QNAP_威聯通科技股份有限公司

After reading senior colleague TonyQ’s account, and given that TonyQ has been gone for a while while I have been here for about two years, I’d like to supplement the current situation based on what I have personally seen and heard.

Pros:

1. The company gives newcomers a fair amount of time and room to learn. After all, the threshold for NAS is not low, and few people have a foundation in NAS when they first join.

2. Compared with ordinary system manufacturers, the number of months of annual compensation is above average. During the interview, HR said 16 months were guaranteed; in practice, it is 18–20 months for non-managerial positions. However, after taking into account the lack of overtime pay, it is only barely acceptable—enough to get by, but not enough to live comfortably.

3. Items in the vending machines on the company’s third floor are uniformly NT$10 cheaper than market prices (although the selection is repetitive).

4. The overall quality of the employees is quite good. Everyone seems to have an impressive background and is not just some random hire.

5. The general manager, Ming-Chih, whose office is filled with machines, is sensible and came from a software R&D background. This is a company that places relatively strong emphasis on R&D.

Cons:

1. There is little room for raises—almost none. If you do not bring it up or say that you are planning to leave, the company simply pretends nothing is happening.

2. Salaries are preset to be divided into three categories. HR claims this is to help everyone save on taxes. If your base salary is NT$30,000, the payslip will list a basic salary of NT$24,000, with overtime pay and meal allowance totaling NT$6,000.

3. Office workers do not receive overtime pay, and in principle no one applies for compensatory leave either. However, because the annual compensation is fairly decent, and because “overtime pay” is indeed listed as an item on the payslip, everyone is temporarily too lazy to report it.

4. HR secretly cuts salaries. When I initially received the offer, it was NT$8,000 less than what HR had verbally promised. A manager in another department once had everything agreed upon, only for HR to pull the same trick, upsetting the person enough to go to MediaTek instead. For the sake of a few thousand dollars, the company had to recruit again. Teddy seems like a generous person, but HR is completely different.

5. Before onboarding, you must submit a guarantee letter and find two friends to sign and act as guarantors (relatives do not count). The default assumption is that employees are thieves.

6. Assets of all sizes—including hard drives, SSDs, and network cards—will be assigned to individuals, and there is no exit procedure. The items under your name will only keep accumulating, and if something cannot be found before you leave, you really have to pay for it. Be especially careful if you apply to the testing department; it is very easy to end up liable for tens of millions of dollars’ worth of assets.

7. The benefits are pitifully sparse. This year, the basketball club nearly collapsed several times because the subsidy was far below expectations. The only benefit worth mentioning is the travel subsidy, but you can receive it only if you join a trip organized by the company’s partner travel agency. The group-tour fee is several thousand dollars more expensive than the going rate outside, so junior employees with smaller subsidies can only be the lambs to the slaughter here.

8. The amenities around the Xizhi headquarters are unbelievably terrible. The frustration starts with the inevitable traffic jam on Datong Road during the morning commute, and lunchtime brings another problem: the nearby restaurants are all either bad or unhealthy. Don’t like that? Then drive or ride a scooter farther out to look for food. If you cannot find parking or come back soaked in the rain, that’s your problem.

9. Personnel management still follows old-fashioned Taiwanese management standards, with a huge number of rules. Compared with some newer software companies, it is not very free.

Regarding Teddy:

(I will set aside the negative media coverage and talk only about what I have personally experienced.)

He has a distinctive charm and is genuine. Anyone who has heard Teddy speak will feel that he was born to be a boss. His willingness to invest and spend money at least puts him ahead of most stereotypical exploitative Taiwanese bosses. He has a reasonably good grasp of the company’s overall direction, and at least the company as a whole is still quite profitable (setting aside the bonuses paid to employees below him). However, as senior colleague TonyQ mentioned, Teddy’s ideas about certain details are somewhat detached from reality. He exercises too much micromanagement over the entire company. Many minor matters and small meetings should really be handled by the heads of the respective business units, or at most by General Manager Ming-Chih, yet the old man still comes down and handles them personally. He may not be tired, but everyone else is.

Summary:

I will leave aside the kind of bad managers that can be encountered at any company. The atmosphere throughout the company is quite subtle. It feels as though many people have been placed in positions they are not good at and forced to do things they dislike. However, because the employees are generally competent, the overall output is still acceptable. This makes it feel as though the company’s progress comes from traditional high-pressure management rather than employees’ voluntary pursuit of their passion for technology.

If you are a newcomer who wants to build up your skills, plans to leave after practicing for a year or two, wants to meet all kinds of talented people, and does not want the pay to be too miserly—and you do not mind the shortcomings listed above—QNAP should still be a fairly suitable company for you. PMs at this company will directly bear Teddy’s pressure; if you can endure it for a while, it is to your advantage. PMs who have survived at QNAP are highly sought-after when they leave.

