Kakao Backend New Hire's Journey: Regular Hiring Process and Portfolio Strategy

Jyami, a new backend developer in Kakao's Talk Platform Development Team, Talk Messaging Part, shared his hiring experience and advice for job seekers and new developers. He joined through regular hiring rather than open recruitment, undergoing a process that included document screening, a coding test, a phone interview, first and second interviews, a three-month probationary period, and a conversion evaluation to become a full-time employee. Regarding portfolio preparation, he highlighted achieving 80% test coverage in a Spring Boot project and applying object-oriented principles with specific metrics to emphasize his strengths as a backend developer. After joining, he worked on improving messaging log processing from a legacy batch system to a real-time data processing pipeline, and also handles various tasks such as improving operational tools, handling CS tickets, and monitoring DB switching. He emphasized the importance of code reviews and foundational knowledge of systems and infrastructure, recommending books like Effective Java and Kotlin in Action, and sharing his growth strategy of participating in study sessions with junior developers three times a week.