Interview with Liu Xuan, Vice President of Yuanrong Qixing: Internet people, how to "change lanes" automatic driving?

Houchangqingnian original

"Sorry, hc locked", "No one to recruit for the time being"... The Internet, which has spawned countless jobs, does not know when it will survive the winter. The once hotly discussed topic of 996 and overtime has gradually lost its discussion under the shock of the industry.

On the other hand, the autonomous driving industry is in the limelight. According to the "2021-2022 China Autonomous Driving Industry In-depth Analysis and Outlook Report" released by Yiou Think Tank, since 2021, the total amount of investment and financing in the autonomous driving industry has reached 57.5 billion yuan, and the number of financings has been 107 times.

At the same time, autonomous driving is also competing for the best talents with high salaries and the manufacturing and Internet industries. In the spring recruitment of 2022, which was ridiculed as "copper three iron four", according to the employment trend report released by Liepin, the demand for new positions in autonomous driving increased by 41.92% year-on-year, ranking sixth in all popular segments.

In this issue, we chatted with Liu Xuan, vice president of Yuanrong Qixing, a provider of automatic driving L4 solutions, to listen to his determination to "leave" Google, Baidu and other internet companies and turn to the autonomous driving track, as well as his judgment and suggestions on autonomous driving employment opportunities.

Mouth Catcher: What exactly does autonomous driving do?

Liu Xuan:

When it comes to autonomous driving, it will definitely involve the classification of L1-L5. In layman's terms, from L1 to L5, the driver can "loosen his feet, let go of his hands, close his eyes, and relax his brain."

Loosening the foot refers to the fact that instead of controlling the speed of the driver, the driver can remove the foot from the pedal, as long as the steering wheel can be paid attention to, reducing the fatigue caused by long-distance driving.

Letting go means that the driver can not operate the steering wheel, throttle and brakes, but need to observe the surrounding situation, and in case of emergency, the driver intervenes.

In the above L1-L2 phase, in the event of a traffic accident, the driver/safety officer bears full responsibility.

L3 phase of the closed eyes, do not have to supervise the vehicle at all times, just keep able to dynamically take over the driving task. Although the laws and regulations have not yet been determined, it is generally believed that if a traffic accident occurs, people and this algorithm system will share some responsibility.

L4 level is our main project, but also the industry's leading enterprises focus on doing. This stage allows the driver to "relax the brain", the human brain can be emptied to a certain extent, and in most cases the car can drive automatically. The industry generally believes that in the L4 stage, the algorithm can assume all the responsibility.

Everyone's vision of L5 is a bit similar to that in science fiction movies, the car can have no steering wheel, throttle, brakes, where people can go, the car can go. But it is widely believed that L5 will be implemented much further.

Catcher: If you were to use three words to describe the self-driving industry, which three would you choose?

Liu Xuan:

There is value, there is prospect, there is opportunity.

It is valuable to say that automatic driving solves an important part of the four basic needs of people's "food, clothing, housing and transportation", which can make travel safer and more comfortable, and can also help some people who are not very convenient to travel (such as the elderly, blind people, etc.) to broaden the scope of travel, which is a very social significance.

At the same time, I think autonomous driving is still a very promising industry. Because the car ownership in China is very large, after the technology gradually matures, some new users who cannot or are not willing to drive will be excavated, which can be imagined that the space is very large, and the future market size will be very large.

Moreover, autonomous driving talents are scarce, the demand is large, and the opportunities are very abundant.

From these three perspectives, I think the autonomous driving industry is a very good job search option.

Catcher: What jobs have been created by autonomous driving? Isn't it algorithmic talent that can go on autopilot?

Liu Xuan:

The largest proportion of autonomous driving is still technical jobs. In addition to algorithmic positions such as perception, planning control, and map positioning, we also need front-end and back-end engineers with deep experience in engineering to update and iterate on the algorithm to verify the reliability of the algorithm.

In the early stage of the company's development, more technical talents are needed, but when the products are promoted to the whole country and even the world on a large scale, we also need product managers, operations, business, legal affairs, PR, GR, finance and other aspects of the talent.

However, there is one position that is different from the traditional position of internet companies - security officer. Because the current laws and regulations do not allow the car to be completely empty, it is necessary for the safety officer to sit in the car or remotely supervise.

The earliest automatic driving industry has very high requirements for safety personnel, which may require safety personnel to save the car in the case of vehicle deviation from the planned path, but the requirements for safety personnel at this stage are the most basic driving ability, familiar with the operation process and capability boundary of the automatic driving program in the car, know how to judge whether the performance of the system is in line with expectations, and then record these situations and store these data.

Wind mouth catcher: There are users on the pulse who post: I got the offer of Yuan Rong Qixing, and also got the offer of Baidu automatic driving. Like this one is a small company that is emerging, and the other is a big factory on the same track, how to choose?

