Yuanfeng @ csdn Impromptu remarks

1. I want to ask my boss for a raise... but I don't know what to say... help me!

You have to give your boss enough reasons to raise your salary. For example:

1. I have worked for your company for N years and I think my skill has improved a lot, so I think I need a raise.

2. I'm more productive than Mr. X which earns higher salary than me, so I think it's fair for me to get a raise to get closer to his salary.

3. My friend is working in another company with higher pay, but I really like working here, the only problem is that...

2. After joining our company, how do you plan your career orientation?

Depending on your situation, there can be lots of answers:

1) I'm quite new in this field, so for the next five years, I want to became as strong as possible in technical field.

2) I think I'm quite experienced in software development, so for the next two years, I wowould like to became an expert in your domain, and then move to a techincal leadership role.

3 )...

In the software industry, which job is highly paid, stable, and not tiring?

Actually, it's possbile. You just need to work for a really good company.

1. Good company pays more reasonable.
2. Jobs are normally quite stable because they know how to make money.
3. Working hour for good companies is not so long as they promote work-life balance.

HP used to be such a good company. but software jobs with HP are more boring because it's basically a hardware company. microsoft is little bit more stressful than HP, but jobs are much more exciting. intel is said to be much more stressful.

> But I always think that testing is something that people with no culture do.

If you think that way, you shocould not even be hired to do testing.

Testing is very critical in software development, especially for big companies like HP and Microsoft. at Microsoft, SDE/T writes programs to test production code automatically. there are less coding in testing at HP, but things may change recently.

Testing organization is involved with production development from start to finish.

> Will it be discriminated against?

I 've been working for HP for 8 years, Microsoft for 3 years. No one cares where are you from, where did you get your degree, how many degrees have you got.

Just show them what you can do.

> Are there any Microsoft employees, do you know Wu Bo? I went to Microsoft 95 years ago and trained me some days ago, at sigma building.

Yes. There is a Wu Bo who used to work here. He is now in Microsoft Beijing.

> I do not know where the landlord works

I'm in building 2. I used to work in building 9 and 10.

> Not all are "X" buildings. Are other buildings non-office buildings?

The first 6 buildings are in X-shape, the next three are in double X-shape, the new buildings are not in X-shape. all the buildings with numbers are office buildings. there are about 20,000 people working in those buildings, with over 1,500 Chinese.

> But I have a question about development.

Just post your question on CSDN and point me to it.

> I thought it was a satellite map.
Those pictures are taken by satellite.

> Satellite shooting is too good .....

Are you looking at http://blog.joycode.com/fyuan/articles/34760.aspx? It looks quite good to me. You can even see cars driving on streets.

> The buildings are in X-shape, why?

Builds 1-6, 8-10 are in X-shape to maximize number of offices with outside windows. unlike most company, each Microsoft person normally has his/her own seperate small office. each office is about 10 to 12 square meters. but new empolyee normally have to share office with other people for some time.

> I am studying the windows kernel. Does Microsoft have any job opportunities in this area?

Microsoft is still hiring 3000-5000 people a year. So there are lots of jobs for good software design engineers, software design engineers in test (QA), and program managers.

> Use C ++ to write drivers with a monthly salary of 7500
I 've written printer drivers using C ++. But printer drivers have moved to user mode. So writing them is more like application development than driver development.

> Why are the salaries of foreign programmers tens of thousands and thousands in China? The company wants to recruit a foreign Chinese, and the salary is more than zero than I, unbalanced!

Suppose your company pays $5,000 a month to hire a software engineer in US, which is $60,000 a year:

1) Around 20% goes to federal income tax, social security tax, medicare tax, plus possible state income tax. Now he has 4,000 a month left.
2) Around 20% goes to his own retirement account (401 K). Now he has 3,000 a month left.
3) Around 25% goes to house/apartment payment. Now he has 1,750 a month left.
4) $500 goes to utility bills, grocery, etc. Now he has 1,250 a month left
5) $400 goes to car payment, auto insurance, gas.

Now he has $850 a month left, a net saving of 17% (plus 401 k, plus social security) if he does not spend on other things.

In US, a software engineer job is supposed to be able to support a whole family (wife staying at home, 2 kids, a house, two cars, vacation, medical/dental insurance ).

> In the era of mergers and acquisitions, how do programmers position themselves?
---------------------------------------------------------------
I know two groups of friends at HP, one group worked on HP's wince machines in Singapore, another group works on HP's inject printers in Vancouver Washington.

When HP merged with Compaq, the wince group in Singapore lost their jobs because Compaq's wince machines are better than HP's. the printer group in Vancouver Washington was happy because they can have more printers with Compaq PCs now.

Normally Company Merge is followed by job cut to reduce cost. Only the better one will keep ve.

