1. There is a company dinner every quarter, with NT$1,000 per person, and the dinner never takes place during working hours.
2. The company’s colleagues are all easy to get along with. Everyone has a young mindset, and the company’s organizational structure is very flat. Fortune-telling, I Ching readings, and tarot card readings are all available, whether you prefer Eastern or Western styles.
3. A dedicated barista comes to make coffee. Just fill out an online form, and you can have hand-brewed coffee in the afternoon. The barista is also very talkative.
4. The new location they moved into the year before last is very modern. The bathrooms are very clean, a cleaning lady comes every day, and all the hand soap is from Aesop. Everyone has a large desk, and there is plenty of light. However, all of the above only applies to the third floor. On the other floors, people go to the balcony to smoke, and you even have to borrow a key to unlock the bathroom door...
5. The company has a basketball club. Those who sign up receive a NT$4,000 sneaker allowance, a jersey with a number of their choice, and the opportunity to participate in tournaments. The entire championship team receives prize money. The courts are not outdoor neighborhood courts either—the company rents indoor courts at the Datong Sports Center. After work, HR calls an Uber to take everyone there, so you do not have to spend any of your own money.
6. Another club is violin. You can rent an instrument if you do not have one, so you do not have to spend any of your own money.
7. One of the company’s PMs has a cat. If they are worried about the cat chewing on electrical wires while home alone, they can bring it to the office for care.
8. There is no officially scheduled lunch break. Most people start lunch around 11:30–12:00, and most take a break until 14:00.
9. During the Ghost Festival offerings, everyone receives NT$200 to buy whatever snacks they want. After the ceremony, they can take them home.
10. There are occasional events, such as cosplay competitions, sports days, and League of Legends competitions. If you win these events, you receive prize money, and the company pays for all transportation, accommodation, late-night snacks, and food throughout the entire event.
11. This place is well suited to people with only one or two years of experience, or those who are still becoming familiar with the technology. There are relatively few restrictions on which technologies you have to use—as long as you can deliver the work, that is enough.
1. If you want to work on large-scale projects, there usually are not many opportunities here. It is a contract-based company, so the projects you work on are generally 0-to-1 projects and are not very large in scale.
2. As mentioned above, because it is a contract-based company, each project is usually staffed with only the minimum number of people. As a result, you cannot develop much experience working with multiple people here.
3. There are no development standards, no code reviews, and QA consists of yourself and the PM. Branches are pushed directly to master, and the testing environment is your local machine.
4. The PM sometimes cannot hold back client requests, so you may be asked to change or add features that were not anticipated.
5. Salaries are roughly in the junior-to-mid-level range. Raises are not substantial; for a typical engineer, around NT$55,000 per month is usually the ceiling. After all, it is a contract-based company, and there is no single product generating continuous revenue to support highly paid senior engineers. Once you feel that your salary no longer matches your technical abilities, it is recommended that you change jobs directly rather than expect a significant raise.
Flexible working hours—you can plan your own schedule, and the boss is very understanding when difficulties arise.
The colleagues are incredibly easy to get along with. You can communicate directly when there are problems, and teamwork is very harmonious.
The office feels like home: it’s comfortable, and working here is fun. We have a Purple Star Astrology expert, an astrology chart and tarot expert, a yoga expert, a master of witty banter, a food recommendation expert, a beverage addiction expert, and more—it has everything. Coming to work is simply a pleasure.
There was also a colleague who regularly spent an hour eating breakfast during work hours. Nobody monitored them, and they still received their full salary.
You can bring your cat, dog, lunchbox, boyfriend, or children to work—all of it is fine; no problem.
Basically, as long as you finish your work, no one will bother you.
The salary is genuinely low, and all your money disappears every month.
The boss, who is an engineer, isn’t very good at financial planning or management. You can tell him whatever you’re dissatisfied with, but he may not listen (and often doesn’t).
No
The frequency and volume of conversations among some non-developers have already affected employees in the office. Colleagues have repeatedly raised the issue, but there has been no improvement. It seems that the company does not intend to improve this aspect either.
