If you don’t join in badmouthing others ➡️ you’re not suitable for this place
If you join in badmouthing others but don’t do any work ➡️ you’re great, you can stay
If senior management doesn’t want to do something ➡️ just push it down the chain
If an employee doesn’t want to do things outside their responsibilities or illegal things ➡️ you’re accused of pushing work onto others
If an employee takes on many tasks but doesn’t do them well and makes colleagues uncomfortable ➡️ you’re great and hardworking; here’s a bonus
Senior colleagues are very good at playing the victim, portraying decisions they made as decisions made by others and shifting the responsibility onto others
When they make a mistake themselves, they pretend not to know anything; when others are unfamiliar with the procedures, they immediately scold them and report them to the supervisor
They pretend to be busy while actually having nothing to do and accomplishing nothing, yet when others are extremely busy, they still report them for not doing their work
They have nothing to do but refuse to fix the processes and instead target other people
They only point out what others did wrong or poorly but cannot propose a better solution, while their own results are even worse than those of others
When others submit applications and reminders according to the existing procedures, they are described as arrogant and full of themselves. Why not consider that it’s because you didn’t do your own work properly and needed others’ assistance?
This company is absolutely disgusting. You won’t learn any professional skills here; the only thing you can learn is rule by personal connections
After working at this company for about two or three years, you’ll probably become useless
Do not come here under any circumstances
There are a lot of fence-sitters who only follow the prevailing winds and cannot distinguish the facts
It’s bad enough that they only do something after being reminded repeatedly, but they even scold the person responsible for coordination for acting high and mighty. If you’re incompetent, please resign as soon as possible
Projects can pass even when done carelessly; everyone is living off past accomplishments. You can join as a Labor Standards Act or Occupational Safety and Health Act warrior and gain a great deal of hands-on experience
Communication skills are unnecessary; people here are accustomed to simply forcing you to do things
The long-serving employees like you to chat with them. If you don’t chat with them, they’ll start messing with you
None
The engineers 🧑💻 here
Many of them are not from relevant academic backgrounds
As a result, the client-side system architecture and logic are a complete mess
The managers one level above are also just muddling through
They are counting on the client not issuing a new tender
It really is an eye-opening experience.
1. One month’s year-end bonus
(For engineers, this is the kind of job where you have enough to get by, but not much more.)
2. Annual salary adjustment capped at 3%–5%
(Only during the first five years after joining; adjustments afterward are very small.)
3. At the year-end banquet, in addition to the meal, each person receives a NT$1,000 red envelope at their table.
4. Benefits are relatively limited compared with the parent company, Chunghwa Telecom.
5. Start times are 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, or 9:30.
(This part is quite considerate.)
1. Once you have some work experience, you start thinking about changing jobs after just one or two years.
(There are training courses, but the opportunities for growth through practical work are not very challenging.)
2. Which department you are assigned to
(is extremely, extremely important‼️)—it affects your performance bonus💰.
3. Senior employees bully newcomers.
(You will see some colleagues who were very ineffective at their previous companies somehow staying there for so long. Turnover is very high, and they are seriously short-staffed.)
#If you are a recent graduate, you can endure it for one or two years, but then please change jobs; otherwise, you will not succeed.
1. Endless changes to requirements: The client keeps changing their demands from one moment to the next, and even the PM doesn't know what is supposed to be changed.
2. Meetings only happen after progress is out of control: The project had been lagging for a long time, and management only stepped in once the problems became apparent.
3. The supervisor and PM blindly shift the blame: In Taipei, whenever something goes wrong, they immediately look for a scapegoat and loudly complain, while senior management and the PM seem to bear no responsibility at all.
4. Outsiders make decisions that backfire: They let the engineers muddle through on their own back then, and now they are suffering the consequences of their own decisions.
5. A distorted master–apprentice system is used to apply pressure: Impatient veterans force newcomers to do things the wrong way and make things difficult for them if they refuse.