I just lost two thousand-character drafts because of the terrible interface design, and this is my third time typing it. It really does embody “think twice before you act”—thanks, Good Job Taiwan (go to hell).

The following is the opinion of a former employee. The last time I had insight into the company’s situation was last year, so please take it for reference only.

==

QNAP uses a BU-based structure: under one large company are various R&D teams, each led by its own BU head. Everything from benefits to working hours is managed by each BU independently. That’s why when many people talk about QNAP’s benefits, it can feel like they’re not talking about the same company.

There is also a PM group that coordinates among the various BUs.

(And MIS is another independent unit.)

The advantage of the BU system is that each BU has its own technical talent across various fields—apps, frontend, design, backend, and so on—and each BU is responsible for its own scope, such as different NAS apps.

The BU system is task- and product-oriented, so the quality of individual products is relatively good. Also, because collaboration is necessary, the basic integration interfaces aren’t too bad. The downside is that integration between NAS apps isn’t very good and requires project-based coordination.

However, NAS apps don’t really need that much integration with one another. As long as they connect at the storage and Web API layers, it works, so this architecture is quite suitable and reasonably elegant.

The thing people most often criticize internally is that the design elements (CI) aren’t very consistent, but honestly, I personally don’t think this is a major problem.

Another issue is that when a BU is poorly structured, the things it makes tend to be especially terrible in its weak areas. For example, when QFile uses the web to share files with others, the interface is beyond awful. Even the download button can behave strangely.

For example, if you set up a folder link and enable file uploads, opening the link does not immediately show an upload button. You first have to open a folder, and only then does the upload button appear. That is completely wrong for the intended use case.

For example, on a file-sharing download link, clicking the “file name” does not download the file. You have to specifically click the “Action” link. I especially invite you to open a URL on my NAS and experience this bizarre behavior for yourself:

http://tonyq.myqnapcloud.com/share.cgi?ssid=0shLWLZ

I filed a bug report about this internally back in 2014. I assume it has already been classified as a feature designed to entertain people, rather than a bug.

Even so, QNAP still does very well in the BUs where it is strong.

As I understand it, S company mainly uses a division-of-labor model organized by specialties: one department handles frontend, another handles design, another handles backend, and so on. This approach has advantages and disadvantages, but for NAS development in the form of apps, I still prefer QNAP’s BU system. In my view, QNAP’s hardware and driver foundations are also better than S company’s. As a hardcore engineering nerd, I prefer hardware with refined components and stable, reliable performance over products whose interfaces may seem considerate but whose foundations are concerning.

I actually think QNAP has continued to benefit from the excellent driver architecture it established early on. Another factor is that some products were simply done right—for example, myQNAPcloud is a great design. (But please don’t use the HTTPS add-on as a money-making tool. Why be so greedy? Charging a reasonable fee to cover costs would be fine, but why charge that much?)

The team led by someone nicknamed “Doctor” previously used a very solid approach to driver development. So although QTS has undergone many revisions over the years and occasionally experienced minor turbulence, at least it has generally avoided major problems. I think that’s pretty good.

The trade-off is that, because they weren’t familiar with the web side, they didn’t establish a good configuration mechanism. As a result, the built-in virtual host file constantly has problems with different parties overwriting one another’s changes.

As for the advantage of the BU system mentioned earlier: at the end of 2014, Teddy began actively intervening in QNAP’s operations. He gradually sidelined Ming-Chih and removed the people around him, leaving the entire BU organization relatively inexperienced, and then imposed excessive micromanagement. (Someone commented that “the specs were written by Teddy”—that’s what they meant.)

Teddy was continually dissatisfied with the status quo, but he failed to recognize the fundamental problem. His approach left the BUs constantly scrambling and uncertain about their futures. The advantages of the BU system were severely damaged, while its disadvantages continued to worsen.

===

I believe the fundamental problem is that NAS apps are a kind of investment in the future. Users’ actual NAS needs are really just storing files, having network file sharing, accessing the NAS from their phones, backing up phone data, and at most downloading BT or other internet data. That’s about it.

I tried NAS virtualization several times myself. I even asked a colleague and added more RAM to the NAS, but the results were only so-so.

There are also many considerations involved in using MySQL or httpd on a NAS. Basically, at the time we proposed moving toward an engineer-oriented version, with some things to be gradually separated out.

Later, after virtualization and Bitnami were combined, at least some applications could be used directly, making it feel more like a coherent solution. These were things the various NAS app BUs worked on independently.

But this brings us back to the issue that the number of people downloading these apps is vastly smaller than the number of people who actually buy NAS devices.