If the conversations were work-related, most people might still be able to accept them. However, there is quite a lot of non-work-related conversation, and it is loud and frequent. If you need a quiet work environment, I do not recommend this company at all.
Colleagues get along very well, and whenever problems arise, we can discuss them with one another.
⋯I’ll have to think about the rest. There may be more, but I can’t think of anything right now.
The company is divided into two locations: one in Taipei and the other in the Philippines.
So I’ll mainly talk about being assigned to the Philippines.
Actually, I was initially assigned to Laos, but later it was changed to the Philippines.
I have to say, Laos was really close to nature. You could even see cows on the roads, and in the evening you could go running along the Mekong River. There were snacks at work, and drinks in the refrigerator, so when you were hungry you could eat, and when you were thirsty you could drink⋯⋯But why are all those things gone now that we’re in the Philippines? What?? That’s right—once we got to the Philippines, all of that was gone. If you want water in your room, please go downstairs and buy some, okay? Mwah.
Next, let me talk a little about working hours. From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.⋯⋯What?! Let me use the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division I learned in elementary school to calculate this: that’s about 12 hours, right? That’s right—please work 12 hours a day, mwah. Keep this up for six days, because there is only one day off per week. The upside is that after less than three months, you can return to Taiwan for 22 days of leave and give your severely injured liver a chance to recover, mwah.
Now that we’ve covered working hours, the next thing you’re probably concerned about is bonuses, right? Wow, my eyes light up just hearing those two words. An overseas assignment’s salary mainly relies on bonuses to hold it up, right⋯⋯That’s what I originally thought. Okay, here we go: sometimes there are bonuses, and sometimes there aren’t, mwah. I didn’t mistype that, and you didn’t read it wrong—you only get one depending on your work performance and results. However, bonuses are also divided into categories, so even if you do work that month, you may not necessarily receive your bonus, mwah.
Okok, let’s stop talking about those sad things and talk about the work itself. After all, I entered this industry with an earnest desire to work hard and improve myself. Basically, there were three areas, though perhaps only two remain now. What exactly is left? I don’t know either. The main areas are DevOps, PHP, and iOS.
As for DevOps, the atmosphere at work is pretty good, and we often discuss and share ideas.
For PHP, you encounter all kinds of requirements, which are handled through discussion and division of labor. You also get to work on quite a lot of different things, so overall, there are opportunities to learn.
As for iOS—wow, mwah. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of “reskin apps.” Great, I’ll assume you have. After making a simple app that can be published, we package it and submit it. You can propose whatever you want to make and then go through the publishing process. At first glance, that sounds okay, but things have become even more advanced now: you don’t even have to write the app yourself anymore—the client provides it for you. What?⋯Yes, that’s right. We only have to package it. But sometimes there are problems with what they provide, you know. Exactly, exactly—so we still have to debug it. Wait, let me use the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division I learned in elementary school to calculate this: originally, my tasks were to write the app and package it. Remove the provided app, but add debugging back in, and wow—our job has become packaging and debugging, mwah. If you want to challenge yourself by solving problems, you’re welcome to come, mwah. Double rhyme.
1. Mental training (This should be more useful than meditation)
2. Back muscle training (because the bed is extremely hard)
3. Engineers' debugging skills (The App Team wraps shells all day and only learns debugging skills. If you complain to the PM, they will only tell you that they are training you to debug.)