6. Even a polite newcomer is harshly berated: I tried to remain humble and keep a low profile to avoid trouble, yet I was inexplicably treated by (Huang) as a punching bag.
1. Endless changes to requirements: The client keeps changing their demands from one moment to the next, and even the PM doesn't know what is supposed to be changed.
2. Meetings only happen after progress is out of control: The project had been lagging for a long time, and management only stepped in once the problems became apparent.
3. The supervisor and PM blindly shift the blame: In Taipei, whenever something goes wrong, they immediately look for a scapegoat and loudly complain, while senior management and the PM seem to bear no responsibility at all.
4. Outsiders make decisions that backfire: They let the engineers muddle through on their own back then, and now they are suffering the consequences of their own decisions.
5. A distorted master–apprentice system is used to apply pressure: Impatient veterans force newcomers to do things the wrong way and make things difficult for them if they refuse.
6. Even a polite newcomer is harshly berated: I tried to remain humble and keep a low profile to avoid trouble, yet I was inexplicably treated by (Huang) as a punching bag.
This Taipei company is an absolute mess when it comes to software development and system administration. When it comes to monitoring, this is not merely a matter of system configuration or programming issues, but a broader mess in the way software engineering is handled overall. Areas that should have clear standards and procedures have absolutely none! The senior employees are indifferent to these problems; whenever an issue arises, they brush it off and have never had the patience to teach newcomers how to handle things. When you ask questions, they either do not respond or give you a completely incorrect answer, and they even complain that you are being a nuisance. Honestly, are these senior employees actually taking responsibility?
What is most speechless is that many system problems could clearly have been prevented in advance, but no one cares. The result is a pile of problems, and then the newcomers have to take the blame. Whenever a bug or system failure is discovered, the senior employees always tell you to look up the information yourself, but no one has ever guided you on how to deal with it. So you can only feel your way through these problems, leaving you mentally and physically exhausted, while your work falls completely behind schedule. This is not merely a skills issue; it is fundamentally an environment lacking any effective support.
And that is not even mentioning HR. During the interview, they made it sound great, saying they would provide good learning opportunities. But once you join, you discover that they simply give you some useless systems and tools and expect you to climb over all these pitfalls on your own. In such an environment, it is simply impossible to grow; instead, you become increasingly lost. HR is merely putting on a show and does not take newcomers’ problems seriously at all. Whenever you report an issue or make a suggestion, the response is always dismissive, and there is no sign of any real change.
This company is absolutely not a place for newcomers to grow. It effectively turns all of their work into being scapegoats. Everyone there is like a walking bug-fixing machine: do as much as you can, and solve everything else yourself. This kind of workplace atmosphere is truly and utterly disappointing.
This Taipei company is an absolute mess when it comes to software development and system administration. When it comes to monitoring, this is not merely a matter of system configuration or programming issues, but a broader mess in the way software engineering is handled overall. Areas that should have clear standards and procedures have absolutely none! The senior employees are indifferent to these problems; whenever an issue arises, they brush it off and have never had the patience to teach newcomers how to handle things. When you ask questions, they either do not respond or give you a completely incorrect answer, and they even complain that you are being a nuisance. Honestly, are these senior employees actually taking responsibility?
What is most speechless is that many system problems could clearly have been prevented in advance, but no one cares. The result is a pile of problems, and then the newcomers have to take the blame. Whenever a bug or system failure is discovered, the senior employees always tell you to look up the information yourself, but no one has ever guided you on how to deal with it. So you can only feel your way through these problems, leaving you mentally and physically exhausted, while your work falls completely behind schedule. This is not merely a skills issue; it is fundamentally an environment lacking any effective support.
And that is not even mentioning HR. During the interview, they made it sound great, saying they would provide good learning opportunities. But once you join, you discover that they simply give you some useless systems and tools and expect you to climb over all these pitfalls on your own. In such an environment, it is simply impossible to grow; instead, you become increasingly lost. HR is merely putting on a show and does not take newcomers’ problems seriously at all. Whenever you report an issue or make a suggestion, the response is always dismissive, and there is no sign of any real change.