In other words, most users may not need these functions at all. But this is actually an investment: continuously developing these apps, connecting them to users’ real-world scenarios, identifying which ones are more useful, and eliminating the unnecessary ones.

So can they simply “not develop” new features?

No. Although consumers may never use them, they still like comparing checklists to see which company has this feature and which company has that feature—“even if they never use them!”

Under these circumstances, the constant reshuffling of the BUs is completely understandable.

But the most frightening thing is that NAS devices will sell regardless! That’s good for the company, but for R&D, many departments may have no idea what users are actually willing to pay for. XD

====

The problem with Teddy’s leadership was that he believed the BUs weren’t doing a good job and users didn’t want to use their products because the BUs had made things users themselves didn’t want. But based on the times I observed Teddy’s decisions, he simply wasn’t a normal NAS user. The scenarios he imagined were far too disconnected from the front line.

He then became dissatisfied with everything the existing teams did, and several power struggles played out along the way.

Teddy / Richard / Ming-Chih / YT—in any case, no matter what QNAP does, NAS demand will still allow them to make money for quite some time.

Is this company worth joining?

It depends on whether the BU head you’ll work for is favored and what their relationship with Teddy is like. It also depends on how much your work affects them and whether you provide direct assistance.

This company really is an interesting place. I had not graduated from college when I joined. After interviewing me, my manager (the BU head) offered me an exceptional salary—60K or 65K, I can’t remember. I also had a special interview with Ming-Chih, and once he nodded, I had no trouble getting in.

As long as the BU head is reasonable, many things—including benefits—are actually easy to negotiate.

It’s a place somewhat like going to war with an army: there are various regional warlords. For people with strong combat ability, especially those capable of fighting independently, it can be an interesting battlefield. For people who only want to follow the organization and do their work, it can be a somewhat difficult place.

I think the problem QNAP originally set out to solve was genuinely compelling. If possible, I hope to see it continue to develop and improve, and management really needs to recognize the issues with the product and the company’s positioning.

And they need to acknowledge one thing: you can’t buy capable engineers who are genuinely motivated to push forward simply by throwing money at them. You also need to provide room and authority.

This is partly a record of, and a bit of nostalgia for, my former employer. I wasn’t there very long, so if I got anything wrong, please correct me.

And the interface for posting comments on the Good Job Taiwan website is absolutely terrible. Please fix it. I typed this post three times, and on the third attempt I finally had to write it in Sublime before it would submit successfully. (Angry)

The office location is spacious, my colleagues are all nice, and it builds patience.

Since it has been quite a while since the Design Center was last updated, I would like to provide some recent updates to the previous descriptions of the manager.

1. Intuition led by inspiration: Possesses powerful design intuition, unconstrained by existing user-needs reports, and dares to propose forward-looking concepts directly from an intuitive and innovative perspective.

2. Pursuit of perfection in efficiency: Places great emphasis on the final quality of design deliverables, aiming for the ultimate “get it right the first time” standard to avoid lengthy iteration processes.

3. Absolute command of details: Has extremely high, seemingly unattainable standards for design quality and treats them as truth. Takes responsibility for proposals and trains subordinates to be able to persuade users through design logic, with clear accountability.

4. Demonstration of rapid problem-solving ability: Has an astonishing ability to predict efficiency and often shares that if he handled something personally, it could be completed in just n days, motivating colleagues to push the limits of efficiency.

5. Passion for visual thinking: Enthusiastic about providing guidance through the most immediate and fastest hand-drawn sketches, with vibrant, multicolored overlapping notes and repeated circling that reveal sparks and layered ideas in the thinking process.

6. Promoter of deep communication: To ensure discussions cover every aspect, meeting times are always planned generously, with a willingness to conduct lengthy, in-depth sharing and comprehensive guidance. Scheduling a two-hour meeting is routine; exceeding three hours is no problem, and occasionally there may even be four hours of nonstop talking.

7. Open-minded flexibility: Always explores better possibilities and does not reach conclusions lightly. Even after a decision has been made, it can be overturned and restarted at any time, training colleagues to remain adaptable amid change.

8. Opportunity for mobile learning: Keeps an eye on project content handled by members of different departments. Whenever a relevant topic arises, colleagues are immediately called into the meeting to receive hands-on, frontline learning.

9. Focus on delivering high value: Believes time is precious. When bringing people into an unscheduled meeting, skips unnecessary pleasantries and background introductions and immediately shares the key points, training colleagues to rapidly absorb and understand fragmented information.

10. Adjustment of strategic priorities: Always adjusts meeting times according to the most urgent or important strategic tasks at hand, training colleagues in patience and the ability to wait so they can投入 work at the best time.

11. Guided questioning in pursuit of the best solution: The questioning process is intended to guide colleagues toward the optimal solution already validated in his mind. This ensures that every proposal has undergone sufficient “discussion.”

