This video was published in 2022. Technical conditions, personal experiences, and opinions below belong to that period.
Leaving a company can be a choice or a decision made for you. How can someone understand what happened and prepare for what comes next? In this 2022 T Chat roundtable, three guests with different backgrounds discussed the experience sometimes euphemistically described as being “graduated” from a job.
The host mmoaay spoke with Fan Feilong, Zhao Hongmin, and Li Shezhang. Fan approached the questions through engineering and learning methods; Zhao through media work and industry observation; Li through development in China, work in Japan, and running a company. They did not produce one career recipe. Instead they compared what a person can change, what must be accepted, and how to weigh income, ability, relationships, and personal wishes.
Three starting points: engineering, content, and overseas business
Fan Feilong came from a research path before entering IT and working in engineering and platform roles. At the time he was at CSDN, working on AI applications, learning products, and developer skills. He hoped technology could help developers learn, create, and support one another.
He distinguished research on foundational AI frameworks from application work. Applications still require mathematics, algorithms, and programming, but data quality, business needs, product decisions, and operations often determine whether a system works. When the host classified his work as purely “technical,” Fan pushed back: connecting a ready-made model to a product is not the whole job. This became the basis of his later advice to build strong technical skills while understanding the real problem they address.
Zhao Hongmin moved from sales into technology media and then independent content creation. He saw writing as a way to keep a record of technical and business change and, sometimes, to push an industry to improve. He raised platform interoperability, advertising experience, and consumer services, without claiming that one article caused a whole industry’s change. Long-term observation and expression, in his view, can also build career capability outside a single company role.
Li Shezhang, who shared his experiences under a Japan-focused programmer identity, began as a developer in China, learned Japanese, worked in Japan, and then built a team to deliver app projects. At the time he was both managing a company and experimenting with video and social media. Income and family obligations were part of the reason for his move. After early low-paid development and small-team leadership, he wanted to earn more and support his family. He entered a Japanese company before organizing developers he knew to serve clients. The move was not instantly successful: living arrangements differed from what he expected, and the first team had people before it had enough projects.
Test learning methods in real work
Discussing short- and long-term plans, Fan described learning software engineering principles while working, then testing them against his team’s problems. Writing alone, pairing with one other person, cooperating in a larger group, and leading that group are different tasks. A lead cannot simply scale up personal coding habits.
He mentioned the software-engineering book The Method of Construction as a way to recognize recurring patterns. A book does not supply an answer to copy. He wanted to bring its ideas back to a particular project, observe when a method helped, and then turn that observation into experience others could reuse.
Languages and stacks connect to platforms and business domains. Fan discouraged collecting language names for their own sake. At a given stage, he advised choosing a central project with real difficulty and accumulating transferable skills through it. His own longer-term interests were using technology to create products and improving education and growth for technical workers.
A direction is useful only when people can work together on it
Li focused on communication. Once he began leading people, he had to practice explaining upwards, coordinating with peers, and guiding team members. Having a technical solution clear in one’s head does not mean the team shares the goal or can deliver it together.
In Japan, he initially had a team but not enough client work. He searched for problems local customers would pay to solve, especially around iOS and app development. A small team delivered an iPad application for use at a local service counter because the customer lacked the mobile expertise and staff to do it themselves. That foothold illustrates his point: choosing a direction means finding a real unmet need and proving the team can continue to deliver, not merely following a popular language.
Fan added a distinction between a short-term market opening and a field one believes has long-term value. Either can be worth pursuing, but they operate on different timescales. Li likewise warned against changing direction whenever a new language or slogan becomes popular. A bottleneck calls for examining the direction and method, not automatically abandoning prior investment.
The guests did not fully agree on technology and expression
Zhao suggested that emerging technical platforms could let people who understand code create products and rules more directly. He used the then-popular discussion of blockchain to express hope that engineers need not remain behind commercial spokespeople.
Li challenged that view from his hiring and team experience. As responsibilities grow, someone still has to explain a complex product to clients, managers, and colleagues and persuade them to act together. Sharing publicly and communicating a proposal do not cease to matter when technical ability improves.
