Chapter 22: The boss who doesn't understand technology
Chapter 22: The boss who doesn't understand technology
Xu Shenxue knew very well that increasing independent production capacity would not be a quick matter, but he could not stop accepting orders and give up the market simply because of insufficient production capacity, so finding a foundry became the only option for Wecoo Electronics.
The meeting continued after the resolution to find a foundry to alleviate the shortage of production capacity was finalized.
The marketing department, administrative department, human resources department and even the purchasing department all made reports, and after the reports, most of them also mentioned that the departments are currently understaffed and hope to obtain more positions to increase staff.
This is inevitable after the business expands, so Xu Shenxue also approved part of it after reviewing them one by one!
Why not approve all of them?
Because if you dare to approve all of them today, they will find an excuse tomorrow saying that there is a shortage of staff and apply for more staff and hire more people.
Staff expansion is necessary, but it cannot be done recklessly. Increasing the number of employees without restraint, if not controlled, will quickly lead to bloated staff and a significant increase in labor costs.
However, there is one department that is an exception, and that is the R&D department!
Whenever the R&D department asks for a certain number of people to be recruited, Xu Shenxue always approves it all...but the problem is that under normal circumstances, they can't recruit enough people!
Because what the R&D department lacks is not R&D personnel for feature phone business, but R&D personnel for smart phone projects, and it is difficult to recruit R&D personnel for smart phone projects...
The salary offered by Wecoo Electronics to the engineers of these smartphone projects has actually exceeded the market price... For example, for those who are working on systems, as long as you know a little about the Android system, even if you are a fresh graduate with a second-class computer science degree, Wecoo Electronics will directly offer you a starting salary of 4,500 yuan. After you become a regular employee, your salary will be increased further, up to 5,000 or 6,000 yuan or even higher depending on your personal situation.
The starting salary for an ordinary master's degree graduate is around 7,000 to 8,000 yuan, and the starting salary for undergraduate and master's degree graduates from well-known universities is even higher.
And this does not include project bonuses, year-end bonuses and other things.
These fresh graduates are all good and can be found.
However, it is difficult to find a technical backbone or a technical leader who can lead a project.
Because there are not enough mature and available smart phone project talents in the market for you to recruit.
This is very embarrassing!
Xie Jianyong from the R&D department said every day that the smartphone project was short of manpower. Luo Yinian from the HR department was out and about every day, using his connections to find people. In the end, he only managed to find eight technical backbones at a considerable premium...
Many of them were recruited from other provinces. In addition to premium salaries, all other benefits were fully maximized.
It’s not possible to not pull it to the maximum. You have to look at who the competitors were when Weiku Electronics was poaching people... They were Huawei, Lianxiang and some other major mobile phone brand manufacturers!
After entering the time point of 2009, all major mobile phone manufacturers that had a little bit of ambition, or did not want to slowly die, started to develop smart phones.
But talents who are capable of working on smart phones, especially high-end talents, are not easy to come by. How can there be so many of them?
Therefore, these limited high-end talents have caused a scramble among major mobile phone companies, resulting in an extremely serious premium phenomenon.
In this war for talent, the current attractiveness of Wecoo Electronics is too poor. The only thing it can offer is an Internet mobile phone brand, Bluegogo, and an offline brand, Wecoo.
The total monthly sales of mobile phones of Weiku Electronics are only 60,000 to 70,000 units, and they are low-end feature phones with an average factory price of only 300 to 400 yuan, and the monthly revenue is only 20 to 30 million yuan.
A typical small fry in the mobile phone industry!
Many technical personnel believe that there is no hope for a company of this level. Within a few months, the smartphone project may fail due to a break in the funding chain.
No one wants to be laid off just a few months after joining the company, so they also have concerns!
How to allay their concerns?
In addition to the usual big promises about the future, the most important thing is to provide adequate compensation.
Under such circumstances, we can still find seven or eight high-end talents to serve as the leaders of each R&D team...
The annual salary is all over 300,000 yuan. There is a big boss in the hardware industry who earns more than 500,000 yuan a year, which is higher than Xie Jianyong... Looking at the salary list makes Xie Jianyong, the R&D manager, feel a pain in his liver!
The only thing that comforted him was that although the backbone personnel recruited here were quite expensive, their technical skills were impeccable. Those who worked on software directly led the team as soon as they came in and started the comprehensive customization and optimization work of the Android system.
As for those who work on hardware, their skills are also impeccable. In the first few days after they came in, Xie Jianyong felt that these people were at the same level as himself.
But after a week or so, when they got used to the work, they left Xie Jianyong aside!
In this regard, Xie Jianyong can only say that it’s not that I’m incompetent, but that I’m old... If it were ten years ago, I would have knocked you down in minutes!
