While having dinner with Yuxuan,
I suddenly realized it’s been a full year since I came to DataRC.
At the one-year mark at Zaihui,
I wrote 《My Work》.
Today might be a suitable time to write down something.
Introduction
When Zhiyuan had just joined DataRC,
she often lamented to me: “I really love our DataRC, it suits my taste so well!”
I always comforted her: “The first six months are always fresh. Lasting affection is the best confession to a company.”
Sharing the fresh period myself,
last year I often had the urge to write something about work,
but pressed it down by myself.
A year in, the enthusiasm has slightly faded, but the fervor remains.
Looking back today,
I can share some insights and feelings from the perspectives of entrepreneurial mindset, changing environment, and continuous reflection.
Entrepreneurial Mindset
Starting again from the initial stage,
I can finally confidently say:
I really like working at a startup-style company.
Innovation
Since my company works in a new direction in the industry,
many functional implementations and product experiences must be done by groping along with no one to follow.
Even more, as a first-mover, others grope along with us.
Of course in the end it’s still a product function-experience competition.
In 2022 I participated in several projects
that had only a handful of competing products globally in the industry,
and even some had pioneering features.
Later when customers praised the product,
I was as happy as watching my child get into Fudan.
But there were also plenty of bitter moments.
We had many requirements docs stillborn in the womb,
technical implementations dying halfway,
product features urgently needing optimization under market validation.
Startups doing innovation
is like using limited energy and resources,
plus unlimited wisdom and courage,
to face super-limited difficulties and unknowns.
Fulfillment
After working for a few years,
my peers basically know clearly what they want.
Those who wanted to lie flat went back home,
those who wanted stability entered big companies (those who entered a few years ago),
and I am full with dreams alone.
People still have to do things, not doing things doesn’t work.
—— my grandma
Doing things at DataRC features fulfillment.
Our work mode is bimonthly OKR + weekly iteration,
no Tech Leads who don’t write code,
nor have I seen Tech Leads who don’t love writing code.
When I just started working I was influenced by the Work Hard, Play Hard. culture.
Today I am indeed immersed in this happy fulfilled state.
When friends discuss when to retire early,
I, who proclaim “I hope to keep working happily,”
am like a cute oddity,
hanging out happily with everyone.
I’ve always believed work is part of life.
Because I love it, fulfillment is happiness.
Like-minded People
There’s a saying: “Not afraid of others being smart, not afraid of others being hardworking, just afraid of others being smarter AND more hardworking than you.”
(Another real-life version is rich and handsome)
After splitting up technical research with the frontend dev on Friday,
on Monday she said “I had nothing to do over the weekend, so I mostly finished my part…”
Being able to have teammates who learn tech in their spare time
is truly very blessed.
Teammates also have relatively consistent good taste in tech,
things like keeping latest version dependencies, unit test coverage, clean commit history, and strict code style,
these best practices have also integrated into everyone’s coding daily life,
which makes me with a bit of tech OCD feel very comfortable.
This year a few teammates I liked also left,
Andrew went to the US,
Eva chased after JJ Lin,
Zhiyi is walking her Shiba Inu.
This year I also became partners with more like-minded friends,
to avoid favoritism, I won’t name them additionally :)
👆 Magically, the wish worked. Within a month one was indeed granted.
But this is also the beautiful part of life:
no one can predict who they’ll meet again at the next corner.
Changing Environment
When I just graduated,
listening to the boss talk about big-environment trends,
listening to seniors talk about industry transformation,
always had a “scratching an itch through a boot” feeling.
But now with broader vision,
I have a more personal understanding of “individual struggle and the wheels of history.”
Economic Situation
The biggest process affecting today’s world is the de facto decoupling of China and the US,
behind which are the respective economic difficulties of China and the US.
One aspect of the impact is the uncertainty theme in the VUCA era.
Including individuals having different judgments about future money-making forms,
leading to different talent destinations.
Also including capital shifting from rate-of-return to profit-rate,
leading to changes in overall financing and investment environment winds.
Another aspect of the impact is companies being more tightly bound to international politics.
Quite a few foreign companies have gradually withdrawn from China.
Domestically there’s a very strong demand for specialized/refined/peculiar/novel, IT-innovation industries, etc.
Because my company is an IT-innovation company with proprietary core patents,
this year, after explaining the product to many customers,
not only did the functionality itself receive great feedback,
but also as a solidly-product-building IT-innovation company we received great reviews.
