How can people find purpose in work themselves?

“Incredible colleagues, a supportive environment, great products, and autonomy”

I actually have a post-it note next to my monitor that reads, “Why am I doing this? Apart from the difficulties, am I having fun with what I do?” I genuinely enjoy work, and my time at Toss has been about finding and shaping my own clear “reasons for working.”

1. Incredible colleagues: Am I surrounded by teammates who inspire me in a positive way and whom I can trust?

2. Supportive environment: Am I working in a place where I can focus solely on the work itself, free from the stress of office politics or difficult relationships?

3. Great products: Am I building products that deliver genuine value to users, products used by over a million people? (When I first joined Toss, one million felt like an enormous number to me.)

4. Autonomy: Am I able to take ownership and drive initiatives from 0 to 1, and from 1 to 100, shaping both the business and the organization?

While working across diverse products and business areas—and now taking on the new challenge of taxes, these four principles have been my compass, guiding me and keeping me grounded.

I’ve sometimes been asked whether it would be better for my career to focus on building deeper expertise in a single area. While that question did make me pause for a second, I’ve always wanted to see myself first and foremost as a “problem solver.” For me, that has never depended on the business domain or the size of the organization. That’s why I’ve always prioritized seeking out the problems I want to solve.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have those “Oh uh!” moments whenever I’m preparing a new service or when the growth of an existing one stalls. That is exactly the same feeling I felt when I first stepped into the tax domain. For most people, “life with taxes” just means filing taxes once a year at tax season, or paying a local tax bill when it arrives. That’s about it. So the idea of driving innovation and change in this space, and doing it as a PO, felt like a crisis in itself.

Even in overwhelming moments, I have a routine that I return to again and again: first, breaking away from the mindset that the inconveniences users face are simply things they have to put up with; and second, defining which of those problems are truly worth solving. Once those two points become clear, we quickly learn what is needed and move forward with bold experiments and challenges to tackle the problem.

“A chance to create impact at a greater scale”

What drives my focus is the belief that the work I do can contribute to making the world a better place. Just as Toss has brought positive change to people’s financial lives in Korea, I now have the opportunity to help spark that same kind of change on the other side of the globe. That itself is a powerful source of motivation.

Of course, it took a few crises to arrive at this mindset. One of those moments was when I was developing an in-app payment module. Discussions on legal and technical interpretations conflicted and dragged on, putting the business at risk. At that point, I felt I had to step in and do something to break through the deadlock. I brought together the different perspectives of stakeholders, proactively engaged with external institutions that had been difficult to negotiate with, and worked toward a solution. From this experience, I came to realize that a crisis can only be overcome when someone takes ownership and actively steps into it, and that working with that attitude can be deeply rewarding.

“Building your own unique portfolio”

At my previous company, I was responsible for marketing a low-cost airline mileage card during the height of Covid-19. With travel to China essentially shut down, trying to drive card issuance and usage was a campaign destined to fail. The budget still had to be spent, and in the end, we couldn’t achieve the results we wanted. But through that experience, I learned firsthand what insights to carry forward into the next campaign and how to turn failure into a lesson. I don’t see that project simply as a failure, but as another page of learning added to my portfolio.

Even now, I see my work at Toss as part of building my career portfolio. I have the ambition to create achievements that stand out, creating results that anyone would recognize as remarkable. The work I’m doing today is also a process of pushing myself to think harder, dive deeper, and perform better than others. Both failures and successes add up to shape my portfolio, and that, in turn, is what motivates me to keep moving forward.

“Closing in on key metrics”

Since my work revolves around presenting good writing, I’ve often struggled with the question of what really makes a piece “good” or “bad.” At times, I’ve doubted whether what I produced was any good, and at other times I’ve felt overly confident without any real grounds. That’s what led me to focus on the completion rate. If readers stay with a piece until the very end, it means they’ve found value in it. And I’ve come to believe that the effort to improve completion rates is, in itself, the path to becoming a better writer and creating stronger content.

“Growing with the team, and growing as a team”

The moments I feel most fulfilled are when I see our team members grow. I believe that individual growth naturally leads to the team’s growth, and ultimately, that’s the surest way to raise the overall quality of our work. That’s why I continue to focus on helping each person grow into a professional barista.

