself. But now, when I read some simple English materials and daily English conversations, I can roughly guess the meaning, hehe.

Then in March, I started applying for development positions in Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Shenzhen. At this time, I was mainly applying for front-end positions. This process took about three weeks. I interviewed with three or four companies, and then chose a front-end development position at an association in Guangzhou. At that time, I thought I had gotten a very stable job, but later I found out I was completely wrong, terribly wrong. When I joined the association, I thought I was developing projects for the association. It was only after three days on the job that I gradually understood that the internal work of the association was basically a contracting system, somewhat similar to a law firm. The secretaries and secretary-general within the association needed to go out and solicit business, getting enterprises to join the association to earn membership fees, which were then split with the president. That is to say, your income at the association was mainly determined by how much business you could bring in yourself. The association did not keep idle people; the competition was extremely fierce. My direct superior had reached a cooperation agreement with the association's president. He took the lead in developing a system needed by the association to expand its internet business and incidentally enhance its digital capabilities. I ended up quitting after three weeks because this was essentially outsourced work, and even less formal than regular outsourcing. My boss was a layman in project development, and communicating requirements with him was always extremely painful (my boss had a strong contrarian personality; every time we communicated with him, we would be frantically dissed). The project was also a secondary development project, the backend colleague was part-time, and all problems had to be solved at night. Weekends were also spent being dragged to the association to work. Anyway, there were so many terrible things about this job. After three weeks on the job, I was already a veteran employee in the department; most people ran away after less than a week. Too many red flags. I can't believe that in 2026, such a workplace environment still exists.

Later, I immediately started looking for a new job non-stop. At this time, there were a lot of AI-related development positions. During this process, I kept learning about AI development and got exposed to a lot of AI development knowledge. So, my job search direction shifted to AI projects, and I no longer considered traditional development positions. Later, I got an AI development job, but this job had even more terrible aspects. At that time, we were developing an aggregation platform, mainly connecting to upstream AI service providers (mainly Running Hub), to create a project similar to Lib TV. The main target users were small and medium-sized e-commerce bosses and the group's internal AI generation needs. Because time was tight, our entire team kept working overtime, crazy overtime, basically working from 9 am to past 10 pm every day, sometimes until midnight, and we basically had no days off. Of course, because we were using AI for development, the project progress was particularly fast, 6-8 times faster than handwriting code in the past. The first phase of our project was completed in five or six weeks. I originally thought we could make a big profit doing an AI project, but unexpectedly, many competitors suddenly emerged domestically. I estimate there were three to four hundred companies doing this kind of infinite canvas AI workflow project, so commercialization became extremely difficult at this point. Our work was established with part of the funding from the group and part from our boss, President W. That is to say, I originally worked for the group, but later was transferred to the new company, and could no longer enjoy the group's benefits (although the group didn't have many benefits either, the new company had even less than nothing). But at this time, our boss was no longer the group, but our leader, President W. Because the project couldn't be commercialized, the development team no longer needed so many people, so I was laid off. Later, the development colleagues were also laid off or quit for various reasons. In this process, all the effort came to nothing. The only benefit was learning how to use AI to develop projects and ensure project stability. This was also my biggest gain. When we were working, President W called us 'brothers' constantly, never stopped painting rosy pictures, talking about how much money we would make and how everyone would share the profits later. It all turned out to be false. In short, it was killing the donkey the moment it left the millstone. In summary, this was the worst job I've ever done, worse than outsourcing. So, everyone, when looking for a job in the future, you must, must find a job at a legitimate company. Never go to a company with a bad reputation. This is a lesson learned in blood.

Fortunately, these two jobs didn't last too long overall, so the sunk cost wasn't very high. It was just that moving constantly was very troublesome, and I didn't rest well. I feel like my health has deteriorated. In July, I started looking for a new job. By this time, having learned a lot of AI development experience, I had become a versatile developer with the help of AI. Whether it was front-end, back-end, or operations, I could handle it all with AI. I could also build many complex technical architectures myself. Coupled with long-term project management experience, I found yet another new job, which is the unit I'm working at now. For special reasons, I can't reveal too much about the company. However, judging from the few days since I joined, at least this is a very good job. For my current situation, getting this job is entirely thanks to my luck (I think getting this job was mainly due to my good luck, hehehe). All the previous bad luck ends here. I hope my luck gets better and better in the future. The new job is not so demanding; the company has no overtime culture, projects don't need to be rushed, I can live in the company dormitory, lunch is free, and the benefits are quite good. Maybe this is the advantage of a big company. It would be even better if there were two-day weekends (this job currently has alternating big and small weeks). This new job allows me to save a lot of expenses and continue working in AI development, which is also helpful for my career.

