winter 2025 in review
planting roots, amtrak adventures, creating & community
The last few months have gone by SO fast ! I thought it was fitting to do another season in review to reflect on all that’s happened this winter being loyal to my waterloo roots. A bit ironic because now living in SF I don’t have “true” winters, but we’ll roll with it.
This one was packed: I moved into a new apartment and started putting down roots in making SF home. Took a 36-hour Amtrak as a writing retreat. Led my first major project at work and saw one of my prototypes roll out into a beta. Traveled to the East Coast for a month for work, did a co-working trip in CDMX and went to my first musical festival. After the chaos subsided got back into making things, started building community in new ways, and finally started to feel like I’m finding my people here!
the theme of 2025 is commitment
Originally when I moved here, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be in San Francisco as I only needed to be located in the bay year for the first year of my job. Because of that uncertainty, I ended up going with a lease that was already furnished to give me that optionality and convenience. But the start of my 2025 quickly got derailed when I received a move-out notice from my landlord - their daughter was moving back to the Bay and they needed the space back.
Looking back, it ended up being a blessing in disguise. The move pushed me to fully commit to San Francisco - to put down roots and turn a blank space into something that felt like home. It’s been a tough adjustment stepping into a sense of permanence, especially after 5 years of moving locations every 4 months while at Waterloo. I know this space won’t be forever but it’s brought me a lot of joy hunting for deals on FB marketplace and watching my pinterest boards come to life. It’s the first time I’ve felt truly grounded in a long while.
What surprised me most is how fulfilling it’s been to design a physical space. So much of my work revolves around digital interfaces and product design but shaping a home has felt much more real and tactile, a whole other form of self-expression realized IRL. I love how sunny my new apartment is, and even though it’s smaller than my last place, I’ve realized how much I enjoy cozy spaces. It’s shifted how I host too - I’ve mostly kept to having close friends over and leaned into taking advantage of other spaces in the city.
visiting CDMX
In early January, I went on a trip to CDMX for the first time — a co-working week with some friends from the Cansbridge Fellowship. We worked remotely during the day and explored the city in the evenings and over the weekend. The food was incredible, and I loved how colorful and vibrant everything felt. It also made me realize I definitely want to learn some more Spanish before my next trip.
This was my first time doing a co-working type trip and I really enjoyed it. It was a nice balance of getting focus time during the day but using downtime to explore. I’ve always had a hard time with completely disconnecting for multiple days when I travel so this pace was a sweet spot. I’d love to go back!
amtrak writing retreat adventure
Doing an Amtrak writing retreat had been on my bucket list ever since I saw Jasmine Sun do one. We originally wanted to take the California Zephyr route, but it was sold so we opted for the shorter 36-hour ride from Emeryville to Seattle instead. I went with eight friends - a lot of them were rabbitholeathon alums, which made it even more fun reconnecting with them.
The views were stunning and I loved the floor-to-ceiling windows in the observation cars. With no Wi-Fi and barely any cell service through the remote stretches, we were fully unplugged. It ended up being a particularly interesting weekend to go on, as we took the trip over MLK weekend in January, which also happened to be Inauguration Day. While the internet was buzzing over the weekend we were completely offline. It was so beautiful to see the lakes and snow sprinkled over Pacific Northwest pine trees.
The train also brought a lot of distinct characters. It’s not the most conventional way to travel - a flight from SF to Seattle takes just about 2 hours, while the train stretches that into a slow, 22-hour journey. It definitely attracts a certain kind of person - ones that aren’t in a rush and have some sort of reason to opt for a train journey instead. There were monks, grandparents returning from family visits, fellow bucket list travelers like us, and even a few chaotic passengers picking fights in the aisles. It made for a ride that was never boring, to say the least.
We mostly spent the time reading, writing, and playing card games. I was surprised by how fast the time went by - I brought a whole stack of books but only managed to read a sliver of one. I instead finished a first pass of the breaking into VC early career blog post (which I published a month later) and spent some time mapping out some goals and reflections for 2025.
For anyone thinking of recreating this trip, here’s some logistical info and tips:
We took the train Saturday night and arrived in Seattle Sunday night. We flew back to SF Monday evening.
We booked coach seats - they weren’t that bad! I’d definitely recommend bringing some sort of neck pillow and pack comfy hoodies/warm layers. I didn’t pack ear plugs but that also would’ve helped with falling asleep.
Pack a lot of snacks and food to eat! I saw other groups bring entire bags of food which was smart. If you’re in coach, it’s a bit tricky getting spots in the dining car. I brought some instant noodle bowls which was good because they had hot water available for me to heat it up.