12. Unique and innovative terminology system: To describe complex design concepts precisely, has created a proprietary set of internal terms, such as “wave diagram” and “pulled silk,” demonstrating the depth and originality of his thinking.

13. Highly abstract project codes: Habitually uses a concise code system to track departmental affairs, such as P1-1, C0, and 211. You must be extremely focused at work to fully understand their essence.

14. Explosive thought output: Sometimes the manager’s ideas arrive so quickly and forcefully that language and writing cannot keep up with the speed of thought, training colleagues to possess strong information-interpretation and contextual-inference abilities.

15. Extreme enthusiasm for data tracking: Focuses on using Excel for multifaceted progress tracking and analysis, splitting data on the same topic across different files and assigning different, inconsistent filenames, ensuring it can be repeatedly reviewed and cross-referenced from different perspectives.

16. Principle-driven attitude: When sent a link, he often does not click it because he has an astonishing memory and can recall and verify past design decisions at any time, making clicking the link an unnecessary step for him. If the link contains updated content, you should make sure to attach screenshots; that is what constitutes a good user experience for the manager.

17. Encouragement of independent thinking that challenges authority: The department has design guidelines, but colleagues are also encouraged not to follow them blindly, and instead to constantly question and surpass them to reach a higher level of design.

18. Forceful defense of the Design Department’s interests: As the head of the Design Department, he discusses PMs and R&D in internal departmental meetings with a forceful, even somewhat “confrontational,” attitude, ensuring that the Design Department’s value, rights, and responsibilities are not compromised.

19. Determination to drive innovation: Refuses to be constrained by technical feasibility and always pushes the most cutting-edge design concepts to stimulate the engineering team’s potential. Feeling “angry” about proposal progress reflects his desire for excellence.

20. A broad perspective beyond specifications: Unrestricted by rigid annual plans and detailed specifications, he provides the best strategic direction through his exceptional imagination.

21. Advocate of training an unyielding will: Believes a true UXer should possess strong willpower and a sense of responsibility, and therefore considers menstruation a trivial matter that is not sufficient reason to take leave and can be overcome.

22. Establishment of a highly efficient work rhythm: Although the company allows flexible working hours, the manager guides colleagues to find the best and most efficient time period for team synchronization.

23. Rapid execution of senior management’s opinions: Possesses strong comprehension and execution abilities, quickly grasping the deeper intent behind the chairman’s simple message, “Optimize this page a bit,” and immediately taking action.

24. Commitment to inclusive design: No matter how professional the target users are, always designs according to the principle that “even beginners should be able to understand it,” providing additional guidance at no extra cost and ensuring the product has the broadest possible usability.

25. Focus on high-quality social interaction: Believes departmental dinners should focus on valuable and meaningful exchanges, and dislikes colleagues making small talk with one another and wasting time on irrelevant “543.”

The work is nice to look at.

After submitting my résumé, I only received a response two months later, and it was merely a polite rejection. Yet the job posting remained up for a long time, clearly indicating the use of false information to lure people into reading it. The purpose is unclear.

* Colleagues are generally quite easy to get along with

* Regularly provides electronic gift vouchers—a small but welcome perk

* You still have to work remotely on typhoon days, but remote work is not normally allowed. If it may be inconvenient for you to work on typhoon days, you might want to consider this.

* If you are an employee with flexible working hours, there is no such thing as being late; if you are late, you have to take leave yourself

* The level of automation is not high, so many tasks are handled manually

Above-average salary (14 months guaranteed + 3 seasonal bonuses), parking space provided, and non-high-pressure management.

Salary: Part of the monthly salary is compulsorily allocated as “tax-exempt overtime pay.” This may reduce income tax, but I don't know whether it is legal.

Benefits: None. (No employee cafeteria/no typhoon days off [must work from home or use annual leave]/must make up for Saturdays or work overtime for free/no year-end party)

Environment: Cold in winter and hot in summer—a workplace that tests your willpower.

Work culture: People pass the buck, evade responsibility, and drift along. If you want to do things seriously and well, think carefully—you may want to do a good job, but others may not.

Management: Only the boss's and general manager's demands count as demands; everyone else's demands (including customers') are unimportant, and problems with using the system don't matter either.

Policies: All policies are designed with taking advantage of employees as the starting point.

Raises: There is an annual salary adjustment, but the amount is unknown. I have received an “A” performance rating every year, yet my annual raise has been 0.015% every year.

Promotions: People with connections can be parachuted in. I experienced three department heads here; apart from the first, I never saw the subsequent two.

Some people are approachable and can be talked to.

If you’ve read Dcard and the comments below and still decide to go, there are many more pitfalls ahead. Good luck.

Before 2019, things were fairly good, and basically everyone could work regular hours.