Fan placed the disagreement in a technology lifecycle. Early in a platform’s life, technical implementation may have exceptional influence. Once the base matures, product experience and operations can matter more. The three did not decide that technical or communication ability always comes first; different markets, organizations, and stages reward different combinations.
A painful departure does not look like a turning point at the time
Asked about a difficult job experience, Li described leaving a company in China. In his account, management and team relationships changed; criticism of his code and then even minor formatting details became persistent. Initially he thought the criticism unfair, but later he doubted his own competence.
His father was ill and his wages mattered to the family, making departure hard. Moving to Japan did not immediately resolve everything: reception and accommodation differed from what he had been told. He first had to settle, keep working, wait for pay, and send money home. Those details give weight to his account of persisting; it was not a cheerful decision that was easy to make.
The host pointed out that describing the experience calmly years later does not mean it was painless then. Fan agreed that a crisis may later look like a turning point, but that judgment comes afterward. During it, a person can deal with what is within reach and move step by step without pretending the difficulty is useful in itself.
Age anxiety also depends on the role, interests, and market
Zhao regarded mid-career anxiety as a reason to check whether one still likes the work, needs a change, or is simply following an old route by inertia. Family responsibilities can make an uncertain job transition feel much more threatening.
Li offered a different observation from Japanese firms he had encountered. Experienced individual engineers could still be valued; some kept writing code for many years. He recalled older engineers and company open days that let children see technical work. He also found partners through public platforms such as Weibo and GitHub. These are observations of people and firms he knew, not proof that every Japanese employer is free of age bias.
The perspectives belong together. Age is not a proxy for skill, and remaining an individual engineer does not necessarily mean stagnation. Equally, an example in another market cannot guarantee a particular person’s job security there. Zhao’s additional point was that disliking one’s current work may itself be part of the anxiety and worth examining.
Income is real; “loyalty” alone cannot explain pay
Asked about taking it easy, earning more, seeking security, and innovating, Li began with income. Money supports family and helps people cope with life changes. Employment should not rely on emotional loyalty alone; whether compensation matches contribution is a legitimate question.
Having been both an employee and an employer, he said a person seeking a raise should look at the company’s constraints and at their own contribution. If the company cannot pay appropriately, other opportunities may be worth considering. If skills are the gap, it is more useful to study what a higher-paid colleague actually solves than to compare numbers alone. He wanted people to state material needs without embarrassment.
The host linked financial security to later choices. Fan accepted its importance but said one need not wait until every income goal is met before considering direction. If several years of work must be invested anyway, an area with growth and genuine interest might build both skills and future income.
Innovation can be a rational career decision
Fan did not put income and technical ambition on opposite sides. Where ability and circumstances allow, choosing an emerging area with room to develop can be a considered investment, not a declaration of loyalty to a company or a moral demand imposed on everyone.
His reasoning again concerned stages. Early in a new platform, a technical breakthrough may have a large effect; as the foundation matures, product design and operations may become the differentiators. Ask what the current stage needs, not only what one already knows. Continue practicing communication and collaboration alongside a technical strength.
He resisted making “innovation” a slogan. A new field may be attractive, but a person still has to judge costs, potential returns, and whether they can keep working on it. Interest helps sustain that effort; a fashionable label alone does not.
Refusing comparison is different from refusing growth
Zhao separated several meanings of “lying flat.” He did not advocate drifting without purpose, but a person can stop comparing themselves with others and still accumulate skill seriously. He used characters from Forrest Gump and Soldiers Sortie to illustrate people who work attentively without grand declarations.
Different family and material conditions matter. Some can explore calmly; others need to secure a living first. The more useful question is not whether someone carries the label “ambitious,” but whether they are still finding room for progress that suits their circumstances.
A new environment is an option with conditions
For people leaving voluntarily or involuntarily, Li advised separating factors they can influence from a company’s business decision. A restructuring should not automatically be interpreted as a complete verdict on an individual. Software skills can travel between cities and markets, but a move also requires language, experience, personal circumstances, and a life the person is willing to live.
