Workplace reviews and discussion: 鴻發國際科技股份有限公司

A company for retirement

1. To put it nicely, this company is hiring a mechanical design engineer; to put it bluntly, it is simply looking for a draftsman. The company does not expect you to think—just follow the PM's instructions and complete the work within the deadline.

2. The company's machines do not require validation. At your company, I spent only nine days developing a new model and completing the 2D/3D drawings, and it was shipped as soon as one prototype was finished. Moreover, the head of the PM department is also the company's vice president. He does not know how to manage projects but insists on controlling everything. During development, for example, the hardware department was unaware of changes to the coin module, while the software department did not rush to design the external UI until just before the machine was shipped. This clearly shows a lack of cross-functional communication. Most importantly, after rushing to complete a new project, the bonus was only NT$3,000.

3. Machine specifications should be confirmed during development. The machine had already entered mass production with 15 units completed before they said the IPC needed to be replaced, because the replacement was cheaper. I can accept the explanation that it was cheaper, provided that the PM communicated the decision with the relevant departments. Instead, the PM makes decisions without communicating with anyone and only mentions them when the product is about to ship. The PM vice president also shirks responsibility by saying that he mentioned it long ago and that everyone else simply failed to listen. As a result, outside vendors and internal R&D frequently have to clean up after him.

4. The company has no concept of a sample approval document. The purchasing department often switches from supplier A to supplier B without notifying anyone, and the issue is only discovered when a problem arises during mass production. Even more absurdly, the mechanical R&D team is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, everything from the production line on the eighth floor to PQC on the fifth floor is managed by the purchasing manager. When the purchasing manager calls to ask about something, she acts as though you owe her NT$2.58 million and conducts business based on her emotions. When R&D needs to modify a mold and asks purchasing whether inventory should be stocked, purchasing always says there is enough. When it is actually time to modify the mold, they then say inventory is insufficient and ask when the modification can be completed, before relentlessly pressuring R&D, leaving everyone speechless. Purchasing has also never properly prepared inventory, so shortages result in long waiting periods. A production control department finally emerged to counterbalance purchasing, but within a few days the purchasing manager went to become the manager of production control. In other words, she still controls everything, so the problems described above continue to occur.

5. As with the incident on June 13, 2025 mentioned above, an A lens was previously used in the design to deplete inventory. Now that the A lens is out of stock and its MOQ is too high, purchasing issued an ECR to replace it with a B lens. The R&D manager disagreed, but purchasing directly issued the parts to the production line and required the mechanical engineer to modify the BOM.

6. The company's HR department has no authority and does not know employees' salaries, because the CEO has a firm grip on all salary matters. Even an application for mechanical samples costing less than NT$100 must be approved by the CEO. Even when a department manager wants to adjust an employee's salary, it must pass through the CEO. As far as I know, when the R&D manager raised the issue of salary adjustments, it was rejected!

7. Because the company's HR department cannot find mechanical engineers or part-time testing workers, it often comes up with bizarre ideas, such as having a non-major document-control employee use the title of mechanical engineer, or turning part-time testing workers into test engineers. The purpose is to attract people who want to be called “engineers” to work here. These strange ideas are extremely unfair to real engineers. People using the company's “engineer” title have widely varying levels of ability, which will cause genuinely qualified graduating engineers to have their capabilities questioned by companies in the industry!

8. The company's MIS department is extremely incompetent. Whenever there is a computer problem, they tell you to restart it. If they cannot solve it, they simply reformat and reinstall the computer. Desktop computers are labeled by MIS with “Internet access prohibited.” Everyone knows why Internet access is prohibited. In addition, the desktop computer specifications are antiquated. The department manager makes it sound good by asking us to list the current computer specifications, but in reality the CEO simply does not want to help engineers upgrade their hardware, and there has still been no follow-up. For software, the company currently uses SolidWorks 2016. The CEO does not want to purchase the software outright, believing that renting it is cheaper, but apparently does not realize that the software upgrade issue remains unresolved to this day.

9. As mentioned above, the version in use is 2016. Strangely, the software used in the Serbia region is a more advanced version, making it impossible to share drawing files within the same company. Even the systems and part numbers follow different standards, making it seem completely unlike the same company is operating. The Serbia side also periodically asks us to change to their coding principles, causing the two sides to argue endlessly before the matter ultimately goes nowhere.