Qin Chao is a technical partner of Fengrui Capital and an early employee of Facebook. He shared Facebook’s project development process and engineer’s performance management mechanism at QCon2016 Beijing station, hoping to give you some enlightenment on soft management skills.
I would like to thank QCon for giving me the opportunity to present this presentation. I will combine my previous four years’ experience at Facebook to introduce Facebook’s innovative management approach and approach to the entire engineering culture.
From college dorm to Full Ecosystem: Facebook’s 12-year history
First of all, I want to explain why I mention Facebook. It’s not because I worked there. Take a look at the simple history of Facebook:
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Zuckerberg started Facebook in his college dorm room in 2004, and for a long time it was just a simple website. But then it expanded into hardware, developed all kinds of products, and dominated the social space, at least in North America. Facebook has also promoted Connectivity, which provides free wireless networks to developing countries, and VR, AR, artificial intelligence and other hot new fields, forming a complete ecosystem.
Watching Facebook’s 12 years of growth, I’ve been wondering how it went from a simple personal project of Zuckerberg’s in a college dorm room to a publicly traded company. Why is the layout of the whole ecological chain now very perfect, how is this company made?
After thinking about it for a long time, I found an interesting sentence: What is the most important thing in the 21st century? Talent. Nowadays, many technologies of Internet entrepreneurship are basically open source, and a lot of hardware is readily available.
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The chart above, which was very popular in Silicon Valley five years ago, depicts the flow of talent between big companies. In the figure, each dot is a company, and the edges with the same color as the dots represent the inflow of talent into the company. You can see that Facebook is basically blue with all the other dots, and all the companies are feeding talent into Facebook. Google basically collects talent from Microsoft and Yahoo, and loses talent elsewhere.
So it took a lot of talent five years ago to get Facebook to where it is today. There are a group of the best engineers, product managers and designers here, so after five years of layout and talent training, it has created a very good layout that is equivalent to the whole ecological chain.
So I wonder what the whole engineering culture is doing so well. Since I used to work at Facebook myself, I would like to share with you this: How to create a good culture within the company? How do you get the big boys here?
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A total of five parts: the first is a simple self-introduction; Next, the engineer culture at Facebook; And the composition of the team, including designers, product managers and engineers; How to manage the personnel, how to effectively control the working enthusiasm of engineers and give corresponding remuneration; The last point is also the most important, the above for our Chinese companies how to enlightenment.
1. Who I am: Carnegie to Facebook
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This is my resume. There is still a big gap between universities and enterprises in terms of technology. After Carnegie Mellon, I joined Facebook and started working on mysterious projects led by cTOS. Then I worked on Facebook apps, mainly iOS, Voice Message, etc.
2. What is Facebook’s engineering culture like?
Feature 1: Hack Culture
First of all, Hack Culture can be said to be “hacker Culture”. Hack Culture is not about hacking other people’s computers, it’s about an attitude and a way of doing things.
It’s pretty easy to get to the U.S. now, so if you land at San Francisco airport and you land over Facebook’s headquarters, I suggest you take note that this is what Facebook’s headquarters looks like.
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What is particularly interesting is that the middle position of the square is actually marked with Chinese characters, which can be seen clearly on the plane, namely “Hack”. When we say, “We’re going to do some hacks or something,” it means, “If you have any ideas, any innovative, quirky ideas, just do it!”
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Hacks are defined in three main ways: immediately, quickly and iteratively. And Growth hacks are, essentially, hacks for Growth. Facebook absolutely rejects tradition (people come together for meetings) in favor of technology driven and data king.
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After making a thing, first send it to the user, see the user’s feedback or conduct a group of test users, finally see how many users think you are good, through the data collection method to demonstrate whether it is feasible. There are plenty of ways to collect data on Facebook, so it’s pretty obvious whether this version is good or bad with the AB test.
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Facebook doesn’t have a dedicated department for hacks, but encourages everyone to use their imagination and do whatever they want. There are all kinds of “hacks” in the corners of the company, creating an atmosphere that encourages people to innovate and encourages the best people to stay and work there, which is a happier culture.
Feature 2: Design+Engineering
If Apple is 80 percent design focused, Google is probably very engineering focused, and Facebook is 50-50 design and 50-50 engineering, which is not what you might think. The new Office of Facebook was created by a famous designer, with all kinds of wonderful elements. At first, I thought these designs were a waste of time. Later, I gradually found that it was very pleasant to work in such an environment.
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Later I saw that some Domestic Internet companies also feel this way, such as the recent start-up Aristocrat Toutiao. So if you want to make an Internet company big, you have to have a very attractive engineering culture, and you have to hire great people.