I hadn’t dealt with many Fortune 500 level large customers before,
but last year I quickly got into the groove,
genuinely thanks to the awesome sales partners who took me around to customers.
Industry Trends
The biggest trend in the data industry is everyone is racing to lower the barrier.
Just like from DOTA to LoL to Honor of Kings,
the operational barrier is lowering,
but the player count has greatly increased,
affecting more people’s entertainment lifestyle.
Data analysis used to only be doable by people who understood SQL or Python.
Later drag-and-drop BIs like Tableau and FineReport appeared,
people who understand data formats and relationships could make reports.
And what DataRC does is semantic data analysis.
The homepage is a chat box. If you can chat, you can analyze data.
Recently ChatGPT became hot again,
this time more viral,
giving the industry trend a big push forward.
Previously we might need to educate the market on what “semantic-enhanced analysis” is.
Now we often encounter very knowledgeable customers we can engage with deeply.
Work Culture
Culture is a product of era and soil.
So it is for work.
Pushing work forward requires culture.
When I started working at DataRC,
I set a rule for myself:
“No mental fixations, no path dependency.”
Specifically, I can’t say anything like
“At my previous company everything was on k8s”
or “We used to keep backend functions forward-compatible.”
On one hand it smacks of praising the ex in front of the current girlfriend: bad intentions.
On the other hand, you can’t paint a gourd by following the model: be truth-seeking.
So when pushing tech decisions and organizing requirements,
I prefer the rhythm of pre-research, discussion, consensus, execution.
Compared to directly driving “how to do it,”
letting everyone understand “why” is more important.
Team communication requires culture.
Different people have different ways due to different backgrounds and angles.
I’ve always been uncomfortable seeing people argue.
If people have heated conflicting views in meetings,
I always want to suggest first establishing consensus,
then privately and gently (or not necessarily gently) discussing.
But this year I often discovered in meetings,
a few teammates arguing back and forth also reached a consensus,
and in the process fully expressed their own views,
and at noon they go arm-in-arm to eat rice bowls…
Indeed, different people in the team adapt to different communication styles.
You also have to adapt to changes of the era.
Each era has its own “political correctness.”
In today’s work culture,
“want salary, want development more” is more openly promotable than “taking a loss is taking advantage,”
“moderate work, appropriate lying flat” also has a more mainstream ideological position than “hard work, strive.”
So under this background, “result-oriented,” “humanity,” “strict with self” are the most basic requirements for doing things well.
Era change is accompanied by cultural change,
cultural change demands changes in organizational form.
Even though it’s written somewhat abstractly,
this is really my recent understanding of the world.
Looking at it, I really do practice my motto:
“Think idealistically, live materialistically.”
Continuous Reflection
I’m not satisfied with this subtitle.
The “的”/“地” particles look like they’re wrong in Chinese,
but what I want to talk about really is continuous reflection.
All along I’ve had a great fear:
worried about becoming a “1+N years of work experience” person:
only learning and thinking in year one of work,
and mechanically repeating in the remaining N years.
And my current work has presented me with new challenges:
“Avoid being someone who’s tactically diligent but strategically lazy.”
For example we make a product.
It seems there are tons of things to do,
countless features waiting to be done.
But without deep thinking,
you’ll fall into the trap of being busy doing things
that actually aren’t critical to the customer.
“Following the crowd,” “going with the flow,” “the three-no principle” (no initiative, no resistance, no responsibility) —
in my eyes are all bad cases of “tactically diligent, strategically lazy.”
In any case, people still need to study more.
Conclusion
Stepping on a watermelon skin, sliding to wherever I land.
Writing all this way, I’ve also forgotten what I was going to say.
Then let me end with a small interesting story.
A year ago “DataRC” was not called “DataRC.”
At the time the name was still “Arctic Data.”
By 2022, this company named “Arctic Data” had been founded for over three years,
but the founders, intoxicated with product development, actually forgot to apply for a trademark.
So they could only ride the wave and rename to “DataRC” to complete a brand upgrade.
“DataRC” combines “Arctic” from “iceberg theory” and “RC” for “Nine Chapters” (jiuzhang) of arithmetic.
But I personally think,
maybe the name also comes from the founder Allen’s particular fondness for 🐻 this animal,
plus “Nine Chapters of Chuci” — that beautiful piece of literary text.
Finally, hope everyone can be like a potato,
issuing this Chuci-style lament to oneself in the new year: “I have inherent beauty within, and add to it cultivated talent.”
(end)