My career has been rooted in operations and management, which often meant being thrown into hard situations like a firefighter called to a crisis. In those moments, every day felt like an emergency, and I had to start by earning the trust of the team. What allowed me to overcome those challenges were the technical skills I had built in my field, along with the patience and openness to support and embrace my team members. The leadership I developed during my early twenties while serving as a professional soldier also became a strong foundation. These experiences, accumulated over time, have shaped the way I now approach crises, not with fear, but as opportunities for growth.

“Learning, finding meaning, and enjoying”

When I choose my work, I look for three things: whether I can learn a lot from it, whether it feels meaningful, and whether it’s fun. My role here fulfills all three. I’ve done related work before, but this is my first time focusing solely on finance. I find it fascinating to uncover meaning within such a vast amount of data, while also realizing firsthand just how crucial data quality is. Right now, my work is about laying the foundation. Once the data is properly collected and organized, I look forward to moving on to the stage of generating insights from it.

I’m also working on building a product for our sales team. It’s deeply rewarding to see ideas take shape: first as designs, then as products, and ultimately as tools that users enjoy and engage with. Above all, I’m grateful and constantly impressed by my amazing teammates, because none of this would have been possible on my own.

“Feedbacks and small wins”

When I first transitioned from working as an Arabic interpreter to becoming a PO at Toss, I honestly felt lost. Everything was unfamiliar and overwhelming. To find my way through that, I chose not to set overly ambitious goals. Instead, I set small, attainable goals and achieved them one by one, gradually building confidence. There were times when I received harsh feedback, but I tried to accept it if it helped me grow. Over the course of moving teams eight times, I experimented with different leadership styles to see what fit me best, while also learning by observing and following the practices of outstanding colleagues. Through these experiences, I came to realize that overcoming failures and crises isn’t about being perfect. It’s about creating small wins, learning from them, and adapting along the way.

That’s what now allows me to fully commit to the work I take on. Whenever I work, I ask myself: “Why am I doing this?” Because without a reason I can genuinely believe in, I know I won’t be able to sustain my focus for long.

“Growing with the service”

I’ve always had a deep affection for community features. Nearly my entire career has been in community products, and at this point, they’ve become a part of my life. I’m not in this field because I was simply assigned the work. I truly enjoy it. What I love most is that these services are authentic, human, and filled with real voices.

That said, I still see myself as being in the process of growth. Even though I’m five years into my career, there are moments when I still feel like a newcomer. I don’t have a perfect solution yet, as I’m still learning and improving. But perhaps that’s exactly the point. This ongoing process of trial, growth, and discovery is why I continue to find meaning in building communities.

“Becoming a pillar of strength”

There was a time when I had to step away from my career to stay home. While I was happy raising my children, I felt as though I’ve lost direction in life. And I worried whether I would ever be able to return to the workforce. Still, I knew I had to start again, no matter how small the step. In the beginning, the unfamiliar environment and the rapid pace of change were daunting. But by persevering day after day, I eventually built a 20-year career in the financial sector. That experience gave me the belief that “any crisis can be overcome with persistence.” Over the years, I’ve seen firsthand how even a small piece of financial knowledge can completely change someone’s life, while others suffer serious consequences, sometimes even legal ones, simply because they lack that same knowledge. It made me realize just how many financially vulnerable people there are around us, and that I could play a role in helping them. That’s why I devote myself to this work. When I design financial education programs, I always ask myself: “How would I explain this if I were teaching my own children?” For me, financial education isn’t just a profession. It’s a mission.

“Helping colleagues find better solutions”

To be honest, there was a time when I kept asking myself, “Why do I do this work?” When I first started designing training programs, I focused too much on my own standards and logic. The feedback I got from the team was that it “just didn’t really connect with their situation.” At the time, it felt like a huge failure. But that experience taught me something important: training isn’t about saying what I want to say. It’s about creating something people actually need. These days, I try to start by listening first and building programs that come from people’s perspectives.

Going through that process made it clearer why I continue to do this work. For me, the greatest reward is being able to witness people’s growth up close. Seeing someone new join the team, start out uncertain, and gradually build confidence, or watching a leader work through challenges and eventually discover better ways forward gives me a deep sense of certainty that what I do truly matters.

Editor Soeun Joo