Workplace reviews and discussion: 阿爾法數位有限公司

1. A gambling company with flexible working hours, no clocking in/out, and short hours of 10:00–18:00 (including lunch break); taking leave is almost never deducted from your salary

2. Good salary and benefits

    - Front-end engineers start at 47k/month with two years of experience, and 52k/month with five years

    - Senior PHP engineers: 70k/month

    - Engineering managers: 80k/month

    ~ Salaries above 42k are uniformly insured at 42k

    ~ Year-end bonus: one month after one year, two months after two years, and so on

3. Salary adjustments are straightforward: deliver results and you get a raise

4. It is a new company, so its systems, policies, and benefits can all be changed. The earlier you join, the better the terms you can negotiate. The boss says the first 20 employees are all core members, so you can take a chance and see whether the company grows and flourishes later

5. As long as you can convince the boss, you estimate your own schedule and choose whatever tools you want. Just make sure you stick to the schedule after estimating it!

6. The boss speaks very directly and is a typical bully who picks on the weak and backs down before the strong. People who are too easygoing and have an overly submissive attitude definitely should not go!

7. The boss likes employees who have ideals and ambitions and do not care about money. In the interview, remember to emphasize that what you need is a stage on which to show your talents, not that you are there for the money

8. The future plan sounds beautiful: build a system where customers can select their requirements, click a few options, and have Amazon generate a gambling platform. Once the company grows, you will be part of the senior core team. The pie is huge; whether you get to eat it depends on whether you personally buy into it

1. You are responsible for the work; there is no overtime pay, and on-call work does not come with compensatory time off. You are responsible for whatever you deploy yourself, and the boss will keep calling you on Skype to get you to go online and handle issues, so you need to write your code properly. Backend engineers handle development and testing themselves; it is best if you can also do frontend work, and you are expected to work with Amazon and CDNs too. The boss wants you to be as versatile as possible

2. In the boss’s mind, working hours include holidays. No matter how you estimate your schedule, the boss will use all kinds of threats and incentives to pressure you to be faster and even faster, cutting three weeks down to two to create your infinite possibilities. Once, on the first day of work after the Lunar New Year holiday, he fired an employee who had been with the company for three weeks because the project had not progressed during the holiday

3. The boss’s decisions change from one day to the next: what he says today differs from yesterday, and what he says in the morning differs from the afternoon

ex. The year-end bonus was originally calculated based on base salary, but later changed to be calculated based on the minimum salary

ex. Originally, there were three performance reviews and three salary adjustments each year; later this was changed to two

ex. He told you the company would not call you after 7 p.m., then changed it to 10 p.m. the next day; in reality, it is midnight

ex. During the interview, he said a Mac would be provided, but after you joined, the Mac was still nowhere to be seen. He originally told procurement to buy Apple lunch boxes, but when someone submitted a resignation, he urgently called procurement and told them to return the items

ex. During the interview, he said the company would develop a completely new system to sell, but after you joined, he asked you to modify a vendor’s system and sell it

ex. He said engineers with any salary level would be acceptable, but after hiring someone with an annual salary of 1 million, he felt the person was too expensive. After rejecting the candidate, he still could not stop thinking about them

ex. He told you he regarded you as one of his own, but after you devoted yourself fully, you turned around and became “an employee who can be retained with money”

ex. When discussing outsourcing, he said there was no upper limit on costs; after receiving the quote, he simply stopped responding

ex. Project and work plans are also frequently changed: today he says to do this first, and tomorrow he changes it to that

It is a new company, after all, so its systems and policies are not mature yet. Constant changes are therefore normal; just do not take the boss’s words too seriously

4. The boss’s true thoughts

“Engineers will come if you throw money at them” — something he always says

“Work is about mutual exploitation; if someone is unsuitable, fire them” — blurted out in front of a new employee on their second day

“My company makes no difference without you” — whenever a new employee arrives, the boss taunts the old employees

In addition, he tells new employees that the old employees are “engineers who can be retained with money”

Also, if you introduce a friend for an interview, the boss will cheerfully tell them that you are cheap and useful. How honest of this boss!

“JobAmazement is written by employees who want revenge. I do not want employees who read JobAmazement and then refuse to come to Alpha either.” — What the boss said when someone rejected an interview based on negative reviews on JobAmazement. Yet while saying he did not care, he kept complaining to the shareholders that the company was being smeared, and even found lawyers and connections to deal with JobAmazement. In the end, he planned to shut down Alpha and reopen as a new company!

There are countless other statements in a similar style; you can experience them for yourself after joining

5. There are many promises that sound appealing. He once said he would ask the shareholders to set up a company for an employee, but then nothing came of it

6. He always claims that the shareholders are very wealthy, that funding is not a problem, and that there is no upper limit on labor costs. After moving to a new office, however, he wanted to save on this and that, and even complained loudly that a monitor adapter cable was expensive. You can observe for yourself whether the company has ample funds

7. This company is going to change its name. Everyone is on their own