Hong Yuan

VP of Engineering

Born:
Guiyang, Guizhou, China

Prior Experience:
QAD – Director of R&D, APAC, Shanghai
HP China Development Center – Section Manager, Shanghai
Senior Technical Consultant – Proxicom, Inc., Los Angeles
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA – Software Engineer, Pasadena, CA

Education:
China Europe International Business School – EMBA
University of California at Los Angeles – Ph.D student in Computer Science Dept.
(degree incomplete)
Seattle University – Master of Software Engineering
Chongqing University, China – BS in Automatic Control Systems

What I like to do outside of work:
I try to spend as much time as possible with my wife and son. I like playing ping-pong and soccer and like to do some programming for fun in my spare time.

Q: Where in your background did you learn the most?
A: I learned a great deal in growing and developing engineering teams from HP China and especially from my experience at QAD. I enjoyed my time at JPL as a software engineer where knowledge sharing is a part of the core culture, all the brown bag sessions and lectures at von Karman auditorium were great fun and great learning opportunities.

Q: If you could meet one person in history, who would you meet and why?
A: Lao Tzu. I’d love to observe how he conducts himself and learn how he, 2,500 years ago, acquired all the deep knowledge into humanity, the universe and the Tao.

Q: What’s been your biggest surprise during your time at SuccessFactors?
A:The transparency and openness across the organization and at all levels.

Q: If you had 20 seconds to tell a new client about why they should use SuccessFactors, what would you say?
A:I would tell them that SuccessFactors is not an HR application that an organization uses once or twice a year for performance reviews. It’s much more than that. It’s a tool that has a great user interface and that makes a big impact in an organization in aligning all to march in unison toward a common goal. “You may be surprised that you’ll find yourself using the tool almost on the daily basis.”

Q: Why are you proud to work at SuccessFactors?
A:I’m proud to be part of a team that not only makes products and services that can make big impact in world’s small and large enterprises, but in doing so we embody best practices and become proud customers of our own products.