Point 1 - Working hours and bonuses:
When you first arrive, they may tell you that people here mainly make money not through their base salary + overseas assignment allowance, but through bonuses. At this point, you may think that this overseas assignment sounds pretty good (because there is an extra bonus). If a surge of excitement suddenly rises in your heart, I can only apologize—I am about to deal you a heavy blow. You think it sounds good because you do not yet know what the working hours are like. Most people probably have an expected value for working hours, namely: the hours should be about the same as in Taiwan, right? If a workday in Taiwan is a certain length, an overseas assignment should be about the same, right? However, the working hours for this position are not similar to those in Taiwan. The working hours here are at least 12 hours. That's right! Your eyes are not deceiving you, and you did not read the number incorrectly: a genuine, solid 12 hours or more, every day. Moreover, the schedule here is six days on and one day off, and national holidays are not days off (previously, there were no days off at all, and the overseas assignment was based on a three-month period). Therefore, to put it nicely, the bonus is a bonus; to put it bluntly, it is overtime pay (for additional overtime pay, please refer to this website: https://labweb.mol.gov.tw/). Furthermore, the bonus is not fixed: sometimes you receive more, sometimes less, and sometimes you receive nothing. The PM may then tell you that your performance is not very good. Yet the ridiculous thing is that the projects are making a lot of money..... So what standard are the bonuses based on? Nobody knows at all.
Point 2 - Job responsibilities/content:
At first, people with no work experience will indeed learn some things. However, after you have been here for one or two months, there is generally not much left to learn, and you may spend a lot of time on standby (standby status = doing your own things). Doing your own things requires extreme caution, because if the employer sees you, you may receive a return flight ticket at any time. Yet at the beginning, they also say that once you have completed a certain amount of work, you can do your own things. I know these two points are quite contradictory, but this is the situation with overseas assignments.
Let us first talk about the App Team. The App Team wraps shells all day, and wrapping shells is equivalent to debugging, so you learn absolutely no technical skills and cannot make use of your own strengths. When you complain to or explain this to the PM, they will only find ways to brush you off, saying ridiculous things such as, “The most important thing for an engineer is debugging. I am training you.” As for the Web Team, they are frequently rushing to meet deadlines and working overtime, because the employer continually urges them to implement features. Whenever a major feature comes up, they are often given an extremely short deadline to complete it. At this point, readers should be wondering: What about the PM? Isn’t the PM there? How can this situation still occur? Your mind may be filled with doubts. Don’t be mistaken: the PM here stands on the employer’s side. They will not tell the employer that the deadline is too short or anything like that; they will only tell the people beneath them to work overtime and see whether they can deliver as quickly as possible.
A brief summary of Point 2:
1. The App Team wraps shells and debugs all day, learning nothing.
2. The Web Team frequently works overtime to meet deadlines, and sometimes cannot even take holidays.
3. The PM stands on the employer’s side (Readers, do not doubt your eyes—I absolutely did not mistype anything).
4. You learn very little, while the hours are long, and the bonus is unstable or may not exist at all.
Point 3 - Days off
Many people probably hold the idea that time off belongs to them and no one can interfere with it. However, this does not apply to overseas assignments, because you may still be called while you are off. Some people may say that this is generally how things are for engineers, right? However, regardless of your position, with an overseas assignment you may be called in during your time off. Sometimes, even in the middle of the night, the PM will tag you on LINE and tell you to change this or that by the next day.
Finally, to summarize, I think you should take an overseas assignment if you want to achieve the following accomplishments or meet the following conditions~
1. Have mental strength beyond that of ordinary people. (Because the long hours and lengthy work will wear down your mental strength, eventually leaving you like a walking corpse.)
2. Think your heart is not tough enough. (For the same reason as above: extremely long hours and frequent late nights for repairs.)
3. Feel that your life is not fulfilling enough. (Because here you are guaranteed to spend a solid 12 hours or more working; there is no lack of fulfillment, only too much of it.)
4. Feel that you have too much freedom. (There is almost no time here for you to wander around outside.)
5. Think you are fresh and juicy. (Because you will be exploited.)
6. Want to break your record for working continuously with almost no rest.
7. Want to experience a life of poverty. (Because when you convert your money into working hours, the amount you receive is extremely small.)
For those who have already submitted their résumé or accidentally pressed the submit button, here is one final sentence: “Be careful and cautious, and fend for yourself.”
Personally, I feel that the colleagues are quite easy to get along with. Whenever there are problems, they patiently teach and help each other. That’s all.
Today, I won’t talk about other positions; I’ll just talk about what it’s like to be an iOS engineer at this Philippine site. I’m speaking from experience, so believe me.
