Lei Hong, who joined Meituan in 2013, is currently the head of the terminal Group of Meituan Takeout Business Division and the chairman of the front end channel of Meituan Technical Committee. Before joining Meituan, Hong’s career could be described as “full of ups and downs”. He studied at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and worked for Yahoo China as a product manager and front-end development engineer. With 4 years of entrepreneurial experience, I have high enthusiasm for front-end and hardware technology.

In high school, Hong took part in computer competitions and liked technology, but he didn’t choose computer as his major in college. In 2002, Hong was admitted to Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, majoring in international trade. But in his senior year, he took a break from school and started his own business with a few friends without telling his family.

At the time, they created a location-based local service (which had a lot of history with Meituan) that failed due to the team’s experience and the market environment at the time. Later, I joined Yahoo China. At first, I was the product manager of music search. I wanted to make a good music search product, but it was “difficult” for technical students. So he moved from product to background, and then from background to front.

Yahoo China has embraced change since it was acquired by Alibaba in 2005, and Mr. Hong didn’t enjoy the work atmosphere. In 2009, the fire of entrepreneurship flared up again, so he was invited to join Magic Place Entertainment. During this period, Hong Lei did web game development, symbian App, from business, operation and maintenance, background and front end, almost involved in the whole process and had a deep participation, practicing “eighteen skills”. In 2013, he felt that he had reached a bottleneck in team management and personal development, so he formally joined Meituan to take charge of the mobile front end group and set foot on a new journey again. I started with the touchscreen version of Meituan, and then worked on the company’s operation system. Finally, I joined the Technical team of Meituan food delivery by a strange combination of events, and I have been working till now.

Recently, our Meituan institute of Technology interviewed Hong Lei, a “love to throw around” entrepreneurs, a product, operation, background and front-end engineers, he said that all the smart home, are their own hands “welding board” work together. In Hong Lei, we really see a kind of geek spirit. Today, let’s listen to Hong Lei talk about those stories that he “thrills” over the years.

Q: How did you get access to the computer? Why did you choose Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and international trade? Any special stories to share?

Hong Lei: Actually, I often participated in computer competitions when I was in senior high school. At that time, my senior high school was in Chun ‘an County, Zhejiang province, which was a small county, and the school’s understanding or attention to computers was actually very low. I participated in some provincial and municipal computer competitions and won some awards, which was also the earliest computer awards in Chunan Middle School.

At that time, I was very interested in computer, and through the experience of winning several awards, I have also laid this “brand” in my heart. However, because people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are more inclined to do business, I chose to major in International Trade in Zhongnan University of Economics and Law at that time. However, DURING the whole university period, I also gained a lot of knowledge about economics, accounting, insurance, logistics, transportation and many other aspects. International trade is a very broad subject, covering many things, including negotiation skills, local cultures and etiquette. Although I think this major is great, in my heart, I prefer technology.

Finally, I chose to quit school and start my own business, but I knew that my family would definitely oppose it. So I didn’t dare to tell my family. I just talked with the counselor and she was very supportive of my choice, although I was also interested in economics. But she thought I might have a better career in the computer field. The counselor understood my concern and said, “It’s okay. If you’re afraid to speak, I’ll speak for you.” Now, I still appreciate the support from my counselor.

Q: Why is the counselor so confident in you?

Hong Lei: Because when I was in college, I joined some computer-related clubs in my school. I also tutored my classmates on the relevant knowledge of TECHNICAL computer rank examination. Sometimes I took some jobs outsourced by websites. Most importantly, my friends and I developed a plug-in for MSN Messenger, an instant communication tool owned by Microsoft, which can encrypt chat records and add many useful small functions. I was mainly responsible for the development and maintenance of Tab system at that time. This is probably the most famous extension in THE history of MSN Messenger.

It was a virtual group. I was in Wuhan, and the other two developers were in Shanghai and Guangzhou, so we had three offices. A classmate is specialized to crack the relevant interface of MSN Messenger, to obtain relevant permissions. The other student was responsible for the encryption of communication content, and I was responsible for the system related to Tab function. The three students cooperated in perfect order.

It turned out that Yahoo! Messenger also has its own tagging system, which I cracked by the way, which is why I was able to join Yahoo China later. Therefore, my counselor thinks that I have a certain talent in computer and have made some achievements, so she firmly supports me to start my own business.

Q: Going back to the first startup, what was the cause of failure? What is the impact on oneself? Have you ever regretted starting your own business?

Hong Lei: The first is the lack of experience, we think too ideal, think that the product can have users. But at that time, the time was not mature, there was no smart phone, the Internet mainly rely on PC, almost impossible to achieve accurate positioning. Do such services as food delivery, the experience of businesses, users are very poor. Now, technically, we’re doing ok, but on the business side, we’re thinking too little.

After starting this business, I thought everything should be done in an orderly way. At that time, the team should be a “scattered soldier”, without market research or MRD, and even PRD was just a simple frame diagram. We started to develop, and even the implementation of some technologies was rather rough due to the constant change of functions.