1. The environment is not maintained. The air conditioning in one of the offices has been broken for several years, and the company has not been proactive about addressing it. Can you imagine having no air conditioning at all in the summer?

2. All make-up workdays have to be worked. After the pandemic in 2021, the company directly announced that when work was suspended due to typhoons, employees had to WFH; otherwise, they had to use annual leave.

3. There has been no year-end banquet since 2016. Later, the spring dinner was also replaced with activities such as outings. Those who did not attend received a NT$1,000 gift voucher.

4. Starting in 2020, the bonus was reduced to less than half of what it had been before.

The above describes the recent situation at QNAP.

None

Position: (Senior) Web Backend Engineer

I arrived early, but the interviewer was still chatting with someone else? I could let that slide.

Written test: Technical knowledge (basically questions from old exams), logic (brain teasers)

First, let me say that I completed both sections. But after I submitted them, the interviewer asked me to go back, saying: The test is still being discussed with the manager; if there is a second interview, they will notify me separately.

At this point, I’m sure everyone understands. Regardless of how professional an interviewee is, using a written test to cover every aspect—what a “high-class” company!

Also, if you want to evaluate interviewees through a test, why not just do it online? You asked me to come to the interview—didn’t I have to spend money to get there?

If any of you are planning to interview with this company, whether you’re just entering the workforce or have already been navigating the working world, I sincerely advise you not to. Don’t waste your money and time. You deserve a better interview experience.

It seems no one has mentioned the situation at the Design Center, so I’ll give a brief introduction. Since I left the company quite a long time ago, the actual current situation may have changed. The company still operates under a BU structure; it’s just that the design department became an independent Design Center. At the time, the Design Center had two departments: the Interaction Design Department and the User Experience Department, located in Hsinchu, Xizhi, and Xinsheng. The Design Center had only one manager, who oversaw both departments, with no intermediate supervisors. Also, if I remember correctly, the official website belonged to the Marketing Department, and the two departments would assist with visual production when necessary. Personally, I found my colleagues in the design departments quite easy to get along with. Whenever someone raised an issue, everyone helped one another, and they would also remind you how to interact with colleagues from other departments. I think what everyone is probably more interested in is the design manager, so I’ll briefly describe my impression of him:

-Interview: He constantly asked what other work and experience you had, what your family members did, and whether you smoked or drank. He was very friendly.

-Temperament and personality: Spoke loudly, straightforward, energetic. His emotions came and went quickly. He had the extremely practical and frugal personality commonly associated with Hakka people.

-Managerial responsibilities: To cultivate subordinates into junior managers, he would assign some of his work to you and provide very careful guidance by drawing diagrams on a whiteboard.

-Regular meetings: To ensure colleagues knew how each project was progressing, he enthusiastically introduced the details for every person in charge.

-Leadership approach: He offered thought-provoking advice and trained colleagues to take independent responsibility for projects, personally facing feedback from the boss or managers of other departments.

-Design decisions: He liked choosing unconventional directions for decisions, encouraging colleagues to actively consider the best solutions.

-Relationship with upper management: He was highly capable of understanding the thoughts of the chairman or general manager and quickly informing subordinates how to respond.

-Work allocation: He had a particular allocation cycle that trained colleagues to handle multiple projects simultaneously and resolve issues quickly.

-Project reviews: He pretended not to understand the specifications, but cared deeply about details, thereby training colleagues to be able to state the complete design specifications at any time.

-Design skills: He was highly proficient in all kinds of specialized UI/UX details, which was astonishing. He especially liked using Excel to organize various analysis charts and systems.

-Visual presentation: He placed great importance on communication and had unique insights. Basically, he had delegated all computer illustration work to colleagues, using simple pencil sketches to make suggestions.

-Department evaluations: He would make a great effort to understand the circumstances of past projects, with each review taking at least two to three hours.

-External collaboration: He had great trust in the abilities of PMs and RDs, and would occasionally help them learn UI/UX knowledge so they could become T-shaped professionals.

-Overtime: He would call you to tell you when you needed to work overtime, turning you into a responsible senior designer.

-Employment situation: After receiving approximately six months of training, most people definitely had the ability to join any company as a senior employee.

Some things have to be viewed after rotating them 180 degrees in order to see them clearly.

Some things have to be listened to after rotating them 180 degrees in order to understand them.

Some things have to be thought about after rotating them 180 degrees in order to act comfortably.

Finally, for certain matters, you must add “But…” in order to arrive at the correct answer.

Met many great colleagues

Training your immunity in every way

A good-looking academic background means a good-looking salary

1. Even when good people are recruited, the environment is unsuitable, so they leave very quickly.

2. Cockroaches are rampant. The company has exterminated them several times, but can never get rid of them all. If you were originally very afraid of cockroaches, by the end you would see one without reacting. At work, I have encountered cockroaches crawling onto people's legs, and colleagues who had them crawl onto their hands while napping. My personal record was killing 10 cockroaches on the water dispenser in one week (not counting the ones I missed).

