Garena_台灣競舞娛樂有限公司

The HR attitude was very good

Premise: Garena HR proactively contacted me through 104 and invited me to an interview.

First round: HR + hiring manager screening questions. It mainly consisted of casual conversation with HR, while the hiring manager briefly asked about the programming languages and DB tools I used. The total duration was about one hour. I had heard that Garena cared a lot about whether candidates had experience playing games, but it was confirmed at this stage that this would not be a major technical issue. There were no other major problems.

Second round: Technical exam. I went to the office in Xinyi District for live coding and technical Q&A. The live-coding task involved using PySpark to load log files into a database, and ChatGPT was allowed. The technical questions concerned the HADP cluster ecosystem. It was confirmed again that not having a habit of playing games would not affect the interview.

Third round: Technical Q&A with the Shanghai data team. The questions again focused on the HADP cluster ecosystem, as well as some batch and streaming experience. Since I had experience in all of these areas, I passed smoothly.

Fourth round: This was where the problem occurred. A DA+DE lead from Singapore conducted a fit assessment. It consisted of casual conversation and a simple logic question. There had been no major issues up to this point, but the problems were:

1. When asked about my interests after work, I answered that I work out. The interviewer then jokingly demanded that I show my muscles.

2. Before asking the logic question, the interviewer asked whether I knew the game LOL, then jokingly mocked me: “So you don’t play games—do you know the rules? What’s the score? How do you win?”

3. Although Garena had proactively contacted me to participate in the interview, after I passed the technical interviews, I was questioned about why I was interviewing if my current company was not pushing me to leave. The interviewer also made inappropriate comments such as, “We don’t work from home here; you definitely won’t adapt,” and similar remarks.

4. The interviewers in the earlier rounds already clearly knew that I did not have a habit of playing games, yet the interviewer explicitly told me: “If there were two Bennys with the same technical ability, I would choose the Benny who plays games! Oh, don’t tell HR.” This is an inappropriate selection criterion that disregards the results already known from the earlier interviews and the time the candidate invested in the preceding stages.

The whole process treated the interviewee like a fool. If this was so important, why wasn’t it mentioned in the earlier rounds? I applied to be a Data Engineer, not to play League of Legends. When I asked the manager for their views on AI and cloud technologies, they were only resistant and unreceptive. I do not understand how someone like this can lead a technology-oriented team. I absolutely do not recommend this time-wasting interview.

The benefits have improved slightly.

If you want to work in revenue-related roles, or as an MA (management associate) or PM, it would be better to join this company in one of those positions. Excluding customer service, finance and legal, and HR, there is not much room for career development in most other positions under the game publishing and product departments, such as QA, version control, marketing, and community management. The management positions are already fully staffed.

If you join the Arena of Valor team, it should be the best team to join because it is the game that has been able to last the longest. Joining any of the other project teams will be quite difficult. If product publishing fails, you may be put through a lot, then transferred to another team and put through it all over again. This can easily trigger a small wave of resignations. If you are (un)lucky, you may encounter a wave of layoffs, but you will receive a severance package.

There is a severe gap in experience within the company, and external vendors and people in the industry are aware of it as well. If people from an old project team are tasked with launching a new product, many of them still rely on experience from a long time ago, resulting in all kinds of delays in product launches. This is because the PMs, business staff, or developers they find are not up to the task.

Flexible working hours; most of us arrive at the office at 10:40 (but it also depends on your supervisor).

There are drinks and a snack cabinet available.

Team building once every two months, usually a group meal with a budget of around 500 per person.

Most employees are young, and there are quite a few pretty women too (?)

You’ll be given plenty of opportunities to carry out your own ideas. In terms of marketing events, you can often collaborate with various KOLs.

Overtime is the norm. During redesigns or events, monthly overtime can sometimes exceed 60 hours.

Basically, you’re on call and have to keep an eye on group messages at all times, even after work.

Supervisors may have their own little circles, and things are easier if you fit in with them.

Some supervisors make grand promises, but the duties assigned later or the year-end bonus may not materialize or may be much less than promised.

Unclear

The HR representative’s attitude was so bad, as if I owed her money, and extremely disrespectful toward the professionalism I had developed in my previous job. From the conversation, it was clear that what they wanted was an employee with strong subservience. My previous company was one where it was fine to simply get the work done and do your own thing within reasonable limits, but I don’t know how long I was attacked just for that. Their attitude also made it seem as though everyone in the world was desperate to join your company. HR is the company’s public face, so honestly, at least replace them with someone who can communicate and understands respect. BTW, they said that whether I was accepted or not, they would notify me within three to five days. I waited for more than a month and didn’t even see a trace of a response. But even if I had been accepted, I wouldn’t have wanted to go at all.

