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What Happened in 2024

2024 has been a year of remarkable transformation. Just two and a half years out of college, I went from feeling uncertain about my path in software engineering to finding my stride in machine learning engineering. It's been a journey of pushing boundaries – improving my health, contributing to open source, and diving deeper into research.

The year has felt like a constant acceleration, especially in the last six months, where everything from technical growth to personal development seemed to shift into high gear.

Four achievements stand out from this transformative year:

  • Helped grow instructor from ~300k downloads to 1.1M downloads this year as core contributor
  • Quit my job as a swe and started working full time with llms
  • Got into better shape, lost about 6kg total and total cholesterol dropped by 32% w lifestyle changes
  • Delivered a total of 4 technical talks this year for the first time

Personal Growth and Health Journey

The most fundamental change this year has been in my approach to health and well-being. After a concerning health screening 2 years ago showed my total cholestrol at a dangerously high level, I committed to making real changes. Through consistent diet modifications and lifestyle adjustments, I managed to bring the total cholestrol down by almost 32%.

Weight-wise I dropped from 78kg to 70kg. I ended up gaining about 2kg during the holidays but I'm confident that that the sustainable habits are what matters the most in the long run. It has been a long year of ups and downs but I'm glad to say that I'm in the best shape I've been in the past 5 years.

Professional Evolution

My professional journey has been equally transformative. Having graduated just two and a half years ago, I started my career as a software engineer, initially unsure of my path and capabilities. The transition to my second job this year – moving into ML engineering – was both challenging and enlightening.

My journey into language models began with the Latent Space Paper Club, where I would wake up at 3-4 AM to discuss foundational papers like BERT and GPT-3 with other members of the Latent Space discord. Although the hours were tough, everyone was super supportive and helpful and I don't think I would have gained such deep understanding of language modeling without the support of these communities and the dedication to push through those early morning sessions.

I even presented at some point on Constituitional AI which was really fun. I remember being incredibly stressed out about it but it turned out to be a great learning experience with everyone helping me to answer questions. I ended up starting a similar one in Singapore which ran for around four to five months of active participation.

A significant milestone has been my work with Instructor. As a core contributor, I've helped write extensive documentation, implement support for new libraries, and work on crucial updates like adding support for Gemini 2.0 and Flash-8b. Watching the project grow from around 300,000 downloads to over 1.1 million has been incredibly rewarding.

Research and Technical Writing

The last six months have been particularly transformative in terms of technical depth and research experience. What started as exploratory work on SQL summarization – framing text-to-SQL as a retrieval problem – evolved into my first independent research experience. While challenging, it taught me invaluable lessons about running fast experiments and using tools like Braintrust to iterate quickly. It was really a huge learning experience and I remember being so stressed about it through the entire process.

This initial research expanded into broader explorations where I just did more and more writing. The latter months of 2024 saw me generating synthetic datasets and consolidating months of learning into cohesive materials and frameworks. Throughout this journey, my background in humanities proved unexpectedly valuable, particularly in technical writing and documentation. The ability to explain complex concepts clearly has become a crucial skill, especially when working on documentation and research articles.

Community Engagement

I also pushed myself to speak at more events this year. I delivered four talks, including presentations at the Build Together AI Hackathon, the Kaohsiung Meetup in Taiwan, and the AI Tinkerers event. I'm hoping to do more of this in 2025.

Looking Forward

As I reflect on 2024, what stands out isn't just the individual achievements but the overall trajectory of growth. From health improvements to technical accomplishments, from paper clubs to conference talks, this year has been about pushing beyond perceived limitations and embracing challenges.

The journey hasn't been easy – transitioning careers, conducting independent research, and maintaining health commitments all presented their own challenges. But each challenge has contributed to significant personal and professional growth.

As we move into 2025, I'm excited to build on these foundations. The combination of technical skills, research experience, and improved health creates a strong platform for whatever comes next. Most importantly, I've learned that meaningful change is possible with dedication, discipline, and the courage to push beyond comfort zones.