I still have some regrets about suspension, but I have never regretted it. For example, I can’t apply for a work and residence permit in Beijing because I don’t have a graduation certificate, and it will be very difficult for me to settle down in some cities. But I do not regret it. If I did not love to toss and toss at that time, I might not have such a “special” me now. Perhaps it is the simple work, dinner, work, accompany family every day, of course plain is also a kind of happiness. But I knew it wasn’t the life I wanted. Every time I participate in campus recruitment, I would advise my young students to come to a big city like Beijing, because their vision is different and their vision is also very different.

I remember very clearly that one of my schoolmates who thought “Anli” was my best friend when I was admitted to Meituan University. She told me one year later, “It’s a totally different feeling. If I had stayed in Chengdu at that time, I would have worked in obscurity for my whole life and never touched any part of the world. But now, whenever I have time, I travel around the world, play, and learn more. There are so many interesting things in the world that are worth experiencing.”

Q: Why did you choose Yahoo?

Hong Lei: Yahoo was still the world’s largest website at that time. And as I mentioned earlier, in college, I made Yahoo! The Tab system for Messenger was cracked, and they were always asking questions and ideas, so I met Sam, then the product director of Yahoo China. When I was a sophomore, he invited me to intern at Yahoo. Later entrepreneurial failure, there is no opportunity to participate in the school recruitment, simply the past.

Yahoo China didn’t look at my degree. I was a little smug. Because many students take part in the school recruitment, all kinds of interviews, and finally wait for the Offer. And I, only wrote a PPT, sat below several department heads, waiting for me to choose. In fact, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so Sam asked me this question, and I remember saying, “I want to do something that will make It more fun for Chinese users when WE bring Yahoo America to China. I want to do something local, or something cool.”

Q: Any advice for current interns or students?

Hong Lei: I need to answer this question properly. I have participated in many school admissions and based on my personal experience, I would like to give three suggestions to students who are still interns:

  • Number one, it’s important to figure out what kind of work you like to do, or what direction you like to go in. Many students think that it is good to find a sunrise industry and a high-paying job. After work, we will gradually find that only what we really like can go deep.

  • Secondly, I suggest you work in a large company for your first job. If it is an Internet company, I suggest you work in a large Internet company like BAT or Meituan. Because big companies can provide a systematic platform for growth, so that students do not take detours.

  • Third, don’t be overambitious and underskilled. You should start from the most basic position and understand a technology from the bottom. I often tell my friends in Meituan, “We should focus more on basic knowledge and less on lofty things.” If I really want to write something myself, I want to learn from the underlying principles, not through some ready-made class libraries, or even to find a similar direct change on the Internet.

Q: When you first started working on products, what made you switch to the front end?

Hong Lei: Actually, this experience is quite interesting. I first worked in Yahoo China as a music search product assistant, but I didn’t know enough about the whole product system, so my boss assigned me to do operation. One of the most important jobs is to spend several hours every day to collect all kinds of business data, which is very boring.

However, that process helped me a lot. After two months of data statistics, I had a very clear understanding of the whole music product and knew where there was room for improvement in the business. So when we do product design, we can use data to promote the development of business.

Speaking of transitions, there’s a great story. Almost all engineers are resistant to the product, every time we go to schedule, the engineer will say this thing is difficult, we can’t do it, or we can’t schedule this thing, if pressed, they may say “you can, you can”. Of course I also don’t show weakness, then 1: “ok, I do it myself, you open to me.” Because I wrote PHP code in college, and Yahoo uses PHP, there’s not too much pressure to do some simple development.

After writing the background, I found that the front end is a bottleneck, the front end personnel is less, not on the top, that line, I began to write the front end. Suddenly I realized that the front end was a direction I liked, so I went straight to UED (Yahoo’s front end was on the UED team). Here is a story that I remember vividly, I can share with you. The first page I wrote as a front-end engineer, I was complained to my boss and reprimanded for failing to achieve pixel-level presentation.

This touched me a lot. Every thing we do should be in line with the demand of the demand side and respect the achievements of upstream students’ labor, rather than doing things that are easy for us. This also prompted me to cooperation with designers classmates are all very tacit understanding, including the design of the millet UI (m) now head with my relationship is very good, before his personal website is design, I developed with various gradients, rounded corners and shadow (IE) to consider low edition at that time, he was impressed with my perfect present, I often say that he “only has one pixel left”.

Q: Do you encourage technical students to transition?

Hong Lei: I still encourage students to do something challenging. And the choice of transformation, to do a new thing, mainly depends on personal interest and pursuit. However, it is highly recommended for students to work in cooperative team rotation. Meituan takeout has been pushing for job rotation, and RECENTLY I have also been rotating in the product line.

I think all kinds of technologies are ideologically interlinked, and we can learn a lot of knowledge in different fields through job rotation. In 2013, we did LocalStorage cache optimization on the platform, which borrowed some ideas from MemCache to achieve. So in many cases, we can borrow ideas from other technologies, but the implementation level of the code is slightly different.

Q: Why did you leave Yahoo? Choose entrepreneurship again, what are the new harvest?

