意藍資訊股份有限公司

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts—we hear you! Eland is not a perfect company, but we will continue to work hard and listen humbly so that the company can keep improving. Eland is an idealistic team: we work hard on independent R&D and continue to develop products and related services. We are also willing to nurture new talent and give newcomers opportunities to make an impact.

What we aim to do is stay rooted in big data and artificial intelligence, solve marketing and business problems for enterprises, and drive disruptive innovation in the industry. We have achieved some results so far, but the process has also brought many challenges. At times, it may even be somewhat chaotic; it has certainly not been a smooth journey. However, we have a clear direction and strong confidence in moving forward: creating value for customers through data, becoming a leader in Taiwan’s data industry, and creating more applications.

Everyone who identifies with this direction is welcome to join Eland and grow together with us along the way. We will work even harder.

As mentioned above, Eland is not a perfect company, and there is still plenty of room for improvement. However, we will continue to work hard and listen humbly so that the company can keep improving.

Excellent location; it’s less than a five-minute walk from the Xinyi Anhe MRT station.

The company seems to be made up mostly of young people, and the atmosphere is fairly lively.

They said during the interview that there isn’t much overtime.

I don’t know how this company arranges its interview process, but HR took me to a meeting room and left me waiting for a very long time. I wasn’t asked to fill out any forms or anything... It felt very disrespectful. HR should at least have said how long I might need to wait or given me some explanation, rather than leaving me there and wasting my time. This was the worst overall interview experience I’ve had recently. However, the convenient location is genuinely appealing, and aside from the long wait, the actual interview itself felt fine.

There are no bonuses for the three major holidays.

1. Convenient transportation to the company, a 3-minute walk from the MRT station, with plenty of scooter parking spaces.

2. Close to Tonghua Night Market, with good access to amenities.

3. High degree of freedom in projects; basically, you only need to avoid deviating from the main development direction.

4. Supervisors do not often inquire about project details, so you can generally develop at your own pace.

5. In principle, engineers do not need to work overtime.

6. High tolerance for errors among new engineers, making it suitable for career changers without programming experience or non-major graduates to build their skills for 1–2 years.

7. The development schedule is generous, so there is generally plenty of time to explore frameworks or technologies you are interested in researching.

8. New hires receive training lasting several weeks.

1. Salaries are below market rates (please refer to job listings on employment websites). Graduates with an information-related background and experienced job seekers are advised to consider carefully.

2. Interviewers will cut down candidates’ expected salaries. Salary and benefits are not negotiable; they will tell you that this is simply your market value. Candidates are advised to apply to several companies to understand their own market value.

3. There is no fixed salary adjustment system. If salary is important to you, consider changing jobs.

4. There are no bonuses for the three major festivals or guaranteed year-end bonuses. There are no welcome or farewell activities; the only company event is a birthday celebration every two months, which basically consists of ordering boxed lunches for everyone to eat at their desks. The employee profit-sharing and stock ownership listed as benefits on the employment website do not exist.

5. The company lacks effective internal communication mechanisms. Some internal rules are not explained clearly upon joining, and it is sometimes difficult to get a definitive answer.

6. There is a lack of mature project and document management systems, so projects are often handed over without relevant references, leaving you to feel your way through them in the dark.

7. You will often encounter end-to-end projects, handling everything from methodology and backend and frontend development through completion. Technical assistance and knowledge transfer are also insufficient. Basically, you need to explore and learn many of the tools and development skills required by the organization on your own.

8. Code reviews are not valued.

9. The abilities of senior employees vary widely, and project requirements are unclear. You often cannot even see a requirements document, and newcomers ultimately often receive responses similar to, “I hired you to solve problems.”

10. The work is too varied and miscellaneous. Unless you spend additional time studying on your own, it is difficult to build solid professional expertise in the mid to late stages of your tenure.

It’s fairly close to the MRT station.

The manager had a really sour expression during the interview, couldn’t afford to offer a decent salary, and acted like a complete asshole, insulting the job applicant.

1. Industrial-style decor; the overall atmosphere is quite nice

2. One minute from the MRT and close to Tonghua Night Market, with lots of food options

3. Unless the annual goals deviate, the head of R&D does not interfere with the management of each team’s supervisor

4. They are not afraid of you making mistakes (as long as you do not repeat the same mistake)

5. The head of R&D is highly technically capable, likes to share knowledge, and is fairly reasonable in management

6. There are lots and lots of motorcycle parking spaces outside the company

7. Although the pay is low, the colleagues are all easy to get along with. Someone once sarcastically said, “We’re poor, but we’re happy.”