Liu Xuan:

If we're compared to other startups, I would definitely recommend choosing us first.

But in general, if job seekers have hesitations between emerging startups and large factories, they can first understand the information of the entire industry, know what the technical level of each company is, what kind of things they are doing, what new things they have proposed, whether they are suitable for themselves, and whether they want to do it.

The difference between a large factory and a startup is that a large factory can allow employees to obtain relatively formal technical training, but the startup may not necessarily have so much time to train and train employees, and may have to solve everything on its own, while doing it and learning at the same time.

We'll combine the merits of these two types of companies. On the one hand, the experience of introducing the engineering practice of large factories. On the other hand, engineers have more room to solve problems. Under this model, engineers progress very quickly.

For example, the fresh graduates who joined the company when they were first established, and now they have become the mainstay of the company, and the engineering ability and algorithm level are very high.

The difference between a startup and a large company is that a startup has countless possibilities and opportunities for rapid growth, but going to a large company is still a step-by-step approach.

Therefore, if you want to get systematic training, enter the big factory; if you already have the ability to solve problems independently, there is also momentum, it is recommended to go to a smaller company.

Catcher: How do small self-driving companies rob people from big factories?

Liu Xuan:

First of all, the autonomous driving industry is a very hot outlet industry, and the overall salary package is higher than the average level of the Internet.

Second, in addition to the base salary, we also have other forms of incentives. With the rapid growth of the company, the value of this part will also increase rapidly. At present, most people agree that "artificial intelligence is enough to lead the future", so this is a long-term development of the industry.

In short, it is not worse now than the Internet, and it will be better later.

Catcher: What do you value in your interviews?

Liu Xuan:

If you sort by importance, the first is whether you are really interested in the industry and recognize it.

Candidates can't come in simply to make money, or simply because they "want to get into an industry that sounds cool," and there's a good chance they'll be in the industry for a long time. Both for job seekers and for businesses, it is a loss.

The second is technical competence. The basic quality must be passed, and the technology can impress me at least in one aspect, either the algorithm is particularly good, or he has a very strong work experience, or he has been engaged in related industries and has a deeper understanding of this piece.

Then there's the ability to collaborate. There are many engineers whose communication and cooperation ability will be worse. If you add communication skills to the first two points, you will be the ideal candidate.

In fact, such a recruitment concept can also explain the "35-year-old anxiety" problem that Internet people care about. If the job seeker's experience and ability are in line with our requirements, very recognized by the industry, and willing to work hard, age is certainly not a problem, there is no invisible age discrimination in the job search process. Conversely, if the engineer is younger but doesn't recognize the industry, it doesn't seem appropriate to us.

Catcher: What's the biggest influence on you in your career development?

Liu Xuan:

Before joining this team, I was not so happy to work for a while, and I also felt that it was more difficult to land things, and I had the idea of "really not working, just go back to the Internet factory", and the treatment given by Google and Facebook was also more generous.

At that time, someone persuaded me to stop - that is, Zhou Guang, the current CEO of Yuanrong. He was my disciple at Tsinghua University, and after he heard that I wanted to give up automatic driving, he bought a plane ticket from China to fly to the United States, stayed at my house for two days, and talked to me.

He is a member of the Basic Science Class ("Basic Science Class") at Tsinghua University. He said: I am the kiko class, you are the Yao class, let alone we are the most powerful people, but we occupy the best quality educational resources, can not be satisfied with being an ordinary code farmer, we should still go to create our due value to the society. These words of his touched me so much that in the end we decided to do it together.

Later, after experiencing many twists and turns, some difficult times, everyone did not disperse, insisted on continuing to do this thing together, and then directly until today, I think the development is still very good, I think this matter is by far the biggest impact on me now may be the biggest thing.

Mouth Catcher: What kind of abilities and qualities are needed for autonomous driving across the Internet?

Liu Xuan:

In my own experience, it is certainly best if I have had experience with AI-related technologies, but more importantly, engineering capabilities. Because a lot of experience is not necessarily applicable to transplant directly, but if you have foresight and good engineering training, you can actually come to automatic driving to try it.

And, the mindset about the industry's outlook is also important. In 2016, I went to baidu's autonomous driving team and got involved in the industry. At the beginning, the conditions were more difficult, and the level of algorithms was far from being comparable to the present.

Many engineers at the time wondered if this technology could really make driving completely out of touch. There are people who have left the industry one after another, and they will be more or less affected by their mentality in this process.

But because when I was working in the United States, I drove for a long time, and it was painful to get stuck in traffic often, and I didn't like driving very much. Plus some friends have had serious car accidents, and I still hope to do something for the industry. Whether it's reducing traffic accidents or making the journey to work more comfortable, it makes sense. And so I stuck with it.

In general, the engineering quality is good, experience is not necessary, but the persistence and love for the industry can support a person to go farther.

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