3. There are many cement plants nearby and many large trucks, making it extremely dangerous to commute by motorcycle. During my employment, there were quite a few news reports of motorcycle riders nearby being crushed to death by trucks and other casualties. The company also does not have enough motorcycle parking spaces, so you have to arrive earlier than others to get a spot.

4. As mentioned above, there are many gravel trucks, so the air quality is basically poor and there is a lot of falling dust. Wearing a mask is therefore essential, and people with sensitive bodies will keep coughing and feeling uncomfortable.

5. The ceiling partially fell during an earthquake before, so you may need to pay attention to where your seat is located.

6. Although the elevators are regularly inspected, I once experienced an elevator dropping from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor and getting stuck halfway through the ride, then remaining stopped for a while before continuing to move.

7. Management changes its directives from day to day. Last week, they originally said the project would take about three months to complete and agreed it sounded good. Then the following week, they suddenly slammed the table and demanded it be completed by the next week, completely forgetting what they had said the week before.

8. They believe in the man-month plan: one pregnant woman takes 10 months to have one child, while ten pregnant women need only 1 month to have one child. Then, because people come and go, everyone ends up spending time training others without increasing the speed.

9. The company's administrative procedures are overly complicated. They often ask you to finish quickly but then you cannot get the necessary equipment. A project was scheduled to be completed in three months, but although the development equipment was requested at the beginning, it did not arrive until the week before the presentation deadline.

10. Infighting is an everyday occurrence. It gradually wears down the resolve of people who want to get things done; in the end, they either resign or join in the infighting.

None

When I got to the whiteboard test stage, the receptionist took me to a small room and left me waiting for a full 50 minutes (I reminded her twice during that time). Afterward, an HR representative came in to stall for time, but that HR person was not responsible for recruiting. It turned out that the interviewer for the whiteboard test was extremely late!!! In the end, I very politely and patiently waited for nearly two hours. When the interviewer came in, he did not explain whether he had been in a car accident, had suffered a death in the family, or had stayed up until morning playing games the night before—he just started the test. After giving me the problem, the interviewer timed how quickly I wrote the code. I was pissed off, so I wrote the correct solution at top speed (at my previous company, I was the one sitting in a chair watching applicants write on the whiteboard; even when a problem was so easy that I was proving my point, outwardly I still had to remain polite and pleasant ^^). After the whiteboard test, I walked out of QNAP’s front door full of anger.

Within the following two weeks, HR contacted me to say that I had been accepted and that they were going to start the salary approval process. I directly stated my previous company’s salary without being polite about it (I had received an offer from a foreign company, so I did not need this small, not-yet-listed company’s offer, which was made with a big-shot mentality. The only reason I had stooped to interviewing there was to keep practicing through interviews and, while I was at it, see how impressive the questions from a company that was “supposedly” a major NAS manufacturer really were). Sure enough, the salary approval process took me to the eighteenth level of hell and back twice. About two months later, they sent me a rejection letter, haha. Applicants, beware! If you are willing to settle for a systems manufacturer, there are plenty of other companies you can apply to. You do not have to apply to this strange company.

The hiring manager was very kind and clearly explained the job responsibilities, the technologies that would be used, and the projects the team is currently working on and plans to undertake in the future.

The interview process was disorganized.

The HR person was a jerk, spoke obnoxiously, and had a crooked mouth.

None

Develops new technologies for robotics, but cannot afford to pay research and development salaries

Developing our own software

Quite a few smart people

Fast learning and hands-on experience

There is always new product development, and everyone is given opportunities

The benefits could be better

1. You have to take an intelligence test, which is a huge waste of time.

2. The institution’s supervisor wore shorts to the interview, and I had to create one iron-plastic part on the computer.

3. The institution’s supervisor is very afraid of hiring an institution engineer who only knows how to draw with their mouth, so they ask a lot of questions.

4. They are still using the outdated software ProE Wildfire 5.0.

5. Before prototyping, you have to unfold the 2D drawings, which is a waste of time.

6. All molds are made in Taiwan; the quality of the mold factories remains to be confirmed.

7. The company is located in a very remote area.

Compared with typical Taiwanese companies, the salary may be pretty good.

You can work with new technology,

You can gain a better understanding of the NAS environment

This company really made me cry. There is far too much chaos, and the benefits are basically nonexistent! The company is extremely stingy. The boss makes a lot of money and is still very good at cutting costs! Everything has to be done cheaply, whether it is the year-end banquet or meal pickup!

Many departments have very little coordination, and no one knows what the correct spec is. You often see people leaving, while newcomers receive very little training. HR is very good at deceiving people.