8. The team is usually extremely young (because the turnover rate is so high)

1. No bonuses for the three major holidays; there is only a gift box for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the year-end bonus is very small

2. The company has only two types of people: a very small number of very old veterans, and a large number of inexperienced newcomers. Turnover is extremely high

3. They like to hire people who have taken courses at Kojen. Their qualifications vary, but once they are hired, the department’s senior employees have to pay the price by teaching them step by step

4. The restrooms are very dirty

5. HR always looks stern, and when they are in a bad mood, their attitude becomes very poor

6. Do not expect a raise; resigning is your best option

7. They do not want to spend money and would rather build potentially problematic wheels themselves

8. The company cannot retain senior employees and only looks for cheap fresh graduates, while leaving behind a large amount of technical debt

9. The production tools (computers) provided to employees are quite poor: when writing code in an IDE, you switch to Chrome to look something up, and Chrome crashes; then you think, “Fine, I won’t look it up,” switch back to the IDE, and the IDE crashes too......

10. The position advertised in the interview is not necessarily the same as the position after you join; they assign you wherever there is a staffing shortage

11. Sales often make grand promises to clients, but R&D has to pay the price

12. Meeting rooms are usually booked through Google Calendar, but the old-timers just take them whenever they want without any courtesy

13. They cannot afford to pay decent salaries

14. They do not seem to consider employees an important company asset

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Other (subjective; no further comment):

1. A symbolic NT$200 birthday gift voucher as a token of appreciation

2. No snack cabinet; a capsule coffee machine is provided, but you have to pay for it

3. The benefit of one pack of toilet paper per month

4. R&D does not often work overtime, while MIS works excessive overtime, but neither receives overtime pay

The job content is divided into descriptions of two positions below:

I. General Analyst

The work mainly focuses on customer service and reports.

1. Customer service means communicating between clients and internal teams. Internally, you may interact with sales or product analysts, and occasionally with R&D. It is a job that can train your communication skills. The downside is that you may occasionally have clients requiring 24/7 on-call service, 7 days a week. No matter whether you are up in the mountains or out at sea, you have to answer the phone—if you miss the call, you are in serious trouble;

2. Reports are mainly completed using the company's OPVIEW product or by downloading data to Excel. One advantage at iLan is that you can use whatever tools you want to prepare reports, making it a good place to develop analytical skills. However, you generally will not be taught how to use tools such as R or Python for big-data analysis after joining; you need to study that on your own. A few colleagues in the company do have analytical skills in this area, so learning alongside them can still help strengthen your abilities.

II. Product Analyst (commonly known as Product Manager)

The work mainly focuses on planning and maintaining products.

1. In terms of planning, the basic task is to turn concepts into slides and hand them over to R&D for development. A certain technical background is recommended; otherwise, when communicating with R&D, you will only be led along by them. Of course, this describes the work of a relatively basic product analyst. If you are willing to do more, you can start by understanding competitors and exploring market needs. One advantage at iLan is that there is plenty of room to make an impact, because the head of the product department comes from a sales background and can basically only give you direction. Therefore, you can shape the product in your own way;

2. Maintenance means reporting issues to R&D. We do have maintenance hours, but in terms of responsibility, the position is on call 24/7, 7 days a week—unless you can let it go.

Regarding benefits, the benefits listed on 104 include:

1. Domestic travel subsidy

During my time at the company, there were no employee trips or subsidies of any kind. The “2017 employee trip” mentioned by a former employee was actually a two-day, one-night employee training event that senior management wanted to organize. On paper it was training, but the content was simply going out for leisure, so everyone kept thinking it was an employee trip. However, family members were not allowed to participate, and employees who had to care for their families could only take personal leave, which led to opposition. The manager believed this was because the Welfare Committee had accidentally written “employee trip” instead of “employee training,” creating a misunderstanding, so the event was canceled directly. No formal announcement was issued about the cancellation; everyone was asked to spread the word by mouth. Therefore, the reason for the cancellation that has circulated to this day is that the Welfare Committee misspoke.

2. Employee profit-sharing and stock ownership

Only employees at the managerial level are eligible.

Other aspects:

1. There is currently no subsidy for health checkups.

2. There is no overtime pay. You can apply for compensatory leave instead, but the difficulty of applying varies by department.

Highlights

# Very suitable as a first job for fresh graduates, serving as a beginner village where you can earn a modest amount of experience points as a stepping stone to your next job.

Other

# 87% of the R&D staff are easy to get along with.

# If you encounter difficulties and are too lazy to Google them, you can ask your colleagues.

# An open office environment makes it convenient for colleagues to interact with one another.....Only management has partitions XD

# You may get to experience a waterfall development process......You get a one-stop-shop card and can think about how to play it well.

# R&D salaries are guaranteed for 12 months. Period.

# Overtime is not common.

# The company’s most noticeable benefit is, as a senior colleague said, one package of pull-out tissues distributed every month. You have to collect it in person on the designated date; if you forget, you’re screwed. Come early next month.

Thanks be to His Majesty for his gracious favor.

Highlights

# R&D salaries are far below industry standards. Applicants with an information-related degree or substantial experience should consider this carefully.