Relying on these eight highly paid team leader-level technical experts, and with dozens of engineers from various fields, the R&D department's smart phone project team has barely entered the track of high-speed R&D.
But even this...is not enough!
In this day and age, when developing a new smartphone, although the hardware can be purchased and the system is Android, in the absence of a turnkey solution like Lianke, everything has to be done by yourself, and there is no other reference on the market except HTZ!
In addition, Mr. Xu has clearly stated that he does not want a sliding cover smartphone like HTZ, he only wants a full touch screen smartphone with an amazing appearance.
It also places extremely stringent requirements on performance such as photography and running speed, as well as body appearance, size and thickness.
If there were no such stringent requirements, it would not be difficult to simply assemble the chips and other components and put an Android system in them. However, you have to put these components into the small body of the phone. Moreover, President Xu also required that the body must be thin and light, and the thickness must not exceed ten millimeters. When the engineers saw the design requirements proposed by President Xu, a grumpy young engineer with a bald head and dark circles under his eyes started to curse: What does he, a second-generation rich man who doesn't understand technology, know? Does he know how much it costs to reduce the thickness of the body by one millimeter?
After much persuasion, Xie Jianyong found Xu Shenxue and talked for a long time before getting Xu Shenxue to give up the requirement to limit the thickness of the fuselage to ten millimeters. However, Mr. Xu said that the maximum thickness could be ten point five millimeters, no more!
Either don’t do it, or do it to the extreme!
Thinness was an important requirement for Xu Shenxue for his first smartphone. Only with this thinness could a series of appearance designs be made for the phone, making it pleasing to the eye and full of industrial aesthetics.
To achieve this thinness, Xu Shenxue is even prepared to use non-removable batteries in this era... You say, I have gone through so much trouble and invested tens of millions, and you still want to make me a mobile phone that is twelve or even thirteen millimeters thick?
Do I look like a sucker to you?
A few days ago, when Xu Shenxue went to the R&D department to check on the development of smart phones, he made a temporary speech on this issue. He said: "When you encounter a problem, don't say it's impossible or can't be done at the first time. Instead, you should pause and think carefully in your mind about how to make it happen!"
“Don’t think about whether you can do it, but think about how you can do it!”
Then a group of engineers fell silent... Do you think they were convinced by Xu Shenxue's great principles?
No, as soon as Xu Shenxue left, they started to criticize again... A team leader who had just been hired and was working on the internal structure slammed the table on the spot: "We need good heat dissipation, long battery life, and a thickness of ten millimeters... I'm afraid he is living in a dream. There is something wrong with his brain."
"This is the drawback of an amateur leading an expert, full of unrealistic fantasies!"
A group of people started to criticize one another, and when everyone had finished criticizing, Xie Jianyong stepped out to smooth things over:
"Okay, I've scolded you enough, I've slammed the table enough, now let's get to work!"
"Our boss is a little mentally ill, but if he was fine, would he have offered you such a high salary?"
"If he didn't have any problems with his brain, he wouldn't have invested tens of millions of dollars a year in developing smart phones!"
"So, if you meet a boss who doesn't understand technology, just laugh secretly!"
"If I were the boss, I would have disbanded the project team long ago. He doesn't know how difficult it is to make a smartphone, so how could I not know?"
"It hurts me to see tens of millions of dollars go down the drain every year!"
As soon as these words came out, the team leader who had just slammed the table became embarrassed. After a long pause, he said, "Old Xie, you can't be a traitor. Don't say things that you shouldn't say."
"But don't go and tell your boss that smartphones are hard to work with. What about the jobs of hundreds of people? They all have families to support!"
"This boss's money is not yours, why are you so distressed?"
Another team leader spoke up: "Hey, what are you talking about? Let's get to work. Although this smartphone project is difficult, it's not impossible. Now, we have to get some results for the boss to see... give the boss some confidence!"
"Old Xie, if you have nothing to do, just express your opinion in front of the boss and make a promise or something like that. You have to let the boss maintain his confidence!"
“Although the project is a bit difficult, it’s not a waste of investment… Really not. At most the result will be slightly worse, but it can be done.”
Another older engineer said: "I just bought a house and still owe more than 2 million yuan in mortgage. If the project fails and I get laid off, I can't bear it."
Another team leader said, "There's no point in talking any more. Let's get to work. I haven't even figured out the shooting algorithm yet!"
Watching a group of leaders running out to work one after another, Xie Jianyong sighed, turned into the office and drank some tea.
It’s not easy to be a project manager these days. You have to bear the pressure from the boss above and deal with the complaints from employees below.
But who will coax Xie Jianyong?
During this period of time, he has been both a father and a mother... and he has lost a lot of his hair, which was already half bald.
Thank you for your support: Reverse Safa defense, space power, six-path descendant, all things can return, walk without wind, go out without money, Chogori seal...
(End of this chapter)