For a voluntary departure he asked whether the next step was prepared and whether income disruption was manageable. Family responsibilities and health affect that risk. Fan added that sustainable work also requires eating, sleeping, and not spending one’s whole life under pressure. Skills and earnings cannot be maintained by unlimited self-exhaustion.
Review concrete problems, not just an overall rating
Fan drew a boundary between an unreasonable work environment and practices one can improve. He opposed chronic excessive pressure. If similar difficulties continue across several otherwise reasonable jobs, however, it may be useful to inspect skills, communication, and delivery methods.
His example was task decomposition. Someone may work hard for a month without breaking a task into deliverable steps or reporting progress. A lead then cannot see where the work stands. The remedy may be to understand the shared goal, define interim results, and communicate status, not simply to code for more hours. A single low evaluation does not define a person; neither should every possible lesson be rejected without examination.
Learning also continues after school. Toolchains change, and fundamentals have to be used in projects to remain useful. Different causes call for different responses: an unhealthy environment, a missing technical skill, and an unclear handoff are not one problem.
Job searches can recalibrate a view of the industry
Zhao preferred looking for a next role before voluntarily resigning when possible. He also saw interviews as encounters with other companies’ real problems, practices, and expectations. One rejection might concern expression, skill, or role fit; it is not an all-purpose judgment of worth.
Ten interviews may expose ten kinds of business needs. If interviewers repeatedly ask about one part of a project, perhaps it has not been explained clearly. If many teams require a capability one lacks, that is evidence for deciding whether to learn it. Treating interviews as information gathering does not remove the financial pressure of finding work, which is why Zhao emphasized advance preparation.
Handle rights and communication when leaving
For an involuntary exit, Zhao first raised compensation and other amounts owed. He also cautioned against allowing an emotional dispute to destroy every working relationship. A later interview can explain what happened clearly without becoming only a list of complaints about a former employer.
Li stressed clarifying the contract, payments, and remaining obligations so both sides know what is settled. He referred to Japanese employment disputes but generalized broadly. Actual rights depend on contract type, the reason for termination, and the applicable rules; his experience does not establish a fixed payment or outcome. See the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s rules on ending employment contracts.
Fan likewise favored clear discussions with HR and managers and a definite conclusion. Preserving a workable relationship and asserting lawful rights are compatible. The host noted that the roundtable was about career experience, not a lawyer’s analysis of individual cases.
Younger workers are also reconsidering employment
Near the end, Zhao described younger workers he had observed discussing social insurance, housing-fund benefits, and work boundaries more openly. Some treated a job as one part of life rather than their whole identity and explored content work or other ways to earn a living.
These were observations of some people, not a claim that all young workers have the family resources to take the same risks or that independent work is easy. They broadened the discussion: a sense of career security also depends on how one understands the employment relationship and which alternatives one has built.
Prepare for industry shifts with more than one language
Li recalled the economic environment around his graduation and expected mature markets to grow differently from young ones. In 2022, that led him to emphasize preparation: retain a core skill that supports present work, explore adjacent fields, and share technical knowledge in a form others can understand and use. Public work and ongoing exchange can create options before a forced change occurs.
Read industry history and create through projects
Fan referred to The Top of the Tide, a history of technology companies, as a way to ask how firms rose, stalled, and changed. Awareness of trends comes from knowledge and continued observation, not a sudden flash of foresight. He read across technology, social science, and psychology. Short videos and streams provide leads; books and other systematic material allow those leads to be checked and connected.
The point was concrete: if all one sees is the current job and employer, it is hard to recognize how an industry’s technology, products, and organizations are changing. History offers patterns to test against the present, while projects offer a way to create something rather than merely predict.
Drawing on his mathematics background, Fan noted that a program ultimately has to run and solve a problem. Valuable creation can happen in engines and infrastructure or in modeling and products built from close business understanding. He did not direct everyone toward low-level systems work. Core skills have to become visible in a real problem.
He ended by connecting direction, long-term effort, and capable peers. At each stage, people see only part of the field; projects and collaborators can widen that view and make more choices imaginable. Ambitious goals can guide his actions without removing external uncertainty. The host returned to the purpose of inviting different guests: financial security, technical exploration, communication, and industry relationships all mattered, but each person had to test those paths against their own conditions.