If you have just graduated and only want one or two years of experience, you might be able to accept it. But long term—find another company.

Compared with typical Taiwanese companies, the salary may be decent.

You can work with new technology,

and gain a better understanding of NAS environments

This company really made me cry. There is too much chaos, and the benefits are basically nonexistent! The company is extremely stingy; even though the boss makes a lot of money, they are still very good at cutting costs! Everything has to be done cheaply, whether it is the year-end banquet or meal pickup!

Many departments have little to no coordination, and nobody knows what the correct specs are. People are constantly leaving, and newcomers receive very little training. HR is very good at deceiving people.

If you have just graduated and are looking to gain 1–2 years of experience, you might be able to accept it. But for the long term—find another company.

The receptionist was very kind and friendly. Of the 15+ interviews I’ve had, QNAP was the kindest.

The written test was very long. After finishing it, I had to wait for a long time. The interviewer seemed very busy.

Develop your own software world

Every app needs continuous improvement and constant updates

Too many new topics

Sharing some bizarre and unbelievable things

1. There are many members of the royal family and their relatives. Position titles are just for show; what the royal family and their relatives say goes.

2. There are many BUs, but everyone does their own thing, and nobody listens to anyone else. Unless T steps in to speak, they will only reluctantly cooperate for a while.

But what is called cooperation is just T assigning things personally and seeing who is more unfortunate.

3. Continuing from the previous point, employee turnover is high, and since everyone does their own thing, strange situations often occur: PMs do not know that a new product has launched,

customer service does not know that a feature has been launched or discontinued, sales does not know how to use the product’s features, and R&D has not finished developing what marketing is promoting.

4. Product or feature development is decided by T. If you express an opposing opinion, you may end up in a situation where those who comply survive, those who resist perish, or you may be blacklisted.

5. The company is very stingy. Benefits that are announced are often automatically reduced or disappear. In addition to the vending machine price increases mentioned earlier,

employees have to pay for business trips themselves first, and the company only allocates the reimbursement three months later.

6. The company is very stingy—let me say it again. For company club activities, employees have to pay upfront, and reimbursement only comes much later.

7. The company is very stingy—let me say it a second time. During the three major festivals, gift boxes received from other vendors are first picked over by the royal family and their relatives. Then the business team is asked to remove the business cards

and send the boxes out as gifts. Whatever remains is opened at a rate of one or two boxes per day and distributed among employees to eat. (Does this count as a benefit?)

6. There is an employee welfare committee in the company, but its authority is vague and it has no decision-making power, because what the royal family and their relatives say goes.

7. The performance review system is only for reference; everything depends on your relationship with the boss and whether the boss is in a good mood.

8. There is no system for distributing employee profit sharing. The timing depends on the boss’s mood and is irregular, but it will only be delayed, never paid early.

9. There are quite a few long-serving employees and redundant staff within the company. They do not work, only obstruct others or create problems everywhere and then make someone else fix them.

But they can always find reasons and excuses to survive.

10. The company loves attacking competitors everywhere. But because T makes all the decisions, the company’s own products are also full of problems.

a: They like to have employees act as free testers, with bubble tea and fried chicken cutlets or similar things as rewards, but usually the testing does not uncover much anyway.

b: If a software feature is developed in-house, the beta version is released directly. Problems or customer complaints are dealt with afterward.

c: If a software feature is not developed in-house, the standard response to problems is: “Please resolve issues with third-party software yourself.”

d: The company has a weak understanding of the rule of law and proper licensing, resulting in fewer and fewer HDMI features that it can boast about.

That is about all I can think of for now. There are probably many more things; I will share them if I think of any.

A former employee who left several years ago would like to share a few thoughts.

1. Severe internal infighting

Back then, Mr. Y went from being extremely unpopular to becoming popular again.

After the general manager was promoted to vice president, and the promotion system turned him into the leader of the NAS APP martial world,

he began slaughtering the leaders of every faction who refused to obey.

When Tony Q, the former supervisor, was killed, even the network in that area was disconnected.

Nearly all the subordinates in the department died, leaving only a few cats.

And don't think that only those who disobeyed were killed.

Those who obeyed didn't fare much better either—the bonuses of the obedient yes-men under his direct supervision were also cut.

The only winners were probably Mr. Y and Boss T.

2. A massive increase in the number of Indian employees

It's not that Indians are bad,

but this company hired Indians to put on appearances and save money.

Seriously, what company sends newly hired Indians to Taiwanese exhibitions as PMs or salespeople???

I honestly don't understand.

And spending a huge amount of money hiring teachers to teach Indians Chinese was really laughable.

In the end, everyone still communicated in English.

3. Boss T really loves micromanaging

He even has to control a tiny screen.