This company is absolutely not a place for newcomers to grow. It effectively turns all of their work into being scapegoats. Everyone there is like a walking bug-fixing machine: do as much as you can, and solve everything else yourself. This kind of workplace atmosphere is truly and utterly disappointing.
None
I already felt that something was off during the interview. It seemed like they only wanted people with no experience. After looking into this place, I found out I was right—a truly awful company. They even wanted me to come in for a second interview. Fuck that—the location is so far from the MRT.
The salary is far below the market rate, with a bunch of bullshit. The benefits section is padded with a long list of women-only leave and benefits to make it look good. Once those are excluded, there are practically no benefits or decent compensation. I should have declined even the online interview from the start; it was a waste of time.
New Year’s greetings bring everyone some new information for reference:
1. In a certain department, you will be bullied as soon as you join. Information is deliberately withheld from you so that you will make mistakes and do things poorly and then be scolded. When you ask questions, you are taught in an impatient tone; you are only allowed to ask once, and if you ask a second time, you will receive an extremely contemptuous response.
2. There is no room to discuss or increase your salary. You want to negotiate? Sorry, there are many people still waiting in line to join. In reality, they are so short-staffed that people of any level of experience can get in.
3. Senior colleagues can make mistakes, say inappropriate things, and bully others without any problem. But if you do the same things as senior colleagues, you can expect to be sent home to fend for yourself. Even if you have been suppressed to the point where a recording would guarantee that you win a legal complaint, you still cannot talk back; talking back means it is your fault.
4. Many colleagues do not consider how others can take over their work, leaving many tasks in complete disarray. But if you take over and the situation changes dramatically, you are required to complete part of the work for others so that they can work smoothly; otherwise, you are considered redundant (though senior colleagues can chat incessantly and push their work onto others without any problem!).
5. Will Human Resources help if you are bullied? Don’t even think about it. It would already be lucky if your supervisor did not sue you in return. If you have any related dispute, it is strongly advised not to file a complaint through internal channels; either the case will be buried or you will be framed and smeared.
6. Everything is considered a reward bestowed upon you by upper management—both thunder and rain are the emperor’s grace (but… you understand). Asking for recognition rashly will only make you seem immature, because your accomplishments are meant to serve as a stepping stone for senior colleagues.
7. The trusted insiders are all extremely unpleasant. Managers believe their careless remarks and fabricated rumors, and even if you did not say that thing or do that deed, everything will be pushed onto you—as if the manager never gave instructions or spread rumors.
8. Keeping quiet and taking on the workload of three people by yourself will make you more well-liked than trying to assert your rights (but your salary will not be adjusted to match the workload, so accept your fate).
9. You will be told to handle routine matters without any handover. Likewise, you do not need to hand them over to anyone else.
10. There is no order of priority. They like to delay tasks until the last minute before handing them to you, then say that everything is extremely urgent. If you cannot finish it, you are simply incompetent, making the entire department chaotic.
11. Colleagues will ask you about trivial matters or things they have already learned. They will not look for documentation and handle them themselves, nor will they ask anyone else. If you are busy and do not pay attention to or help them, they will go to the manager and complain. Even if you are not the only person who can handle the matter, the manager will still think it is your fault rather than that the person failed to ask someone else for help.
12. The manager cannot see how busy you are or what you have done, so it does not matter if you are actually idle—as long as you know how to put on an act.
Conclusion: The lack of information flow makes it impossible to do things properly. When things are not done properly, it will not be blamed on the team or the people who bully others; the blame will be pushed onto you personally. Otherwise, those above would not be able to keep their official positions.
Those interested can look up court judgments or systems listing violations of the Labor Standards Act. You will make some different discoveries and understand why it is so difficult to recruit people here and why turnover is so high.
