Picky People Spotlight – Our Youngest Team Member is Tiaan, Picky App Developer from South Africa 🇿🇦

2 months ago

By Team Picky

Introducing the “maknae” of our team and maestro behind our Picky App!

Tiaan is no stranger to risk-taking.

A road trip all over the African continent? Easy. Driving his first motorbike without a proper license in Bali? Done.

But perhaps the biggest risk of all was leaving behind the comfort of Cape Town and everything he held dear: family, friends, and the farm life. Back at home, he was surrounded by the pastoral calmness of rural Africa.

He traded it all for the hustle and bustle of Seoul.

Joining Picky as our youngest team member, Tiaan brings to the company his programming talents in developing and maintaining the Picky App.

BTS has their own golden maknae making hearts flutter. Ours actually uses Flutter to keep the App humming like a foreign whip.

In fact, Tiaan states that his biggest contribution at Picky is the rebranding and revamping of the entire app earlier this year. Through his diligent and meticulous work, we’ve added numerous features and quality of life updates such as the Picky curations, variants, social connections and overall streamlined onboarding of new accounts. And it’s an ongoing yet fruitful project!

Just this quarter, we’ve reached over 450,000 accounts across the Picky app versions on Android and iOS, with the highest monthly number of downloads.

We sat down with Tiaan to reflect on his ongoing odyssey in Korea and startup life at Picky!

Q:What do you enjoy the most so far about working at Picky?

Picky is an incredibly multicultural team, coming from South Africa, I’m used to being exposed to cultures different to my own, but experiencing this in Korea is rare and incredibly fulfilling, and has helped me develop as a person immensely.

– Since Picky is a startup in the everchanging and rapidly growing K-beauty industry, there’s never a dull moment. I’m always afforded the opportunity to learn new things and tackle new challenges, which keeps things exciting.

– The people. Picky has a knack for bringing together compassionate, hardworking individuals from various backgrounds. Despite our differences, we all get along remarkably well. It’s more than just a team. I can genuinely call my colleagues friends.

Q:What do you think of risk taking and how has it impacted your life?

I think risk taking, like most things in life can be healthy. Personally I have the luxury of being quite young still, but regardless of that, leaving a comfortable, well paying job, working with my best friends, with lots of room to grow to move halfway across the world to join a startup is, of course, risky. No matter how much time I spent weighing the pros and cons, contemplating the choice, I feel like a lot of it still came down to trusting my instincts and doing what was best for me. With hindsight, if I could go back I would still make that decision to come here. I am someone who tends to overthink, but I feel like taking a well calculated risk every now and then can be a good thing.

Q: What advice do you have for new immigrants coming to Korea?

Event though I’ve been here for a while now, and Seoul finally feels like my home, I still have so much to learn. For any new immigrants moving here, my advice would be to not come with any preconceived notions or expectations. Like any country, Korea will be many things to many people. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to have to work hard, it is going to be lonely, you will get frustrated at least once at immigration. Like all good things, living comfortably here does not come easy. Be as open as you can be to new experiences, to new food, to new people. Walk, everywhere. Take lots of photos. Go sit in parks. Talk to everyone and anyone who is willing to. It will take time for you to find your groove again, but when you do, Korea will have its grip on you—and you’ll find it hard to let go.

Looking to kickstart your career in Seoul and join our fast-growing team? Check out available job postings here