Feature 3: Open
My first day at Facebook was dominated by these three things:
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The first is Open, very Open checking. Newcomer orientation on the first day, to a computer, even on the Internet, after all the data can be seen: product on live, live, each function, and even can see such as stock trading system data, such as Japanese users under the age of 30 people with XX situation how, when, from the beginning of the year to what is now change, etc. Everything is open to engineers without any access.
Also on Facebook, there are a couple of libraries that anyone can copy, so I can pull down the Android library, I can pull down PHP, recommendation algorithms, engines, all sorts of things, and it’s all open. However, the premise of openness is that if the company leaks internal information, it will be fired, which has happened several times in history. So it’s almost impossible for an email from Zach to go viral on Facebook. When I first came back, I was shocked that all sorts of CEO emails were out in the public eye, something that is almost impossible in Silicon Valley.
So Hack means trust and openness internally, but also very strict rules externally.
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The last one is Open Space, which is a very Open environment, giving people the feeling of “working environment like an Internet cafe”. An Office in an American company has a rough feel, with no decoration on the ceiling and a lot of rust on the pillars, but it has a lot of detail.
For example, the monitor is not bad, there are two buttons on the right side of the chair, one is up and down, usually such a normal work, after tired, long sitting is bad for health, put this up, can stand office. One advantage of standing up is that when several people are discussing a problem, they can stand together and watch. A lot of times when you’re writing code, bring the designer in and say, “I made a prototype, what’s wrong with it?” If there is a problem, just change it.
Zach, like everyone else, sits in this open space with a big glass room next to it for meetings, and Zach doesn’t have a lot of meetings or a lot of time to go outside, and basically just focuses on his business in the company every day.
3.Facebook team composition: designers, product managers and engineers
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A lot of people ask me, what’s the Facebook project team like? In general, if it is to do a simple, small function, it is generally a designer and two engineers; For larger projects, such as the revision and the development of two or three functions in the new version, basically two or three engineers work together. The XX product team consists of five to ten engineers and two to three product managers, which is similar to the ratio in China.
It’s funny, Facebook doesn’t have tests, they’re more expensive, and a lot of times we do it ourselves. So if you want to learn a little on the project implementation, reduce bugs above word is code review, make this code needs to be approved in advance through the code inside, see code directly, no problem, if you pay in later found bug finally fix the bug to spend time and energy is three times as much as ten times before.
The whole process a start planning what to do, what to do, what the demand is, the designers and engineers cooperation each other, more interesting is the entire process each decision to participate, and each other between each decision is interactive, engineers could say this requirement can’t do or don’t like at all.
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This is my desk. I accidentally took a picture of it. The two engineers in the back were talking about how we were sending and receiving messages.
Some people ask why your products develop faster or do better. What’s the secret? There are not many secrets.
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First of all, there is mutual respect between people, and with Scrum, everyone sits together and communicates with each other in person as soon as there is any progress, although teleconference is fine for various functions, but we encourage people to sit down and talk together. The team should start to cooperate at the very beginning, and people with different roles sit together to discuss, unlike in China, where the division of stages is very obvious. Finally, designers and developers are very close in the later stages of their work.
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Last but not least: Facebook has Zuck Review. That is, zach will personally arrange to see some big functions or products. That is, the people below or the whole big PM will personally tell Zach that you need to go over this place, and he will personally stare at it no matter how busy he is.
He will decide whether to do or not to do this function, decide the PRODUCT UI, functions, interactive adjustment, and so on, and the Internet spread ma Huateng or Zhang Xiaolong actually similar style. I feel like Facebook is a little bit like Tencent in that it’s a product CEO-led company, and Zach watches it personally.
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There are two Chinese people in the picture. One of them is Mr. Ge, who makes a lot of money for Facebook in advertising. Zack sometimes talks to you with an intuition, a lot of features are cut, and most of the time he makes the right decision.
I think the most important feeling of Zack Review is encouragement. If Zack looks at it personally, the priority will give a very clear explanation to the engineers or the whole team whether it is important or not, and whether it is needed or not.
As for priorities, I would like to emphasize that we are all technicians. Many of us did well in school, but found some incompatibility when working. What we need to pay attention to is that when working in a top company or an excellent Internet company, the most important thing is to distinguish priorities, which is completely different from when studying.
Things at work are endless, you are continuous at work; It’s not like when you were in school, you know what you’re getting back from semester to semester, to final exams. The most important thing to do is to prioritize. As soon as any task comes to you, mentally accumulate it and do it first, instead of giving you one task to do right away.
I see a lot of people with strong abilities, and they finally encounter a bottleneck. The key problem is that they don’t prioritize, and they do things that are relatively easy or they like, or they think they can do, instead of doing things that have the most impact.
