During November 2025, Soomin Kim focused on backend reliability in the grpc-java repository by addressing a critical bug affecting bidirectional keep-alive validation. Using Java and leveraging gRPC and HTTP/2 protocols, Soomin modified the keepAliveEnforcer logic to ensure that only client-initiated pings are validated, preventing unnecessary GO_AWAY responses and reducing connection churn for long-lived streams. This targeted fix, delivered via commit 8fa2c2c3c1454d411b1b029f8e83debf02c9bf11, resolved issue #12417 and improved overall connection stability. The work demonstrated a deep understanding of backend systems and protocol-level interactions, resulting in more robust and reliable streaming connections for users.