1. You can become proficient in the finer points of office politics.

2. The work is KPI-driven, and you can become skilled at heavy documentation writing.

3. Many documents are written by engineers, including requirements analysis, system analysis, testing, backup plans, operation manuals, and so on. There are plenty of opportunities to practice and improve your Chinese and English typing speed.

4. The technologies used are relatively old. GIT was only introduced in 2020; before that, it was SVN or TFS. You do not need to worry about being made obsolete for knowing only outdated technologies.

5. There is an AED in the office. If you unfortunately collapse at your desk, at least there is an AED that might save you.

6. The company’s political and business connections appear to be managed fairly well; at least they somehow managed to cancel the direct customs connection.

Equipment-wise: you are provided with a 13-inch i5 laptop (2c4t), 8 GB DDR3 RAM, and an SSD. You can practice developing programs with very limited resources. I timed it once: during development, compilation alone took about an hour and a half per day, which can make the workday last longer.

The provided computer is very slow, which lets you practice using Git commands and writing programs with Notepad and the command line.

1. The provided computer is quite unsuitable for engineers: it is very slow and the screen is too small. Many people bring their own computer or monitor, upgrade the memory themselves, or bring their own keyboard and mouse.

2. There is a lack of trust and teamwork among colleagues, and the infighting is quite serious. People may even withhold key documents to lower your KPI score.

3. The managers’ management style is relatively high-pressure and controlling. The constant meetings and close monitoring of progress through demos create a general sense of insecurity.

4. There is a lot of meaningless quality-assurance work. QA focuses on the completeness of documentation rather than improving product reliability. Every project is afraid that QA will add more audit items, because that means a large amount of additional documentation and procedural work.

5. Regarding career advancement, the department keeps trying to promote engineers into PMs. However, the skills required for the two roles are different, so you end up seeing good engineers become bad PMs and bad engineers.

6. Of course, becoming a PM has its advantages. Besides receiving a higher performance rating, PMs also have a say in how project-completion bonuses are distributed. For most team members, though, it is something they can see but not actually benefit from.

7. Colleagues monitor one another, such as timing how many minutes you are away from your seat. Managers will kindly remind you how long you have been away, while also reminding you that “everyone is watching.” Although the company has stress-relief facilities, such as individual karaoke rooms, I think they are mainly there to satisfy the criteria for being a “happy enterprise.”

8. Since colleagues monitor one another, it is probably best not to say anything. Even positive thoughts can be twisted into something negative and reported to managers out of context.

9. Managers openly state that failure to cooperate will directly lower your KPI score, which effectively means cutting your year-end bonus.

10. The company’s management focuses only on performance and costs, with no vision.

11. There is a strange innovation competition every year. Apart from 2020, when it was not held because of the pandemic, it has taken place roughly every year. This is not the kind of competition where you actually create a minimum viable innovative product and demo a prototype. Based on my experience as a winner, I personally think it is more like a presentation-proposal competition. The company does not seem to invest money to incubate new products; beyond holding the competition and providing a small amount of prize money, it also sets winning the competition as a KPI.

12. The manager’s manager—the department manager—also comes to work on holidays and takes photos of the people who show up. If you want to curry favor with your superiors, volunteering to work unpaid on holidays is a good choice.