New Year’s greetings bring everyone some new information for reference:
1. In a certain department, you will be bullied as soon as you join. Information is deliberately withheld from you so that you will make mistakes and do things poorly and then be scolded. When you ask questions, you are taught in an impatient tone; you are only allowed to ask once, and if you ask a second time, you will receive an extremely contemptuous response.
2. There is no room to discuss or increase your salary. You want to negotiate? Sorry, there are many people still waiting in line to join. In reality, they are so short-staffed that people of any level of experience can get in.
3. Senior colleagues can make mistakes, say inappropriate things, and bully others without any problem. But if you do the same things as senior colleagues, you can expect to be sent home to fend for yourself. Even if you have been suppressed to the point where a recording would guarantee that you win a legal complaint, you still cannot talk back; talking back means it is your fault.
4. Many colleagues do not consider how others can take over their work, leaving many tasks in complete disarray. But if you take over and the situation changes dramatically, you are required to complete part of the work for others so that they can work smoothly; otherwise, you are considered redundant (though senior colleagues can chat incessantly and push their work onto others without any problem!).
5. Will Human Resources help if you are bullied? Don’t even think about it. It would already be lucky if your supervisor did not sue you in return. If you have any related dispute, it is strongly advised not to file a complaint through internal channels; either the case will be buried or you will be framed and smeared.
6. Everything is considered a reward bestowed upon you by upper management—both thunder and rain are the emperor’s grace (but… you understand). Asking for recognition rashly will only make you seem immature, because your accomplishments are meant to serve as a stepping stone for senior colleagues.
7. The trusted insiders are all extremely unpleasant. Managers believe their careless remarks and fabricated rumors, and even if you did not say that thing or do that deed, everything will be pushed onto you—as if the manager never gave instructions or spread rumors.
8. Keeping quiet and taking on the workload of three people by yourself will make you more well-liked than trying to assert your rights (but your salary will not be adjusted to match the workload, so accept your fate).
9. You will be told to handle routine matters without any handover. Likewise, you do not need to hand them over to anyone else.
10. There is no order of priority. They like to delay tasks until the last minute before handing them to you, then say that everything is extremely urgent. If you cannot finish it, you are simply incompetent, making the entire department chaotic.
11. Colleagues will ask you about trivial matters or things they have already learned. They will not look for documentation and handle them themselves, nor will they ask anyone else. If you are busy and do not pay attention to or help them, they will go to the manager and complain. Even if you are not the only person who can handle the matter, the manager will still think it is your fault rather than that the person failed to ask someone else for help.
12. The manager cannot see how busy you are or what you have done, so it does not matter if you are actually idle—as long as you know how to put on an act.
Conclusion: The lack of information flow makes it impossible to do things properly. When things are not done properly, it will not be blamed on the team or the people who bully others; the blame will be pushed onto you personally. Otherwise, those above would not be able to keep their official positions.
Those interested can look up court judgments or systems listing violations of the Labor Standards Act. You will make some different discoveries and understand why it is so difficult to recruit people here and why turnover is so high.
There is a certain degree of autonomy at work, and quite a few soft-skills course resources are provided. If you can properly maintain work boundaries and avoid unnecessary interference, the overall work experience will be relatively relaxed.
At work, as long as you can pass acceptance, the task is considered complete. Skill growth depends on yourself. For people with good sense or who want to accomplish something, this place will be very painful. When the PM is unwilling to communicate with the client, you often have no choice but to compromise and quietly produce everything yourself. There is no real project management system or methodology: you give the client whatever they ask for, and whatever the PM says goes.
The high turnover in certain departments actually stems from a long-term lack of respect for employees. Even after countless complaints and driving away quite a few colleagues, there has still been no change.
Even after work, you can’t relax and go have fun, nor can you sleep peacefully at night, because the number of reported issues will crush you. Only when you get there will you find out that they’ll make it sound very nice: you can work shifts, but you have to be on call at all times.
