Decoding Baidu IM Project Team's "Special Forces"

Have the ten days of "exclusive experience" made you see something new? But perhaps you don't know, behind the product, what kind of passion, hardship, and even "darkest" days did the engineers of the IM project team go through? We interviewed dozens of engineers from RD, QA, PM, and UE of the IM project team to uncover the secrets of this "special forces" team.

"After finishing Baidu Hi, there's nothing to be afraid of anymore."

This was said by Xiao Yu from RD. He is an old employee of Baidu. He said that making IM allowed him to truly experience danger and hard work, as well as double the joy and glory. Now when facing any difficulties, that courage and confidence is no longer "fearless like a newborn calf", but rather "as long as there is a firm belief and support from the team, there is no problem that cannot be solved."

"It's already very amazing that Baidu could create an IM product in such a short time. The difficulty level of this product can be said to be higher than many of our other products, and Baidu has no prior experience. In the same amount of time, others left behind failed cases, but Baidu walked out!" Before officially interviewing the IM engineering team, an insider told this to Simple Weekly.

The leader of this team, Ming Hai, told us, "At first, there were very few people in the department, and besides IM, we also had other R&D projects. We just took on the task, at that time we were really fearless, everyone only felt excitement."

However, as the development deepened, when a flood of MRDs came down, everyone realized that this would be an extraordinarily arduous project. But looking back now, it seems that everyone still underestimated the difficulties they would encounter later.

Due to insufficient consideration of the initial system, everyone found that the patches kept increasing and became increasingly difficult, planting landmines for future maintenance that were scary to think about. If following the original plan, it would have been possible to hand over the product at this point, but ultimately, everyone unified their thoughts - despite the enormous pressure of restructuring, they decided to modify the system, aiming to achieve the most perfect result within their capabilities, and absolutely not wanting to disappoint hundreds of millions of users in the future.

The engineers silently swallowed the increased workload, finally bringing Hi through mountains and valleys, rushing through the dark tunnel, and welcoming the light.

"Others work hard, I work harder; others rest, I still work hard"

"Baidu developed IM from scratch, so it could only be 'others work hard, I work harder; others rest, I still work hard'." Indeed, the engineers were somewhat tired, but the fatigue seemed to only be on their faces. Their enthusiasm when talking about IM was still full of passion.

Recalling when he first joined the IM team, Engineer Xiao Hong said he was completely "fearless like a newborn calf" - "there was nothing I didn't dare to do, I was only thinking about how to do it better." Xiao Hong remembered that when he first came to Baidu, he usually left the company at 9 p.m., but soon he discovered that this was considered "early departure", because all his colleagues around him were busy until after 11 p.m.

Xiao Hong's experience was quite typical among the engineers. Many were excited to participate in such a brand-new important project as IM and worked day and night for it. "Now I realize that in the past six months, I've improved and grown every day, accumulated a lot of experience, it's been worth it," said Engineer Xiao Wang.

It was said that PM Xiao Ding had a classic "sleeping posture photo" on his mobile phone, taken by colleague Xiao Liu. That day, Xiao Liu arrived at the company early in the morning and saw Xiao Ding sound asleep on the table, so he took a photo with his phone. Later, he learned that Xiao Ding had been busy modifying MRDs all night at the company.

"Why not suggest to RD to give them MRDs in batches? Baidu doesn't encourage employees to stay up late and overtime at the company, why torture yourself?"

"If I don't give MRDs to my RD colleagues tonight, their progress will be affected, and the entire project will be affected. So, it doesn't matter if I endure a little hardship." This statement from Xiao Ding didn't feel contrived at all.

"This staying up late is much better than the first two months when I was writing MRDs every day," recalled Xiao Ding from PM. At that time, "I went into the meeting room at 9 a.m. and came out at 8 p.m., writing MRDs every day, trying to make the user experience of the product more perfect. Sometimes a feature point could be discussed for three days, and sometimes senior management would join the discussions, constantly brainstorming..." He narrated rapidly, "At that time, the IM team was still in the Yinkē workspace, and the overall feeling was that the sun never rose in Yinkē."

Throughout the entire development process, everyone had many insights, and the point mentioned most frequently was teamwork. Xiao Hong used his personal experience to tell us that if you don't help others get things done, it will eventually affect your own progress.

Yong Jie said that when he first arrived, he almost interrupted others every half hour to ask a question, but no one ever refused him. Xiao Peng told us that during the toughest period, he had to solve many bugs reported by QA every day, and everyone was almost unable to hold on. But every night, he could see yuzuo steadfastly handling each issue, never letting it fall through. This gave him renewed confidence and strength.

"Rather than saying it's my job, it's my career"

DUMP Lu is the team leader of RD, but he has another nickname called "capitalist". Originally, whenever there was a new task, DUMP Lu would keep asking and urging, reminding everyone to "ensure progress". When IM entered the final testing phase, RD engineer Xiao Guo's life could be summarized as "a sea of code, a sea of bugs". He almost had to go talk to QA about bug solutions every half hour.

Engineer Xiao Hou, who previously worked on IM at other companies, found that although the work at Baidu was tiring, everyone was filled with passion every day, deeply infecting him. "The biggest motivation is being able to start from scratch and participate in creating something, Baidu IM is less like my job and more like my career."

Xiao Jin also said: "At Baidu, I feel like I'm proving myself capable of doing something, rather than working for a company."

It was this work enthusiasm that drove the engineers to remain optimistic and tenacious under both physical and work pressures.

When talking about these "past events," facing the gazes of "brothers," Ming Hai's face showed a hint of apology, "This period has indeed been very demanding, thank you all!" Ming Hai revealed the secret: the total amount of code for the entire project was more than twice the initial estimate, which can be said to be one of the products with the largest amount of code in Baidu's history. Although it took a bit longer than originally expected, the product was richer in functionality by three or four times compared to the requirements in the KPI at the time.

Other colleagues then "accused" that Ming Hai himself was the most exploited. Every noon, he seemed to be in the office, rarely eating lunch. Everyone affectionately called his office the "little black room." If someone like Xiao Peng or Xiao Hong disappeared during lunchtime, it was definitely because Ming Hai had detained them in the "little black room" to discuss issues.

"Most of you are participating in Baidu's special forces for the first time. Special forces, in order to catch up with opponents, must first endure hardships and bear significant pressure," Ming Hai gazed at everyone meaningfully, "Now looking back, every engineer has become invincible."

"Confidence is built by overcoming difficulties. Previously, a product was made by 2-3 people, as an engineer, one could share 20% of the glory. But IM is too important, I feel that sharing one-twentieth of the glory is already very rewarding." Xiao Yu's words represented the hearts of every IM engineer.

Reprinted from www.pcguo.com