In addition, Zack Review can be analyzed from the user’s perspective. Sometimes when we do a product or a technology, we will think a lot of things are too simple when we have been doing it, and users are often stupid or can become stupid in a second, and they will feel that this thing is not good to use. It feels like Zach has done a better job of this. Zach himself is not particularly technical and will tell you a lot of interesting things if he thinks the place is so difficult to use.
4. How does Facebook use OKR for talent management?
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Next up is how the whole of Facebook is managed, or OKR. At Facebook, OKR means every six months or every year, set out what your personal goals are, what your team’s goals are, what the company’s goals are, and then move on.
First, you should be results-oriented or impact-oriented in your goal setting. Don’t just do it for the sake of doing it, or do fake work. When working, many people will do some fake work or simple work, that is, they are willing to do the work.
Second, Facebook looks at what the metrics are every six months, every six months.
Thirdly, I will do a personal performance evaluation at the end of June and December each year.
Finally, after a month, the results of the review will determine the size of your bonus and promotion, and the year-end performance review will determine the size of your cash bonus, plus stock at the end of the year. Engineers, regardless of their level, will give you the corresponding stock. At the end of each year, the performance review will determine how much stock to give you, and usually the stock will be added.
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How to do specific performance appraisal? The first is the 360 degree evaluation, which is often referred to in China. It is done once every six months, mainly consisting of four parts: self-evaluation, colleague evaluation, direct boss evaluation and boss evaluation. And finally, interestingly enough, you get to decide if it’s open and who sees it. Generally, about 85% of people choose to be open, which is a very scary figure, and basically everyone is open to each other. The last point is HR and the whole Team Calibration, again from above.
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Finally, there is the bonus. Give you a bonus in the range of 10 to 25 percent. Depending on what level you’re in, it’s 10% for new entrants, and the higher you go up there. Then multiply that by your individual performance, where 0 means no bonus, usually around 1.25, and 4.5 is high. Finally, multiply by a company’s performance, and the top executives give a score on how the company has done in the past six months. If the company has done well, everyone’s salary will be increased.
5. Learn from Foreigners to develop skills to defeat Them: What are the implications for Chinese Internet companies?
Finally, I’d like to talk about the implications of Facebook’s approach to management for Chinese Internet companies. Although working at Facebook is great, I prefer to join a Chinese company or start my own business, build a company with a bunch of Chinese people, and have a great product that can compete with the West in the international market.
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First of all, a lot of people say that Facebook has a great engineering culture, but it’s not born with that culture. To support this point the other day I took a look at what people were thinking about Zach in 2007, a time when the company was a mess and occasionally had a few good people, and when Facebook’s current awesome engineering culture was instilled in 2008 by a girl, Molly Graham.
Molly build the process of corporate culture, in this article has expounded (http://firstround.com/review/80-of-Your-Culture-is-Your-Founder/). At that time, Facebook had grown from 400 people to 1,000 people, and the company was out of control. It was a mess, and people were blaming each other, and they were very inefficient, and they were doing a lot of inefficient things. So how do you run the company well and keep better people coming in?
Molly: I think We should build a culture of engineers at Facebook. I asked Zach to write a list of ten people he thought were awesome. Most of those ten were determined by zach’s temperament.
After the ten standards are written out, they are repeatedly emphasized in the company, while recruiting people who meet these conditions. So one conclusion: 80% of a company’s culture comes from its founders.
And finally, as A company gets bigger, like when you go from A to B, you have to create your own culture. So if you’re the founder, you can do whatever you want when the company is small, but you have to be very clear that you have a scale; When the company reaches 500 + people, it is important to establish your company culture.
For techies, judging a company’s culture is often based on the founder and where the founder came from. If it’s a business, the company may not be the best place for you, no matter how tempting it is.
Take Toutiao as an example, they have done a good job. The boss himself is also a technician. Their company treats its technicians very well, and they have hired many talented people in Silicon Valley to create a good atmosphere in the company. So you can see what the culture is by looking at the founder.
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For managerial engineers, there are four things to consider when starting a business:
First, focus on first-line products. The person below is not afraid of being challenged by you. He is afraid that after finishing the project, the person above will not look at it, and he will feel that all his hard work has been wasted.
Secondly, a Performance Review should be conducted every six months, which will determine the bonus and stock of employees.
Third, Code Review. In engineering is not using the best technology is the most important, but add the Code Review to come in, this is not to find out fault, but sometimes should pay attention to look at yourself, you Code the logic is clear, at the same time leave records so that if you later want to learn this feature is how to write, he can come from the above all the records, It’s a tool for engineers to exchange ideas and ideas.
Fourthly, many Chinese start-up companies often neglect to write good orientation and Wiki. McKinsey once concluded that the biggest lesson of successful companies is that wikis do a good job. It’s important to be able to document the knowledge of everyone in the company and spread that knowledge across the team.
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QinChao
Fengrui Capital Technology Partner, former Facebook engineer.
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