From Silicon Valley to an early role at Dunamu and the founding of SOOHO.IO, Jisu Park’s career has been shaped by a desire to solve real-world problems through technology.

From Silicon Valley to Dunamu and SOOHO.IO
Jisu Park originally planned to study fine art and work in media art. Realizing that it was not the right fit, he retook the university entrance exam and enrolled in computer science. It was his first formal introduction to computing—and it proved to be a good match.

“As a university student, I sent around 200 cold emails to companies in Silicon Valley and landed an internship at Splunk, the U.S. data platform company. I remember being amazed to find Guido, the creator of Python, sitting nearby. I also tried running a crowdfunded commuter-bus service called ‘Wake Up in Sinchon.’”

Park, now CEO of SOOHO.IO, wanted to use engineering to solve problems in the world around him. While others might approach those problems through the humanities or social activism, he was drawn to building tangible services. Media art gave way to another form of creation: software development.

“Looking honestly at my skills, I realized I was far from ready to build a real service. That is why I joined Dunamu, now best known for Upbit, as an early employee. It showed me how narrow my perspective had been.

If business means understanding what value you can offer users and solving their problems, I had been solving problems that were detached from users. I was building what I wanted, rather than something with clear business value. There were also limits to what I could achieve as a developer working alone.”

Jisu Park during his time at Dunamu

At Dunamu, Park developed quickly and worked on several fintech services. Yet each security patch to his code prompted the same question: if he understood security more deeply, could he identify and fix these issues himself? Wanting greater ownership of that work, he enrolled in an integrated master’s and doctoral program in software security.

An automated source-code security analysis service he developed in graduate school won awards and attracted requests from people who needed it. Those requests began generating revenue. In March 2019, SOOHO.IO was founded with blockchain security auditing as its initial focus.

From developer to business leader

“Developers tend to focus on how; business leaders need to focus on why. When it is clear what value we should create for users and why, developers can concentrate on delivering it effectively. I have a responsibility to think deeply about that why. If I ask people to build something and the reasoning is weak, everyone working on it is affected.”

Jisu Park and the SOOHO.IO team in a meeting

Park’s engineering background gives him practical tools for exploring that why. He can identify a market problem, form a hypothesis, and test it himself. Understanding implementation and its likely complexity also helps him make decisions.

He jokes that his background makes hiring developers difficult: he knows how important the role is and believes that one of the best benefits a company can offer an engineer is outstanding colleagues. As a result, he approaches recruitment carefully and reminds the people team not to rush hiring simply because workloads are high.

Hiring developers who understand the why

“Developers focus on how, but they need to understand why to find the right approach. Our engineering team shares that understanding, which means I can truly delegate the implementation. Many are highly entrepreneurial and have been founders or early employees at other companies.”

The SOOHO.IO engineering team

Before joining SOOHO.IO, some engineers had led companies or held highly compensated roles. To attract them, Park focused on competitive compensation and technically compelling problems.

“At Dunamu, we actively adopted new technology. We were using React in a service with hundreds of thousands of users when it was still at version 0.13. Being responsible for pioneering that work was demanding, but it was also deeply rewarding. I want candidates to know they can have that kind of experience here.”

SOOHO.IO also creates room for engineers who want to focus on R&D without direct revenue pressure. It respects their technical roadmaps while maintaining an ongoing dialogue about the company’s direction. That culture extends to details such as preparing thoughtful technical interview questions.