Coupang Eats developers talk about growth

PD: "The company's growth potential", "My growth potential in the company.", and "Whether I can contribute to the company". I have chosen a company considering these three things, and Coupang seems to be a company that meets these three conditions. In particular, I can feel Coupang's charm as I am in charge of the engineering team, building a system through systematic and goal-oriented work progress, and direct decision-making.

Braum: When I was working at another job, I developed an app that benchmarked Coupang. After that, I decided to change companies as I saw Coupang growing day by day. After joining Coupang, I worked on a product list and a project related to Rocket Wow for a year. At that time, the leader expected me to build a new app environment, so I remember working hard to meet expectations.

Judy: I thought I could grow big as a developer and play a large role. I wanted to work for an IT company that has a solid system and operates large services like Coupang. Also, when developing, even before joining the company, I think I need to contribute to my interest and favorite services to achieve good results. I chose Coupang because I have been a Coupang customer who uses 30% of my monthly living expenses and am a fan of Coupang's future growth.

PD: I can tell that I became manager as I was in the 'situation' with 'curiosity'. As the Coupang Eats team grew, I needed to be a manager who takes charge of more segmented teams. My manager suggested that I play the role of a people manager while leading the Android development. Rather than individual developer capabilities, I thought the role of building and leading a team to achieve the team's goals and helping team members grow was attractive. And I think the biggest reason why I chose to be a manager is my curiosity about how to do it.

Braum: Previously, I focused more on enhancing my individual technological and communication capabilities for better development. However, in my current new role, it is necessary to contribute and strive to the growth of the organization as well as individual growth. I think the biggest difference is to help other team members grow and consider the growth of the entire organization.

PD: All developers, including Back-end Engineers, Front-end Engineers, Data Scientists, QA Engineers, PMs, and Mobile Engineers, are working in the Coupang Eats Engineering Team. Coupang Eats service is classified into customer, merchant, and delivery services. There's a team that develops each service’s Back-end system.

Braum: Because we share a simple but important goal of "Coupang Eats' Success", the atmosphere is very collaborative. All the team members are trying and thinking about Coupang Eats' success. Currently, all domestic teams are working from home, but the direction and priorities of the organization are well shared with team members, so team members, including myself, are working efficiently.

Judy: I joined the company during the COVID-19 period and worked from home from the beginning, and it was amazing that large companies like Coupang implemented WFH policy with more than 90% employees and maintained it for a long time. It was impressive that Coupang was thoroughly prepared for WFH and that Coupang could show that the performance was not affected.

PD, since you are the manager, I think you have a lot of difficulties directing the team. What's your team's strength?

PD: We are trying to make a team that can collaborate well through sharing. Sharing information can motivate team members by clarifying what they are doing and why. Also, it helps a lot to understand work from a companywide perspective beyond the system or product perspective. In addition, I arrange activities that team members share which are very important. This increases synergy, especially when working from home. To this end, we are trying to create a culture where we exchange ideas through coffee chat and casual meetings in addition to business meetings.

PD: There are opportunities to develop individual capabilities in many ways. In addition to experiencing Coupang's other services and systems, I think the team can have more personal growth through various opportunities.

Braum: The biggest difference between Coupang Eats' mobile team and other teams is that the entire business runs in a mobile environment. Once you understand all three apps, customer app, store app, delivery person app, and so on, you can understand all the scenarios from the customer's order of food from the UX perspective of the app. In a mobile environment, it is difficult to understand and work the entire business, but our team is working more closely on that part.

Judy: I think the biggest advantage is that you can do various things. My team deals with two apps and creates and improves various areas within the app. You can also work on improving the overall structure if you are in charge of platform development which changes every quarter. In this process, you can continue to experience and learn new things. 

Braum: To express the past time we spent in Coupang in a word, I want to express it as "a constant change in the organization, a developer that grows together." Although I have more than 10 years of development experience, I learned and grew the most at Coupang. In the process, organizational change and growth were of great help. Coupang Eats is an organization where individual growth and organizational vision can all be achieved. Individual growth, organizational vision, and goals are clearly presented, and there seem to be many areas that can contribute to it. I want to grow together with Coupang Eats, which will continue to grow in the future.

Judy: The biggest change is that I became an Android developer. I joined the company as a new employee and grew to say that I am an Android developer with guidance from senior developers.

PD: I think the most memorable project is the Coupang Eats project itself. I personally grew a lot because I could experience things that were not easy to experience elsewhere, while solving the challenges that occurred with newly launched business. Through this process, the biggest asset has become to create a great team with good team members in the Coupang Eats team.

Braum: The launch of Coupang Eats is the most special memory. We created a prototype app in a month, tested it at an in-house cafe, and supplemented it, and officially launched it within six months. When the first order was successful in the beta version of the store at the time, I remember being excited while eating Tteokbokki (Spicy rice cakes) together at the Jamsil office. I'm very proud that the app has grown and is running well.

Judy: The project that added a pop-up function to updating terms and conditions in the Coupang Eats delivery partner app is memorable. Even after the launch, I continued to observe the app and promptly worked to avoid any bugs.

As a Coupang Eats developer, you seem to have experienced a lot of things. So, what project are you focusing on the most at the moment?

PD: We are currently improving the app structure, so, in a few years If 50 or 100 mobile developers need to develop more services at the same time. We expect to improve the structure to improve team productivity and work more efficiently.

Braum: I am currently focusing on the modularization project of the Coupang Eats iOS app. This project will help clarify the role and responsibility of codes in the app and clarify the scope of developers' development in preparation for Coupang Eats mobile organizations that will grow further in the future.

Judy: It's a ‘To-Go’ project. In addition to delivery, we are working on a project that allows you to place orders first and ‘To-Go’ within the Coupang Eats app. I'm developing the Android's store app alone.

PD: Our mission is to build a stable and sustainable mobile platform. Since Coupang Eats service provides a food delivery service where real-time is very important, I think it should be able to provide stable and continuously improved services. To this end, the team is steadily investing in engineering tasks and infra, such as improving the structure of apps, by creating a long-term roadmap.

Braum: I think my role in the Coupang Eats team is to help organizations that will grow further in the future continue to move forward without missing stability and productivity. When it comes to personal goals, I'd like to say that in a good organization like Coupang Eats, working with good team members and continuously growing is my goal. To do that, I need to continue to develop so that I can be a member of a good team.

Judy: I want to grow to be a senior developer. Not long after I joined the company, I already learned so much with a lot of help from my team. I thought I want to be recognized as a senior  by them. My goal is to be regarded as someone who other team members want to work with within 10 years.

Finally, please leave a comment to future applicants who are interested in the interview.

PD: Even if you don't conduct an interview, if you're interested and have any questions, the recruiters will help you to meet and discuss with the developers. As Coupang Eats services grow, tech teams are also growing rapidly in terms of size and structure.

We expect people who enjoy the challenges arising from the fast-growing Coupang Eats Tech team, to solve complex problems through objective data and logical thinking, and to join those who can create synergy in the team through collaboration.