That said, I’d try the dining car once next time - they seat you with others to fill tables, so it’s also a fun way to strike up conversations with new people.
work highlights: leading my first project & beta release
Work ramped up a lot after the new year. I led my first end-to-end project at Netflix - one that was technically complex and pushed me in the best ways. I joined the project at the end of January and we had user research sessions slated in Atlanta in mid March. I set an audacious goal of finishing the prototype within two weeks so we could start internal testing earlier which ended up being a huge win for the team.
I can’t share too many details about what we built, but it was incredible to watch real users engage with it during the research sessions. This project in particular reinforced why design engineering was such a critical function - without a coded prototype it simply wouldn’t have been possible to test the interaction design or usability.
Netflix also rolled out a small opt-in beta for one of the projects I helped with prototyping for in the fall - a new way to search that brings Gen AI into the discovery experience. You can read more about it here!
One of the unique parts of my role is that I often work on very early-stage ideas, which means a lot of what I build doesn’t make it out into the wild for quite a while. So it’s especially rewarding seeing this one launch and have an artifact to point to!
work travel
I didn’t realize just how much travel my job would involve! I was basically out of San Francisco for all of March. The month kicked off with a design sprint in New York, followed by user testing in Atlanta the second week. I squeezed in a trip to Toronto in between for the Socratica Symposium and to see family, and wrapped up the month with a design engineering team week back in New York.
I had actually gone out of my way to get involved in that first design sprint - my mentor was originally supposed to attend but couldn’t make it, so I volunteered to go. I’m really glad I went because I got to connect with teammates I don’t usually work with and now we’re tinkering on a mini side project to prototype an idea before it’s officially on the roadmap. It also lined up perfectly with one of my friend’s birthdays and gave me time to catch up with my friends on the East Coast.
By the end of the month though I was feeling it - one month away from SF felt like a lot. I hated having to tell people I was out of town for so long! I missed a lot of my friends and even the little things like the comfort of a routine and going to a grocery store, so I’m glad to be back. I realized how much I romanticized work travel - it is a nice change of scenery but there are intangible things you miss out on in your life back home.
socratica symposium
I didn’t expect to be back at Waterloo so soon after graduating! My past school life and current life feels like ages ago - it felt super nostalgic being back on campus and not being a student anymore. It was also heartwarming to see how many people traveled from all over from Waterloo to attend symposium, it felt like a huge friend reunion in a way.
The kids truly are going to be alright. It was insane to see how the entire team transformed a hockey arena into the venue and brought over 2000 attendees to celebrate what everyone is working on and tinkering with!
first coachella
This was my first ever music festival so it was a go big or go home moment! I went to Coachella Weekend 2 with 9 other people - 7 other Netflix new grads and 2 people from Waterloo. We drove from SF to LA on Wednesday, worked from LA on Thursday, and drove to Palm Springs Thursday night. It was the best way we could’ve traveled for it honestly without being stuck in traffic all of Thursday, and the road trip also bonded us along the way.
It felt like one of those life bucket list moments, I got to see so many artists including Keshi, Jennie, Tyla, Charli, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Lola Young, Lisa, Enhyphen, T-Pain, Still Woozy, and Zedd. A few of them I also got to see up-close from lining up early! I loved how much everyone dressed up on theme and creatively expressed themselves.
It was a chaotic weekend - incredible, but seriously tiring. I think I’ll be retired from festivals for now! I’m still glad I went especially because we had a big group going which made it easier to coordinate. I also felt pretty overwhelmed going into it at first given it was my first music festival and I wasn’t sure what to expect and how to pack for it. But once you do these things once it makes it much easier to do them again in the future!
back into making mode
After all the apartment-moving shenanigans and being out of town for a month in March I was itching to get back into focus mode!
I went to the Anthropic South Park Commons agent hackathon in April and explored building a visual design agent that uses intelligent commands to help with design iterations. It was also my first time using code-generation tools other than cursor, and it was pretty cool to see how far tools like Lovable take you in building an entire end-to-end UI.
It was a good opportunity to explore making things in this space especially as the 4o image API came out. Image generation has come a long way, and the results get especially good when you pass in reference images. I generated this sticker sheet from passing in an image of another 3D-clay icon I liked and described it as a “jelly cat” vibe and came out with these cute components!
This was my first time doing a hackathon since my third year of university, and it felt so refreshing to go through the entire flow again - mapping out an MVP in sketches, designing in Figma, building, and frantically deploying to Vercel just minutes before the deadline. It’s a process I don’t often experience in my day-to-day work. Since moving to SF, I hadn’t been involved in the hackathon scene, but this reminded me how exhilarating it is to dedicate an entire weekend to one focused project. It’s a completely different kind of energy compared to weekends usually filled with back-to-back hangouts, errands, and fragmented side project time, where I’m constantly context switching.