Unclear

Received interview invitations from the company twice. They said they wanted to conduct a brief phone interview first.

After I informed them of a convenient time, they started reading my messages without replying. When I asked about the progress again, my message was read again without a response.

A very poor experience. The HR staff were extremely unprofessional.

As a foreign-owned company, the salary is relatively higher than at Taiwanese companies.

The location is excellent—just cross the street after coming up from Exit 3 of Taipei City Hall Station. You won't have to worry about not finding a seat during New Year's Eve celebrations.

Snacks, drinks, and refreshments are available for you to take freely.

The company has team-building activities every quarter, and occasionally pays for everyone to watch movies at Vieshow Cinemas.

Supposedly, the company gives regular annual salary increases.

The employees are relatively young on average (they're all homebodies and fujoshi/fudanshi, so don't read too much into it). Younger colleagues have a lot of opinions, making it very, very difficult to truly learn how to conduct yourself and handle things in the workplace. In the end, it also feels like monkey business: the work isn't done well, but there are plenty of excuses.

I guess the office is quite large?

The HR representative was pretty nice during the interview.

But the marketing manager was absolutely exasperating, asking a bunch of highly unprofessional and abstract questions—for example, asking, “What is social media?”

Yet his own answer was: You have to go outdoors, organize exhibition events, host events, and hold esports competitions.

Excuse me, but isn’t that called public relations or offline marketing? If you don’t understand social media yourself, then don’t go around asking random questions.

The main point is that this company seems to keep forgetting that they’ve already interviewed the same people.

I’ve been contacted several times. Don’t the HR staff keep records?

However, they were also honest about requiring overtime until 8 p.m. every day,

so I also feel that it’s not what I’m looking for. The main point: the pay isn’t even that high!!!!

That’s all.

Snack cabinet, massage room, bright environment, and colleagues get along very well

Haven’t thought of any yet

Salary around 48–52k

Eat and drink your fill

Watch and learn from those who are good at bootlicking: how to engage in Tai Chi, how to delegate actual work to others, how to explain the results as your own achievement, and how to teach and guide others. This is definitely an advantage. Once you learn this trick, it applies in any industry. This is the best practical application of workplace scheming and ruthlessness—it is essential to learn. Other programming skills and technical abilities are not very important anyway; after all, this is not technically oriented, but oriented toward practicing workplace scheming and ruthlessness.

After learning how to put workplace scheming and ruthlessness into practice, you may very likely forget all your technical skills, and in the future you will only be able to use the 101 tricks to find another job.

For example, at xxx, where I worked previously, this is how I instructed the xx people I led.

Or at my previous company, among the xx people I led, there was a case like this. This is how I solved it (in fact, it was handled by the people below me).

Actually, many of the advantages have already been mentioned, so you can just refer to the above! They are all true.

It does feel like the company’s senior management does, to some extent, have a discerning eye.

The real drawback is the people. As can also be seen from the articles in other posts, there is a small portion of people who really love to complain.

They are jealous of certain people being promoted, receiving raises, and getting better opportunities, but as far as the company is concerned, I find this very strange.

I believe in the idea of being unrecognized despite one’s talent, but if you really have the ability, why not seek another job or get recruited by a headhunter? If none of that has happened, shouldn’t you admit that you are mediocre?

Instead of improving their inadequate abilities, they spend all day using anonymous channels to attack those who have been promoted. Isn’t that petty and unreasonable?

But seeing these actions of yours actually makes me feel that the company’s senior management was right not to choose you.

With this kind of unhealthy mindset, if you became managers or senior executives, you might end up doing nothing but fighting among yourselves all day.

Snacks, beverages

The head of the finance department has management issues

The department has severe overtime

Employees are not treated like human beings

1. The snack bar is amazing! It feels wonderful whenever I'm hungry or want something to drink.

2. The work environment is good—overall, it's clean and spacious.

3. Most colleagues are lively and friendly (though this may depend on the department).

4. The managers are also very nice (again, this depends on the department).

5. The company benefits are good (subsidies, team gatherings, holiday events, etc.).

1. Resources are not distributed evenly among departments.

This is the only drawback I can think of at the moment, but it is quite a significant one....

A famous “Buddha-hearted” company

The company is seriously plagued by internal infighting and uses all sorts of lousy excuses to make you leave.

There is no path for promotion; they only say one thing and do another.

There is food and drink, and stable low-to-medium pay. If you only want a secure, steady job, this is a good place.

To get promoted or transfer departments, you must appear proactive, enthusiastic, and very busy. You only need to put on a good performance in front of the boss and supervisors. Even if there is not actually that much work, just bring some matters you could resolve yourself to ask your supervisor about, or act impatiently and look busy when others come to talk to you—showing your supervisor that you are busy and do not want to be disturbed. Congratulations, you will have a very good chance of getting promoted. This is especially serious in the Platform Operations Department and the Mobile Games Department.

