My Life at Nokia: Liu Guo Dong
My career started in Lucent Technologies Bell Labs in Beijing, China after graduation in 2001. I then relocated to Nanjing to help build a new R&D center in 2003 and remained there for quite some time. When the news of Nokia’s acquisition was announced in 2015, I went through my belongings and found my first cell phone (Nokia 3310) alongside my original Bell Labs offer letter from 2001. Wow! I had kept both with me for some mysterious reason for the past 14 years! I can still remember the incredible feeling to join Nokia in that way.
At the beginning of my career, one of my supervisors told me once: “Just have fun!” And he was right, it has always been an exciting adventure for me to connect the world with our innovations, making communication faster and more accessible. I have witnessed and played a role in the evolution from 2G to 5G and from core network to radio base station. All along the way, I have supported various telecommunication product development, and never stopped pushing the limits.
At Nokia you can always find opportunities to develop yourself and have fun along the way. During my career in the company I have been involved in various roles: Software Development, System Engineering, Architecture as well as managerial roles. I never stop learning. At Nokia, you can always grow together with your teams, in the organization and beyond.
As a people manager, I also encourage my team members to be open for new opportunities, fearless to take challenging work which is the best way to grow, and be empowered to achieve goals. They can get In-time feedback and coaching from me. Some of them have deepened their expertise in software development, and some became project managers , product managers or other roles.
While collaborating with local universities, I have chances to go back to campus, introduce 5G knowledge to students and be mentor of their career development. We also hosted some interesting events, e.g. greenlight for girls(g4g) with social communities which promote technology to more young people to help them grow.
The telecommunication industry has changed a lot over the past 20 years and Nokia is also transforming to become a more agile and flexible business. As an R&D line manager I can feel that the agile principles are embedded into the new organization, with this we can make sure to offer a faster response to the market and guarantee the successful delivery of new products.
But thankfully one thing remains constant - and that’s respect for our people! Besides one’s career development, one’s personal life is cherished here. We are always encouraged to make a balance between life and work. As a father, I’m always very proud to introduce Nokia to my daughter and show her our working environment and products during the Nokia Open Days we host on site.
Nokia is a global company, we work in a diverse environment, so to me it’s always a great pleasure to work together with talent from all over the world. Wherever in Europe or America, the colleagues I collaborate with are always very nice and helpful. I do enjoy working with them together: I love these people and I love Nokia!