I ended up working on this for longer afterwards and was surprised by how much progress I made with an immense amount of focus. For the second iteration we were curious about building an end to end flow for brand and product designers going from ideation concepts to design, iterating on top of that design, and keeping your brand and assets in context along the way. I’ve definitely learned a ton about that space in a short period of time so can also do a longer write up about this if people are interested.
I also realized how valuable it was to have this tangible artifact at the end. It sparked conversations with people in the image generation and design space that I wouldn’t have connected with otherwise and became a helpful conversation starter in itself. I’ve done deep dives before (like my AI and creativity cycle post) but nothing teaches you more about a space than trying to build within it.
Since that weekend, I’ve started applying a similar mindset. I blocked off another weekend in May to co-work with a friend and finally build out a first iteration of a project that had been sitting on my backlog for a while. Even this weekend as I’m writing this blog post was mostly dedicated to catching up on my writing drafts I’ve been meaning to finish. These weekend bursts of focus have shown me how far a little intention can go, and they’ve helped me become more deliberate about how I spend my time.
As much as I love meeting new people for coffee chats, I’ve been trying to shift those to weekday mornings or early weekend slots so I can protect uninterrupted blocks of time for creating and deep work. Highly encourage others to try this as well!
hangouts that feel like a warm hug
I feel like I’m finally finding a real sense of community here in SF - more than I’ve ever experienced before. Maybe part of it is healing my inner child where I’m finally being invited to things, unlike how it felt in high school or university. But more than that, I think I’m genuinely finding my people. The thoughtful, creative, slightly nerdy folks who get excited about the same things I do.
I also think something shifted in how I show up that’s helped make this possible. Instead of waiting to be invited, I’ve started hosting. I now share more of my thoughts online - a little bat signal for what I care about and want to explore. In doing that, I’ve naturally filtered for people I’d genuinely vibe with.
Surrounding myself with high-agency people has also been a huge unlock. Friends who’d tell me about an idea for an event and send out the invite that same day. And the people in their orbits end up being people I really enjoy spending time with so the positive loop just continues. Being around this energy has truly impacted my life for the better.
Some highlights of great hangouts these past few months:
Hosting a movie night to watch Didi
Girl’s murder mystery night with chat GPT generated characters on all the iconic and controversial women of this era
Hunger Games Book Club on Sunrise and the Reaping
Lunar New Year dumpling making
Going to a music festival
SF startup reading sessions
Taking a dance class
Go karting (which I learned I am extremely bad at but was fun!)
Homemade rabbitholeathon reunion dinner
Talent show night
Rabbithole lightning talks
Board game night
Thank you to Megha, Grace N, Khushi, Grace J, Janvi, Nathan, Arjun, Aadil, Nate, Resham, Tara N, Hanlin, Julia, Jane, Grace Z, Jasmine, Heather, Anthony, Gian, Valentina, and more for making these past few months filled with great hangs and memories!
cultivating community
Women Who Lift SF 💪
Of course it’s never a few months in SF without a few community events sprinkled in between! We hosted two women who lift events, one in February (that was galentines themed) and one in April, with one underway in June. We’re now experimenting working with more sponsors as well to make more of these events possible. It’s been a ton of fun building this community and helping cultivate a space for women in SF to meet each other and get strong together!
Design Engineering 💻
I’m also currently experimenting with cultivating a design engineering community! I was floored by the amount of interest and excitement there is in this space - it turns out a lot of folks working in this unique intersection are eager to find others navigating the same space. What makes this space especially cool is that people come into the role from so many different paths which means there are tons of unique stories to learn from and share.
Right now, I’m starting small by rolling invites to a Slack group, organizing occasional events in SF and NYC, and working on a newsletter to highlight people’s journeys and help democratize knowledge about breaking into the role. What’s been amazing is also the amount of help I’ve been able to get to contribute to the community as well - as I mainly wanted this to be something that exists in some capacity! It’s been great to have so many hands to help shape what this looks like.
parting thoughts
Winter 2025 came with a lot of movement - literally and figuratively. From leading my first big project to weeks of travel, building community, and diving into new creative side quests… it’s been a season of growth and momentum. I’m excited to lean more into this momentum for the spring/summer with a lot more curiosity and learning along with making great memories along the way!
Thank you for reading! If this resonates feel free to shoot me a message on X or reply to this email!
~Mathu
the amtrak writing retreat is so inspiring - I may have to do that one day...
you made sf home for me, everything you host, how much you care about people and the little details - thank you for existing and being so awesome!!!