Andrey Krainyak
Software Engineer
Hometown: Rudny, Kazakhstan
I am from Rudny, Kazakhstan. I came to Taiwan for a 6-month internship in 2011 at Tainan and when I finished my Masters in Industrial Electronics at Tomsk State University in 2012 I decided to come to Taiwan again. I wanted to leave Tomsk and was deciding between St. Petersburg and Taiwan for my next residing city. Taiwan has cheap food, nice people, easy life, and in my opinion is better than Russia so my final decision was Taiwan. I also like how Hsinchu is a smaller town so it’s easy to meet with friends. My classmate back in Tomsk was already working in ITRI for 2 years and told me about this organization. I found an opening position, took 7 months going through the resumes submitting and interviews, and finally got an offering and came in September 2014.
I am a software engineer working at ITRI’s Mechanical and Systems Research Laboratories. The current project I’m working on is called Around View Monitor. It is a cool and amazing technology that captures 360 degree view of the car’s surrounding.
Regarding the work environment, I like the campus; it has lots of greeneries and open space, is far from the city, has good dormitory, and has facilities such as the Yo-Ho Club (gym). The work-hour is not very flexible though. For example, I can’t start working in the afternoon.
I would say ITRI is a good place for internships. The work is not heavily loaded so you get to travel around and learn the culture. However, I highly recommend learning Chinese. If you can speak Chinese, you can solve any problem. Of course, you can always find people who speak English, especially in ITRI, or use body language to get your message across.
Everything is good in Taiwan – people are very nice; foods are pretty good and cheap; weather is sunny and nice; and island is small so can easily go anywhere for traveling and site-seeing. The only downside is that there is almost no place to be alone because Taiwan is heavily populated.