Hong Lei: A very important reason is that Yahoo China and even the global business is slowly shrinking, there is a certain gap in the mind. Moreover, AFTER the acquisition, ALIBABA’s corporate culture and values are not very suitable for me. A good friend of mine asked me to start a business with him, so I decided to do something big with him. Of course, starting a business is still an arduous process.

Entrepreneurship requires a very strong heart. When I came out of Yahoo China, my family and friends did not support me because Alibaba is very famous in Zhejiang, and everyone crowded to go inside. Parents will think, from such an excellent company to run to start a business, or a “life and death” company, is the head of the “pit” rhythm?

There were many twists and turns in this venture. I had done many businesses, such as web games and Symbian client applications. I think you need to be patient and be able to stick to one business. You also need to be flexible and change quickly when you find that a business direction is completely unworkable. The biggest gain I gained from this venture is that I have to manage everything from business to technology, and even procurement and marketing by myself, which enables me to think about the development process of a business in a more comprehensive way.

In fact, I am still a technical flow and prefer to study technical problems. I do all the smart home systems in my home by myself, including most of the hardware. I buy chips and components by myself, and then do PCB boards and welding. I want to have “control” over these devices, or I want them to be completely “transparent” to me. I don’t want the equipment to be “disobedient”, and I don’t want the data to be on other people’s servers inexplicably. For a technical student, this is a very difficult thing to tolerate.

Q: How do you feel about the development of technology after so many years of entrepreneurship?

Hong Lei: In terms of technology, my first impression is that in the commercial society, only the technology that can serve the business well is valuable.

My second feeling is that technology and products should be closely connected with business and should not be separated from each other. Each of us technical students should also understand the ideas of products and business and make the most appropriate technical implementation.

Q: Why did you choose Meituan?

Hong Lei: In the first two years of my business, IT was quite hard. In the later years, I basically traveled around the world. I could travel whenever I wanted to. The company’s business tends to be stable without much development, and I feel that my development has also encountered some bottlenecks.

Another point is that our company is a “buddy” company, and there are big problems in team management. I was in charge of about 20 people, so it was difficult to expand the scale. It happened that one of my colleagues at Yahoo recommended me to join Meituan. At that time, I got along well with Brother Liang (Senior vice president of Meituan), so I joined meituan.

Q: What have you experienced since you came to Meituan?

Hong Lei: When I first joined Meituan, our team consisted of only three people. The mobile front end was also a nascent direction at the time, almost from scratch, and I enjoyed the process.

The main work of the team was the development of the touch screen version of The United States Group. During this period, I also managed the relevant back-end team and product team, which had more than 30 people at the most, and also created good performance. At the same time, it also provided a large number of talents for many departments of the company, including maoyan (independent), Daxiang and the earliest front-end students of Meituan Wine Brigade, all of whom came from our mobile front-end group.

At the beginning of 2016, the company asked me to manage the food delivery front end team. I was a little hesitant at first, but then I accepted the challenge gladly after a simple communication with my food delivery classmates. At that time, I did not expect to achieve such a rapid growth in the food delivery team.

The first challenge was the poor quality of the App. I was not from the client side, so I knew little about the client side technology and could only manage things through management. Fortunately, I had a very good “right-hand man” at that time and I was proficient in front-end technology, so I quickly got along with my friends. I think the engineer culture of Meituan is very good, “as long as you have good technology, I am convinced by you and can work with you”.

Now we have more than 100 partners in the team. The management team has made great efforts in the introduction, retention and training of members. Senior engineers account for more than 30% of the team, which is one of the best teams in Meituan. Here, we welcome more students to join us.

Q: What do you think of the technical atmosphere in Meituan?

Hong Lei: I think our technical atmosphere in Meituan is quite good, at least the best in several companies I have worked in. Because our engineers in Meituan are quite aggressive and have strong self-drive.

Second, there is a willingness to do something to increase the impact of the team. In meituan family, we never run forward alone, but pursue progress together.

Q: What are your hobbies?

Hong Lei: First, they love to toss about, toss about technology, toss about hardware. The smart home system in the home, is my own a person welding board, papped out, I hope the things in the home are “transparent”, the code should also be “transparent”.

Then, when you have time, you travel around the world. Sometimes alone, sometimes with three or two friends. I prefer to stay in a place for a period of time, to experience the local conditions and customs there, to feel the local culture. When I travel, I don’t like to have too much planning. Most of the time, you don’t know where your next destination is, just keep on the road.

Q: How long have you been writing code?

Hong Lei: The first line of code can be traced back to around 2000, when the DOS system was still used in high school. I used Pascal language “violence” to get the steps of some simple games. There was a game called “Hannotta” on Wenqu Star, and I found the least number of moves by using the brute force method.

The first line of PHP code was written in 2003 and is still written sporadically. I have a passion for coding and should always be.

Q: What advice do you have for technical students?

Hong Lei: First, I think we should understand the underlying principles, not just the application level. So you can really understand how the program works.

Second, we should know how to draw inferences from one another, and create a better realization of the knowledge we have learned through processing, so that the knowledge can be sublimated. I feel Chinese engineers are more disciplined and have less divergent thinking, which can be improved a lot.

Thirdly, we should be patient for a long time, which is also the value and way of doing things we advocate at Meituan.