The iOS colleagues, myself included, all came in with 100% fighting spirit, ready to start building our skills. Once we had fully developed our abilities, we could contribute to the company and show our friendliness. But—and this is the important “but”—the bosses above us (mainland Chinese managers/management) believe that iOS only wraps shells and makes white-label apps, and has no value at all. They don’t care about our technical growth and won’t seriously listen to the voices of iOS development engineers. Because—and this is exactly why—we are considered dispensable. We are just white-label app operators. Every time they said things like we should go through hardships together, we initially did exactly that. But in the end, what we got in return was being told that we weren’t serious about work or that we were unwilling to support our superiors. We supported you for several months, so may I ask: will our engineers be considered when you distribute the profit-sharing? There were originally eight iOS engineers; now only three remain.
1. Training: None.
2. Bonuses: Distributed according to the mood of the mainland Chinese managers/management.
3. Free time: None. (They repeatedly said that after completing our assigned duties—“which basically means wrapping shells”—we could do our own things, such as watch shows. But when we finished our work and did our own things, such as watching videos, we were criticized. For reference: 12-hour workdays.)
4. Do they listen to employees’ opinions? Yes. They loudly say that they hear us and discuss the issues, but then it goes in one ear and out the other. 666.
5. Is the salary high? No. We work 12 hours and are also doing tasks that operators would do. The role has already been distorted; personally, I feel that this is hardly different from insulting you. Hiring an iOS developer to do an operator’s work—666.
In the end, your fighting spirit is gradually reduced until almost none remains.
I realized I’ve written too much. The usual shortcomings have already been mentioned above, so I won’t repeat them here.
One sentence here: For young people with dreams, determination, ideals, drive, and ambition who are considering coming here on an overseas assignment as iOS engineers, someone who has been through it offers you this advice: think it over carefully.
Finally, my thoughts: disappointed, and then even more disappointed.
I almost starved to death by the roadside
Low pay
PMs have more power than anyone
The boss comes from a programming background yet pays engineers low wages; PMs earn far more than engineers
Getting along with colleagues is okay.
The company wants to gain exposure to many technologies.
If you stay in Taipei, you should be able to work with quite a few of them.
Southeast Asia is basically a terrible assignment; I really don't recommend coming here.
Because I have only worked in overseas-assignment positions, everything below describes the conditions of overseas assignments.
The workday is at least 12 hours. Each assignment lasts at least three months, with three to four days of leave per month. However, taking leave here is quite wasteful and meaningless (you'll know once you come).
Now that we've covered the hours, let's talk about the work. There are currently four teams: PHP, DevOps, iOS, and UI.
If you really intend to come, choose PHP or DevOps. At least you will genuinely be learning, because there is a lot to do.
If you are in the app or UI field, please do not choose this assignment under any circumstances, because they only need "disposable" labor.
Let's start with the app team. The work consists of a bunch of very basic, repetitive disposable apps. They don't require any advanced technology, and no one will guide you in learning anything technical. Taipei often holds technical seminars. They won't explicitly say you can't participate here, if they happen to hold them remotely...
As for UI, it is basically tied to the app team: cutting and pasting to produce an app interface, and occasionally supporting PHP with the images it needs. You don't have much freedom to exercise your creativity, because the clients they work with here have very strong ideas of their own, and the PM in charge is just....
Now that we've covered the work, let's talk about the benefits.
The benefits listed on 104 look very good, but they are basically Taipei-only. Since you're far away, good luck actually enjoying them.
How long can you return to Taiwan after staying here for three months? Basically, the company doesn't dare to make any commitments or guarantees about this, because it has no say in the matter at all.
The overseas assignment is described as collaboration, but in reality it is more like a headhunting company—note, "heads," not talent. Have you ever seen a headhunting company with decision-making power?
The local Chinese partner has considerable influence over everything here, including your leave. How long you can return for is also affected by their opinion. There is no clear system here at all.
