2024 Year in Review

My 2024 survival rate: 100%

Hell yeah!

Unemployment

2024 started with a wave of layoffs. At first, I thought it was just a regular meeting. When I heard “this week is your last week” at my desk, I couldn’t process it.

Is this really it?

Looking back now, why I got laid off is actually pretty simple: lack of core competitiveness and a cooling market.

The job market today is completely different from before. I didn’t stay on top of it. I didn’t update my core skills in time. Plus, I burn out too easily in situations requiring constant interaction with people.

After getting laid off, I still didn’t want to stay in my hometown. After Chinese New Year, I came to where I am now to continue job hunting.

The more I looked for work, the more discouraged I got. The current market has clearly turned against me - most positions require full-time college degrees. I don’t have that degree, can’t even get past HR. Even outsourcing companies started requiring it.

The domestic job market looked bleak, so I cast a wider net: EU Pass, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and headhunters. But the interviews didn’t go well either.

So I fell into this weird loop: job hunting → self-doubt → sleep. That period really made me question everything.

I tried many directions and channels, most applications went nowhere. The worst part was after getting two offers that both fell through - my mental state just broke. Lost my appetite, memory got bad, constant stomach issues. (Thanks Yafa for being there during this time. Even though you couldn’t be physically present, I could feel you were with me.)

Old Trade

After searching for nearly 2 months, I was visibly deteriorating. Following Yafa and my family’s advice, I decided to find something - anything - to do, just to stop the constant internal struggle.

DevOps jobs were hard to find, so I had to look at work with fewer requirements: factory work, cleaning, construction, food delivery, gardening.

During this time, I saw lots of “schemes.” For example, most cleaning job postings work kind of like MLM. If you go individually, you basically make no money the first two months. You have to pay training fees, equipment fees, and all sorts of other fees. Social insurance? You pay that yourself too.

You only make money by recruiting people. Even then, the pay is low - 50 RMB per successful recruit (meaning they also paid the training and equipment deposits). Though maybe I just didn’t look at enough companies.

Overall, factory work actually had better value (if you don’t mind your personal info being sold around). No need to worry about housing or food - most factories provide meals. Eat more and you only need two meals a day.

The factories here are mostly regular day shifts. Found a factory, handed over my ID, and could interview and start.

But it’s hard to find factory jobs as an individual - most go through agencies. Agencies offer really low wages, usually 18-25 RMB/hour.

Still felt defeated, but I went anyway. Every morning catching the first subway at 6 AM to work, getting home after 10 PM, checking job postings before bed, then sleep.

That period was a blur, but at least I had something to do. Wasn’t stuck in constant internal struggle anymore.

Turning Point and Growing Pains

More like good luck than a turning point. A project happened to reach the stage where they needed DevOps.

The interview was no problem, didn’t need to think twice about leaving the factory.

The good thing about this job is I don’t need to constantly communicate with multiple parties. Perfect for focusing on getting things done. Though the hours are similar to factory work - long day shifts. At least there are weekends off (nice!).

The first half of the year left some aftereffects - my financial situation got pretty bad. Six months without work or income really killed my ability to handle emergencies.

Also, I noticeably became more introverted. Really don’t like socializing. Just going to work every day drains all my energy. After work, I need alone time to recharge.

Comparing to before, my ability to execute plans became really low. Can only push plans forward during emotional peaks.

For my mental health, I put a lot of plans on hold to try to get through this rough patch.

Original Dream

I spent a long time talking to myself, being with myself. Now I finally have the energy to start chasing my original dream again.

This year I started two projects, both subsets of one big project:

1. Immutable OS
2. Homelab

The big project is a childhood dream: going to space. After feasibility analysis, current conditions can’t support launching this big project yet, but parts of it can already start.

One branch of this OS is meant for satellites down the road, of course after validation in the homelab. The system isn’t immutable yet. Current progress: can normally replace Debian on my NUC and run existing services. Still a ways to go before reaching the robustness of a proper distribution. (Will do a series later on designing a distro from scratch.)

My homelab has been running stable for nearly a year now. Even if a host crashes or goes read-only, it doesn’t affect VMs or lose data. Next step is to get a custom rack for the whole homelab and redesign the architecture - planning to remove the current virtualization layer (Proxmox VE) and switch to k8s+kubevirt combo to reduce unnecessary resource waste.

From a realistic perspective, designing a satellite requires tons of knowledge across many disciplines. The chance of soloing it successfully is very low but not zero. Will write about this on the blog later too. (Digging another hole.)

It’s like a big beacon. Even if I lose my way due to storms, the beacon is always there, showing me the path I need to take.

Love

Especially with this year’s first-half experiences, I deeply understand what love is: deep affection without temptation, resolve without hostility.

Charity

Started the charity project in November this year. As of December 31st, total donations: 608 RMB.

Why start this charity project? It’s actually something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Inspired by a good friend, I started with what I can actually do.

I really want to create a “not-like-a-company company” with a dedicated department for social welfare observation and charity. But given my current mental health level, it’s hard to take on that role. So starting simple.

Currently I have a charity page on my blog listing some tech support services I can provide. I donate all proceeds to charities and publish the records.

So far it’s working pretty well. Based on monthly income from this, each quarter can support one child’s semester expenses. So the plan is to sponsor one child’s tuition each quarter (if a quarter’s income falls short for any reason, I’ll personally make up the difference).

Every donation feels special. Getting letters from the kids and project updates - those experiences are unforgettable.

This gives me so much energy. My mental health has improved a lot too.

Plans for Next Year

1. Try to sponsor one student per quarter (currently through Tencent Charity’s 1-on-1 channel - if you know better channels, leave a comment or email me)
2. DIY a homelab rack (this will be part of a really big project - think scaled-down data center, scaled-up mini server room. Involves many different fields. Follow along if interested)
3. Refactor homelab (remove PVE, adopt k8s+kubevirt+kubeflow, will do a series on how to migrate architecture and handle issues encountered, how to minimize downtime)
4. New computer? (This ThinkPad X1 was definitely my worst purchase)
5. Learn CS fundamentals using 42 school model (I’m not pure CS background. The really big project I want to do requires knowledge beyond what I learned in school and at work. Need to build foundations and expand. The 42 school model suits me well - my research skills are pretty strong so I can learn this way.)
6. Backup solution (this year experienced 6 data loss incidents - 2 complete recoveries, 1 partial recovery, and 3 failed recoveries. So next year will have a dedicated plan for data backup. Success stories will go on this blog)

About the computer - there’s a prerequisite. After multiple negotiations with Yafa, here’s the deal: I need to produce at least one high-quality article per quarter. Financial situation needs to be healthy (able to handle emergencies). Backlog TODO list needs to be cleared. If I meet all these conditions, Yafa will gift me a maxed-out Mac with configuration of my choice. If I don’t meet them, I can’t buy one even with my own money.

The definition of “high-quality article”:

1. Reproducible (most articles are still in DevOps field, so basic requirement is reproducibility)
2. High reference value, can solve real problems
3. Provides some inspiration
4. Can stand up to scrutiny

Epilogue

Every difficulty I’ve ever faced

Never truly defeated me

I walked through all of them

And survived

My survival rate is 100%