Reflections on the Past Half Year

I've thought about a lot of things in the recent half year. With AI becoming more and more powerful, if you specialize in just one direction, you will become increasingly passive (my previous career plan was to become an expert in the front-end development field). But if you can become a versatile talent, your value might be higher, and being able to handle more problems might better realize your own value. So, I think the discussions on platforms about front-end being doomed are both right and wrong. Let me share my own thoughts here. With the current development of AI, the developers who benefit the most are actually front-end developers. This is because front-end developers understand users better than back-end developers, operations developers, and testing developers. With the support of AI, they can fill in their shortcomings in various technical directions. In the past, I needed back-end, operations, and testing developers to help me solve technical problems, but now I am not so limited. Front-end developers can do more things and have higher value. So, this is why I think front-end developers are better positioned to reap the benefits of the AI dividend.

Then, I recently started learning how to handle workplace issues. I've become much more low-key than before. Perhaps it's because my previous personality caused me to be restricted everywhere. I also reflect on whether I did something poorly in the past, so I need to change my bad personality traits. Only by reflecting more on myself can I discover that I originally had so many problems. Before, when my salary was high, I always spent money lavishly. Now I'm learning how to save money, reduce impulsive spending, lower my quality of life, and build a solid financial foundation for the future. After all, I'm almost 30 years old and need to save some money to live on.

Then there's the matter of studying. I originally expected to graduate with my bachelor's degree in the first half of this year (an adult bachelor's degree from the National Open University). But I didn't expect that the difficulty of obtaining a degree certificate from the Open University is not on the same level as that of a full-time university. Because the Open University's degree certificates are very limited, I have to delay my graduation until next year. I was too optimistic before. In the second half of the year, I need to prepare a high-quality degree thesis and get the certificate to graduate smoothly. I also want to tell everyone here: if you want to get a degree certificate for an adult bachelor's degree, you need to understand in advance whether it can be easily obtained and if there are any restrictions. Otherwise, it will greatly affect your development plans. My original plan to take the postgraduate entrance exam will also be postponed for another year, perhaps even more pessimistically than this.

Summary

In this past half year, my weight once spiraled out of control to 78KG, but recently I've adjusted it back and am currently fluctuating around 72KG. It can be considered that things haven't developed in a bad direction. During my last pre-employment physical examination, my body was healthy, no problems, hahaha. This counts as a good thing. Then, matters of the heart are as bad as ever. Maybe it's really like what the fortune teller said: I will meet the right person when I'm 30. Regarding relationships, I can only leave it to fate and hope it doesn't get worse. Then, I actually haven't been studying in this half year. Because of work, I haven't been able to calm down and get into a learning state. Later, I need to actively adjust my mindset and enter a state of continuous learning, because my growth and gains today are all rewards from my past continuous learning. So, learning is very, very important to me. Even if this current job can be stable long-term, learning more knowledge is never wrong.

Recently, I've also started learning to declutter and let go. Before, I bought all sorts of things, like an Apple phone, an Apple Watch, a road bike, a camera. Actually, I don't really need these things to improve my quality of life. I now find that using a few-hundred-yuan Android phone is also quite good. I'm selling off all the valuable items I can, throwing away things I don't use often, and not buying things I don't need. I need to learn to control my spending desires and consumption habits. Maintaining a good state of life is enough.

Plans for the Next Stage

1. Improve English communication skills to provide security for future career development (our company has overseas business, maybe I'll have the chance to interact with foreigners in the future).
2. Complete the degree thesis for my bachelor's graduation.
3. Prepare for the knowledge points related to the postgraduate entrance exam.
4. Learn AI-related technical points and build more valuable AI applications.
5. Control my weight to 70KG.
6. Reduce my spending habits and save a large sum of money.

Thank you all for reading this far. Sorry for rambling on with a bunch of nonsense. I hope you don't mind.

I hope everyone can actively embrace their own lives. All difficulties will pass. Be a happy person, live happily. I wish everyone good luck always and happiness always. Thank you all for watching.