So how many days of leave do you actually get? Normally, after staying for three months, you can take a little over a month off (calculate it yourself based on a five-day workweek). However, they don't like letting people take too much leave because there may be staff shortages or other reasons I don't know, so people usually fly back before using all of it. The above assumes normal circumstances, but as I mentioned earlier, there is absolutely no system here, so things change frequently. For those who came later, it seems to be... approximately 15 to 20 days for three months (this changes the most, but is probably roughly accurate). These days include Taiwan's regular weekends, meaning that you really only stay in Taiwan for that number of days.
P.S. There are many different versions of the leave policy, and what each person says each time is different, so take this as a rough reference. This is also affected by the working styles of the two PMs: they are not rigorous in their work, everyone pulls in a different direction, each has their own ideas, and when faced with feedback from other engineers, they give vague responses.
Finally, regarding the pay: honestly, the salary is fairly decent, but once you calculate it against the working hours, it's just....
Everything above is completely true, with no deception intended. There may be slight changes from what is written here, but this is generally what the situation is like. I believe you who are reading this will make a clear choice.
Thanks for sending the acknowledgment letter so quickly!
The office environment is extremely makeshift—a wooden table with several people sitting around it coding on their laptops.
You have to bring your own laptop.
The colleagues are nice. The Taipei office may also be good, but I wasn’t there for long before I was sent on assignment, so I can’t say for sure.
A contracting company with overseas assignments. The overseas-assignment positions are basically all terrible, because nothing is clearly explained beforehand. Only after you arrive at the location do you discover that all the policies are fake. Once you arrive, you are essentially treated as an employee of the local company, and all policies are decided on the spot. Even if you raise any concerns, it is basically useless.
The working hours absolutely exceed the limits set by the Labor Standards Act, and there are 28 days with no rest at all. As for overtime pay—well, they give you two words: “呵呵” (“heh heh”). There is a bonus, though; unfortunately, the unstable bonus probably can’t make up for the excessive hours or the liver you’ve sacrificed. ＾＿＾
Also, the overseas-assignment positions are currently controlled by newcomers. If you have questions, there is basically no senior staff member you can ask. The only solution is to message the Taipei office on LINE, but help from afar is always too late to put out a nearby fire.
Still, if you want to save on rent, experience a life of being exploited, or enjoy being treated as someone to rely on despite not having fully mastered the necessary skills, you can certainly come and try it once～～ And if you feel that your life is bland and uneventful and want to enjoy a life full of emotional highs and lows, this position will definitely be your top choice.
Sincerely, a former victim.
Convenient location, with many technologies in use and plenty of room for learning. The company introduction makes it seem like they place a good emphasis on health, and there are some sports activities.
The project technologies cover far too much, and it is a contracting company. There are positions that require business trips, some that require travel abroad, and others with additional stipulations. Couldn't this have been stated clearly on 104 in advance...? Some positions are also related to gambling... Overall, it feels just so-so. The interview repeatedly fell into awkward silences, and the interviewer seemed completely unsure what they were doing... Having to use my own computer also made the experience somewhat unpleasant. Those who are truly capable might want to give it a try... The office area has no partitions, and there really are quite a lot of people crowded together.
The atmosphere among colleagues seems quite cheerful.
The colleagues all seem fairly young.
I heard there is a sports day every week.
When I entered the company for the interview, I found it was packed! Absolutely packed with people!
It was really so crowded that I worried it might affect the working atmosphere.
Although the interviewing manager said they would move to a larger office near Shandao Temple,
Also, the company will not provide a computer for work, so you have to bring your own~
The products we make are quite interesting
They can only afford to pay monkey wages
The office is very small
The working environment is poor
During the interview, I faced the wall while being interviewed by the interviewer
There are no set working hours and no limit on the number of annual leave days. The boss says it’s fine as long as you don’t go overboard.
The interview was not held in a conference room, but at a small table next to the restroom and pantry. The boss kept temporarily leaving to answer phone calls, questioned the code in the applicant’s portfolio, and even said, “Ah, this is too difficult for you.” The attitude was unpleasant. I later verified for myself that the boss’s criticism was wrong. Heh.