# The company’s management prefers hiring inexperienced newcomers. The reality is that as newcomers accumulate experience points, they gradually realize that no matter how long they stay in the beginner village, their pockets remain just as empty. Even after being promoted to senior R&D, the frequency and size of raises—because of the low starting salary—can never bring them back to industry levels. It is normal to receive a small favor and thank His Majesty for his graciousness, so the only option is to seek opportunities elsewhere. The company then hires more newcomers to fill the vacancies, starting an endless cycle.

Other

# They work very hard to create the appearance of a startup company, and that’s it. Here are a few examples..

# There is no professional HR department; selecting new hires is handled by the R&D team managers themselves, who browse 104.

# The R&D interview process is similar to that of a traditional manufacturing company: notification by phone, preparation of a self-introduction presentation, a 60-minute written test, an interview with the R&D team manager, and a second interview with senior management to discuss compensation.

# The interviewing managers’ technical abilities are not necessarily strong. If you’re an expert coming to challenge them, don’t be too ruthless.

# The software development processes and systems do not have the level of maturity one would expect from a software company established more than 10 years ago.

# Management’s mindset is typical of the manufacturing-industry thinking used by systems integrators or hardware manufacturers, applied to running a software company. Senior management thinks it is at the cutting edge of technology and treats R&D staff as a typical code production line and code farmers.

# One vegetable is planted in each cesspit: whenever a newcomer joins, the priority is simply to put them into whichever R&D team is short-staffed.

# The job posting says “[Hiring Python Engineers],” but after luring you in, they feed you Java. Internally, 90% of development is done in Java.

# Performance reviews are just a performance; year-end bonuses are mainly distributed according to senior management’s mood.

# There is occasionally 24-hour on-call duty.

# If you are unfortunate enough to work overtime, I have never heard of anyone successfully applying for overtime pay—only compensatory leave is reported.

# The style of a former R&D team manager: requiring employees to buy drinks for colleagues whenever they made a mistake at work, otherwise it would affect their performance review.....pay money to avert disaster.

# The projects brought in account for 50% of the workload, but there is no project bonus after delivery.

# The job listing on 104 says there is a subsidy for employee travel, but I have never heard of anyone receiving it.

# I won’t even mention the mooncake story XDD

# There is actually another joke called “[2017 Employee Trip].” Would some kind person like to add details? XDDDDD

# There’s too much....I still have to work tomorrow, so I’m going to wash up and go to bed...those downstairs, please continue.

One free pack of toilet paper every month

The tasks are numerous and disorganized, and the workload of regular duties plus projects is overwhelming. The company keeps accepting new business and squeezing in additional assignments despite its incompetent management, and every task is supposedly extremely urgent... Urgent for whom?

The benefits are poor, and senior management treats long-serving employees like disposable tableware—using them and throwing them away, breaking promises once they have served their purpose.

The most talked-about incident was that, just before the Mid-Autumn Festival, three senior employees (with 2–6 years of service) were preparing to resign. To save money on the three seasonal gift payments—no, sorry, the gift boxes (worth less than NT$1,000)—the company hid the mooncakes in the storage room for a week. In the end, everyone found out, so the direct supervisors of each department had to pay out of pocket to buy mooncakes for the three departing employees to appease them. The whole situation left everyone panicking, and all they could do was laugh helplessly while eating mooncakes that had been sitting around for five days. Truly wonderful!

Those who want a stable life and do not care about salary or personal growth may consider this place.

There is no professional HR planning for interviews, administration, or performance evaluation systems, so sometimes it is simply whatever the supervisor wants.

This is not recommended for those seeking professional data analysis experience and training.

The company does not care about employee development or mobility. The benefits are different from what is stated on 104 or Tieziyi. The gifts for the three major festivals seem to be treated as the company’s benevolence toward its employees.

Colleagues get along well.

During the interview, they said the job responsibilities were A, but after joining, they became A+B+C within a few months. They also said that this is simply how work is handled in this department.

Vague project requirements lead to constantly changing directives and schedule delays, which are then blamed on the R&D team.

Low salary.

Speaking specifically about the Analytics Department, the product is genuinely forward-thinking, but there is still room for improvement in talent development and retention, as well as work-life balance. There is a lack of a human resources strategy.

Speaking specifically about the R&D department, although the company’s products are quite forward-looking, it is actually very exploitative toward its employees. If you log too many overtime hours, you may be asked why you worked so much overtime. If a project or product cannot be completed on time and overtime is needed, you may even be told that it is a personal problem and be unable to claim overtime pay. Worst of all, some bizarre specifications casually promised by sales staff still force people in the R&D department to clean up the mess.

Although the atmosphere among most colleagues is quite good and you can learn a lot, from the perspective of labor rights, this is not a company suitable for staying at long term. The R&D department’s starting salaries and raises are far below the market standard, and upper management also places far too much emphasis on educational credentials when determining pay, making it impossible to retain people.