> Why don't overseas Chinese return to China?
---------------------------------------------------------------
A few years ago, I wanted to return to China, so I applied for an R & D manager job with Intel research lab in Shanghai. I went through the telephone interview, and then called off the interview because a publisher signed a contract with me to write a book. after the book is published, I joined Microsoft. now I wocould not consider returning to China until my boy enters college in a few years.

China has lots of engineers, lots of talented engineers. what I read is that China/India are producing more engineering students than us. you can constantly read that college graduates are having a hard time finding jobs in China. some people are even opting for working without pay. what China lacks are marketing/management talents who can organize people together to run a real money making bussiness. one good way to produce those people is working for foreign companies like HP, IBM, Microsoft for a long time. this definitely takes time.

But returning to China is not the only way to help China or help students/engineers in China. Internet brings people much closer than ever before.

Good luck, guys.

> Now we have 50 million RMB in hand. What should we do if we do IT?

If you're asking such questions here, put the money into a bank or other safe place.

The real question is what can you do to make money from money, with higher return rate than a bank or stock market.

> What is the difference between mature people and immature people?

A mature person has few defects in the program running in his/her head.

A mature person can improve the program running in his/her head gradually to make it better.

> Who knows the salary of Microsoft's Asian Engineering Institute?

Big companies normally have different levels of jobs. Even within the same level, there is difference in salary.

Good companies pay according to your experience, skill and contribution. even if you do not get a good pay to start with, your salary will increase quickly if you're re really good. no gifts, backdoors, and sentiment is needed.

> How much is the current 1000 yuan equivalent to 30 years ago? (

Come on, you do not want to return to life 30 years ago. It was miserable life, although little bit better than 40 years ago.

30 years ago, 1975, my parents were making 88.88 RMB combined monthly. three of us gets 0.88 RMB as monthly allowance. school found is around 7.50 RMB half a year. with three kids, we can't afford to pay school at the begining of a semester, so we had to pay them over several months. my father was responsible for putting food on the table, but his budget was only 15 RMB a month, or 50 cents a day. people seldom get meat, fish, egg, fruit to eat, because there was not much money left for them and supply was limited.

The rice we ate was of very poor quality with lots of stones inside. the supply of rice was limited, so we had to buy yam stem to cook together with rice. good quality noddle was only provided on Dec 26th, Mao's birthday. chinese new year was a big thing because it was only then more food was provided.

Colleges were all closed until Deng reopened it in the spring of 1978.

Life is much better now than 30 years ago.

> Programmer Security

1) Programs is universal. Good programers can find job anywhere in the world.

2) Every field is trying to collect costs cost, so use computer to automate things used to be done by human is a good way to reduce cost. so essential tailly programmers are eating away other people's job.

3) Computer hardwares are still evolving at rapid speed to be cheap and better. So there are more and more places with computers being used, which means more jobs for programmers.

Sometimes ago, people in US killed all the wolves in national parks. then the deers were very happy, because there is no one to chase them around. they have all the time to eat tiny young trees. so they became fatter and the forest suffers too.

To solve the problem, people brought wolves from Canada to US. now the deers are not safe any more. they have to run around to get away from wolves, the weak ones will be killed by wolves. they also do not have time to eat tiny young trees. the result is healthy deers and healthy forest.

> UT layoff: 15%. Please discuss it.

As the company is listed on stock market, they have to do something to please the stock holders. Otherwise, stock price will fall even more and more people will lose jobs.

> How are the salaries of developers in your company determined?

Good company normally have different levels, each level having different requirements, responsibility and salary.

Strong people will move much quickily in levels and salary. Length of service and education shocould not be important.

Check csdn.fengyuan.com.

I'm going to add more stuff to that page.

> Where is Yuan Feng doing something? English is good, right. It seems that all of them are written in English.

I'm an old software design engineer. actually, my English is not that good, you should be able to find mistakes easily. i'm using English most of the time just because typing English is much faster for me. if I type in Chinese, I wocould be 5 to 10 times slower.

> There is also a typical Stalin (personal worship idea) who holds a joint position in csdn ).

No title. Somehow CSDN decided to give me 5 stars.
Yes, I agree with you, personal worship is bad. People shoshould be respected becuase of their ideas.

> Q: did these people stay after graduation in the United States? Have you applied online from China,
> Past candidates?

I have not attended one day school outside of China, but I joined HP first before joining Microsoft. I know some people transferred from Microsoft China to US. not sure about hiring directly from China. A few days ago, there was ad about hiring people from Asia directly to Microsoft US.

Thanks, smallrole.

Subject: what programmers need most is security

Sometimes ago, people in US killed all the wolves in national parks. then the deers were very happy, because there is no one to chase them around. they have all the time to eat tiny young trees. so they became fatter and the forest suffers too.
 
To solve the problem, people brought wolves from Canada to us. now the deers are not safe any more. they have to run around to get away from wolves, the weak ones will be killed by wolves. they also do not have time to eat tiny young trees. the result is healthy deers and healthy forest.