Free air conditioning

The company has not clearly established measures for preventing sexual harassment, complaint procedures, or disciplinary measures, nor has it publicly disclosed them in the workplace.

1. The office environment is clean, and the work atmosphere is quite free and flexible, making it suitable for people who manage themselves well.

2. Drinks/snacks/fruit/frozen treats are available in many varieties and can be consumed without limit (saving money on drinks and snacks).

3. Communication among colleagues about work is generally good, and the overall atmosphere is lively.

　The HR team in particular is also lively, friendly, and full of enthusiasm.

4. Many of the benefits and subsidies are quite good.

5. People who like games will have a pretty enjoyable time.

It is relatively difficult to perceive a clear promotion path (perhaps it becomes apparent once you are qualified enough?).

1. Convenience-store-sized selection of drinks, snacks, and popsicles provided for free

2. The office has many plants, and the working environment is quite clean and comfortable

3. Excellent benefits and compensation

I can't think of any at the moment

This new department consists of only one supervisor and two employees. One person has already joined, so they are looking for the remaining piece of the puzzle.

During the interview, the supervisor already had clear execution goals for the department’s future direction and was receptive to suggestions. In this respect, I think there should be no issue with the supervisor being a good manager.

As for the salary, because my requested salary was very high—basically more than one and a half times what I considered the salary for this position—I initially did not think that asking for this amount would prevent me from passing the interview, since all of my work skills are far beyond what this role requires. I also passed the first interview with HR and the supervisor, so I don’t think salary should be a problem. As long as you have the skills, you can ask for what you’re worth.

The interview process was similar to that of other large companies. The first round was with HR and the department supervisor, the second round took place directly at the esports arena to test your technical integration skills, and the third round was a video interview with a supervisor in Singapore.

I quickly passed the first round with HR and the supervisor, followed immediately by the second interview. I was not worried about the second interview at all, because it tested my professional integration skills.

However, when I arrived, perhaps because they already knew I was capable of handling this part, they did not actually have me perform a practical test. Instead, I interviewed with the two interviewers for that round.

The first interviewer was from the production team, although her exact title was unclear. She had not even looked at my résumé. Her first question was how I could be applying when I had never done live streaming. In fact, my résumé clearly stated that I had one and a half years of live-streaming experience at a startup media company. Moreover, not long after the interview began, she left early because she had something else to attend to.

Next, I had a one-on-one interview with the second interviewer. As we talked, I realized that he was a colleague from the same team.

There was nothing particularly bad about interviewing with him. He helped me better understand the team’s actual work, because the supervisor had described the overall direction in very idealistic terms during the first round. The supervisor had also said that, once implementation began, this colleague and I would carry it out together. However, during the interview, this colleague conveyed the impression that the supervisor was number one, he was number two, and I would be number three—that I would be responsible for all the undesirable tasks and miscellaneous errands.

What made me most uncomfortable, and ultimately led me to stop the process and immediately call HR after the interview to decline any further interviews, was that this colleague actually discussed my salary expectations with me. He even asked whether I didn’t think the salary I requested was too high. This made me very uncomfortable.

I am also a junior manager at my current company, and I have interviewed candidates myself. However, I would never discuss salary with an interviewee. Even if a job seeker asked, I would say that it was outside my authority and that I would help arrange an interview with the manager.

So this was the part of the interview process that I found most off-putting.

Of course, another reason was that this colleague’s former company had worked with mine on a project for some time. I am fairly familiar with his former colleagues, and after asking around about his reputation, I found that it was very incompatible with my style. This was the second reason I decided not to continue with the interviews.

Therefore, if HR representative Mili happens to see this, perhaps you could assess whether this might be why you have had difficulty finding someone.

As for the working hours, they were very unusual. During the interview, I was told that after joining, they could be adjusted after discussing them with that colleague. However, I think it would be very easy for this arrangement to fall through after joining, resulting in equally unusual working and leave schedules. My advice to applicants who are told they can negotiate their working and leave schedules after joining is: don’t get your hopes up too high.

The company is rife with internal infighting. The so-called compassionate company is merely a front for manipulating reviews and public opinion. Most of the good employees and bosses who were willing to do the right thing have already resigned (or been forced out). The big shot with the director title spends work hours shut away in a small room playing video games, completely neglecting their responsibilities. Whenever a major incident occurs, they find a scapegoat and make them work overtime to deal with it.

Want a promotion? Start by currying favor～

I recommend it to soon-to-be university graduates who are just entering the workforce and want to build up work experience, but please consider changing jobs after three years.

The company has no promotion pathways; nearly all senior executives are parachuted in from the Singapore office, and employees who voice their opinions are offered early retirement.