Unknowingly, there are only a few days left in 2022, which means that I am about to enter the palace of 30 years old. As a car programmer, I feel a lot in my first year. Let me briefly share my personal summary in 2022.
Review 2022
2022 is a bad year for me. At the end of 2021, due to work and personal reasons, I broke up with my girlfriend in a different place. After a period of confusion, I chose to write a technical blog to divert my attention.
Immediately after the beginning of 2022, I successfully passed the company's internal defense and was promoted from "Senior Software Engineer" to "Senior Software Engineer". This is the happiest thing in my year. My previous company is a listed company. My personal education and years of work actually do not meet the promotion requirements, but thanks to my accumulation of articles in the field of automotive applications, I have become the person with the most complete evidence among many candidates, so it is considered an exceptional promotion. .
I was very happy when I learned from the director of the department that the promotion was successful. This happy time lasted for about a week. During this time, I kept asking myself, is this enough? Do you want to continue in-depth application development? What are its prospects?
In the past three years in the car industry, I have been mainly engaged in the development of car applications in the company, and occasionally participated in the development of some modules at the Framework layer. My promotion basis is also based on my accumulation in applications, but I have always been interested in Android There is considerable interest in development, but it is expected that it will be difficult to arrange corresponding work for me within the company, so after difficult trade-offs, I decided to leave in October 2022.
After resigning, I briefly tried interviews with several Internet companies, mainly to verify some of my ideas. Here are a few questions that I have a deep impression on.
Q: The skinning mechanism and principle of the application
A: I don't know!
Although in-vehicle applications require skinning, in-vehicle system applications are based on Android Runtime Resource Overlay to achieve skinning, but this mechanism does not support non-system applications, resulting in completely different technical means for in-vehicle applications and mobile applications. So I haven't practiced skinning of mobile applications, so I can't talk about understanding the principle.
Result: hang up!
Q: Have you ever used Flutter and describe its drawing principle?
A: Well, I don't know either! !
The domestic mainstream in-vehicle IVI systems are basically Android OS, and I have never heard that in-vehicle system applications have cross-platform requirements, so the use of Flutter in the field of in-vehicle application development is very limited, so that after three years of in-vehicle application development, there is no such thing at all. Have been exposed to Flutter.
Result: No accident, hang up!
Q: The principle of plug-in
A: No! ! !
An important feature of in-vehicle applications is that the interaction logic should be as simple as possible to facilitate the driver's operation. Therefore, in-vehicle applications generally have few pages, and there is basically no need for such complicated plug-in tools.
Result: Of course it still hangs!
A few simple interviews have basically verified that my idea is reasonable. There are still many differences between mobile application and vehicle application development. It is not difficult to get in, but it is difficult to get out after a long time.
Outlook 2023
"If I can't teach newbies, then I don't really understand the knowledge"
The Feynman learning method I saw recently at Station B inspired me. The most efficient way to learn is to simplify what you have learned and teach others.
In 2022, I wrote about 18 technical blogs, but most of the time, I took it as a summary of my study or work content. Looking back at these contents, the quality of the summary was poor, and I pieced together the source code in a large area. Read It sounds boring and boring, and lacks refinement and summary, as if I have written a lot, but I can't grasp the key points.
Therefore, in 2023, I will continue to hone my writing skills to make the content of the article more understandable. At the same time, I will also prepare some video tutorials on station B to exercise my ability to summarize.
Suggestions for switching vehicles
Why write newline advice? Because people will always ask me how to switch from mobile phone development to vehicle development, so I will briefly mention it here.
APP engineer
Based on my job hunting experience this time, if an APP engineer wants to switch to a Framework position, it is basically unrealistic if he has little actual work experience, so he can only consider switching to a vehicle APP engineer.
However, it should be noted that there are still some differences between in-vehicle application and mobile application development. For example, when developing an in-vehicle system setting or SystemUI application, the APIs used are often APIs that are not exposed by the Android SDK, and mobile application development basically does not involve these. Block content, so companies are often more willing to recruit programmers with certain vehicle experience.
However, transferring mobile application development to a car does not mean that there is no opportunity. Generally, as long as the strength is strong, the probability of successful career change is still very high. Therefore, it is still recommended to improve your own application development capabilities, write some blogs, do some open source projects, and take a look at how native SystemUI, Launcher, and system settings are implemented when you have free time. They are all very good bonus projects.
Of course, if you have a 211 or 985 degree, it is another matter, education is always hard power!
Framework or Native/HAL engineer
There is nothing particularly hesitant about an engineer engaged in FW or Native/HAL switching to a car. FW/Native engineers have always been a scarce position in a car. OEMs are also willing to accept FW/Native engineers who have no car experience. Wave lift, then just turn directly.
summary
The above is a summary of my 2022 year-end. It should be pointed out that my personal career plan mentioned in the article is not applicable to most people, and it belongs to a potentially risky development path. It is very easy to become everything. Not good, so for most people I suggest to do in-depth development instead of horizontal development.
When I was writing this summary, I was surprised to find that I started to have a low-grade fever. Sending, it’s not like I’ve just had a week of work and I’m positive. Take medicine and rest, let's see you in 2023!