He also had the nerve to say that engineers who make this kind of screen have very poor abilities.

The company that has a problem is the one that doesn't have designers create the screens and leaves engineers to design them.

At the time, there were nearly 700 people—it wasn't a small seven-person company.

Not long before making that remark, he was saying over there that UI and UX were very important, even more important than engineers.

The department wanted to hire someone, but he still wouldn't approve it.

4. Mr. Y is really damn obnoxious

One Friday, something very important came up and I needed to discuss it with Mr. Y,

because Boss T had suddenly asked me to give a report the following Monday.

Mr. Y said he was busy—extremely busy—and told me to come find him at 10 p.m. for a meeting.

After all, he didn't get off work until around 1 a.m. anyway, so he had plenty of time.

Then, after we finally finished the meeting, Mr. Y said that one thing had to be revised before showing it to Boss T.

The meeting had already ended on Saturday!

So I had no choice but to work overtime revising it over and over.

Then, when I met with Boss T, T said that the original version of the thing had been better and told me to change it back to the prototype......

Mr. Y was still complaining beside me, saying, "Don't modify this thing like that. If you want to change it, you have to ask first." He changes direction faster than a white dolphin doing a flip.

What the hell, seriously? I didn't dare expose the contradiction on the spot and immediately change direction. I was practically laughing myself to death.

They had also been bullshitting for hundreds of years about going public,

saying that the stock price would rise to all sorts of heights.

They said the 3022 shares we held would eventually become little golden G shares.

A tenfold increase would be no problem.

Luckily, I sold them before the chairman appeared on the news.

NAS technology is at least still better than Synology; it should only lose to QNAP, but the issue of nepotism is somewhat serious.

Let me give an example. One year, the boss (T) said that everyone should submit their ideas to the company. So the company held the “World’s Number One Idea Competition.” This was originally a well-intentioned initiative, and the Administration Department also said that rewards would be provided.

The result:

1. When we told the boss that we had to work overtime on Saturdays and asked the Administration Department why Saturdays weren’t workdays, they said: “You have to work from Monday to Friday!”

2. When we asked what the rewards were, the Administration Department said: “Don’t worry about what the prizes are. The important thing is that the company is giving you an opportunity to perform.”

3. Someone I know actually submitted an idea and was selected. They presented it at headquarters on a Saturday, only to have the boss shoot it down: “Another team is already working on this!”

This incident highlights several problems:

1. The company often requires employees to come to the office on Saturdays for meetings, presentations, or demos.

2. The company does not value employees’ own contributions, believing that giving the “screws” a stage is a reward in itself.

3. Communication across the company is poor; the BUs often do not know what one another is doing.

Speaking from my own experience, this has happened to me several times. When I was reporting one of my ideas to the boss, after listening to me, the boss immediately called YT in and asked YT directly whether they could build it and whether they wanted to. It was as if I were invisible XD

After a while, I gradually learned not to bring ideas to the boss. The boss would only keep good ideas for his own team.

A year-on-year worse company banquet: the raffle was drawn in advance, while everyone naively sat at the venue that day.

The prizes were the company’s new products, turning the winners into unpaid testers.

The prize money was not paid until a month later, and anyone no longer employed on the payment date could not claim it—another way to save money.

The things to be sold aren’t about thinking of getting closer to customers; instead, they love focusing on strange points and driving customers away.

The company has only one main Spec. → Teddy Spec.

People with ability below are unable to make use of their talents, while the people above are busy infighting, avoiding responsibility, and acting like model employees.

Someone in a certain NAS Facebook group seems to love taking shots at S. Does he know the gap between us and S.?

The company benefits were also brought up in this discussion thread—they’re getting worse and worse.

You can also ask around everywhere about how this year’s company spring banquet went! The worst ever!

All day long, they only focus on cutting costs for employees. Where is all the money earned being spent? Is the facade of the Xizhi headquarters even presentable—for a global industry giant?

Mention that people can go watch the old movie Constantine.

Why go watch it? Because Keanu Reeves flipping the bird is just so cool! X!

They launched many inexplicable projects and policies, purely based on whatever the top boss wanted to do—it was truly a one-person show.

Negotiate a lower salary when joining; otherwise, they may refuse to give you a raise on the grounds that the salary you negotiated upon joining was too high.

The performance evaluation system is almost ineffective. Managers’ personal judgments may result in you receiving only a small performance bonus even if your rating is A or B.

The guarantee of 14 months’ salary is just rhetoric if it is not written in the offer letter, because managers’ personal judgments can be used to cancel the year-end bonus.

The boss’s words are like an imperial edict. No one can change them; everything must simply be done as instructed, with no room for professionalism.

The work is great and the pay is good. If you’re passionate about storage devices, you definitely can’t go wrong coming here.