Yesterday morning, after the regular Taipei meeting, I went to see a company-arranged presentation titled “Agile Development Is Actually Easy,” and also went to Shin Yeh for afternoon tea. Officially, it was employee care; in reality, it was to placate everyone’s emotions. On the surface, everyone seemed to have a great time.
At bedtime that evening, Supervisor A suddenly asked me in the group chat: “Why do you need to work overtime? Why can’t you be on call at any time?”
He actually started venting emotionally while asking.
Junior employee Pidan: “Not every system can necessarily be on standby 24 hours a day, and not everyone should necessarily have to sacrifice their personal lives. What’s going on?”
Supervisor A: “Then what am I supposed to do if the higher-ups ask me about it?”
Junior employee Pidan: “Just tell them no, no—the team is understaffed and the PHP system is outdated. And doesn’t HR usually stop this?”
Supervisor A: “What if HR pretends nothing is happening?”
I began to feel that he had an image of the future of this job that frightened him, but that he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud.
Supervisor A said: “Do you think this kind of work arrangement is frightening? Who told you that?”
Later, Junior employee Pidan said there were two senior colleagues on the project, Senior A and Senior B, and they both said that this industry was just like this: you couldn’t complain or refuse, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to stay.
I never expected words like these to be treated as workplace truths as well.
Still, these outside influences will probably only increase in the future.
I could only change the subject: “Don’t be afraid. Your technical skills will be more mature than mine in the future, and then it’ll be your turn to protect the system!”
Junior employee Pidan: “In the future, I’ll understand engineering better than the manager!”
Investors should seriously consider whether a company like this is worth continuing to invest resources in. How could such an internal management and operating environment possibly lead to long-term development and growth? I hope that, using the price at which we originally bought in, this stock will not fall to less than one-tenth of its original value—and that someone will be willing to help buy it back at a reasonable price.
This month, I encountered the second most outrageous human resources incident involving a Taipei company in recent years.
An employee told me that they had already reported several problems to the HR department for months, yet the issues remain unresolved to this day. The HR staff only make verbal promises that they will handle them. As time passes, the problems continue to drag on, and in the end, no one comes to help. The employee's emotions are gradually breaking down, especially since the company frequently undergoes large-scale organizational adjustments, with every personnel change bringing another round of chaos. Whether it is a change in senior management or the frequent turnover of department staff, there is simply no way to stabilize employees' emotions or working conditions. Let us see whether anything unusual develops tomorrow.
Worst of all, besides frequently making verbal promises, this company shows no respect for its employees. When I called the mobile number provided, the voice sounded like that of a woman about my age. The HR department always responds with “We will handle it,” but no matter how urgent the issue is, they wait until everything else has been dealt with before realizing that no one ever came to provide assistance. HR seemed afraid that this was a case involving someone who might resort to increasingly extreme measures to draw attention, and then the matter simply went nowhere. Senior management, meanwhile, does nothing but conduct audits all day, ignoring employees' concerns and even shifting responsibility onto others while never resolving the actual problems themselves. Every report is merely handled perfunctorily; there has never been a genuine solution. This style of management makes it completely impossible to trust them.
None
The turnover rate is unbelievably high, and the salaries are unbelievably low.
The unequal pay for equal work is a serious problem.
They always insist on using outdated methods favored by old-timers.
There are an incredible number of two-faced people.
In short, run away as fast as you can.
None
This was the most outrageous interview process the interviewee has ever experienced.
1. The writer was employed at the time. HR A directly arranged a video interview for two days later by phone. On the morning of the interview, HR A called the writer three times in a row to inform them that the interview time needed to be changed at short notice.
2. When the writer joined the call, because HR A had matters to attend to all day, the interview was conducted by HR B and the department representative. HR B required the writer to turn on their camera, while the department supervisor did not have to turn theirs on.
3. During the interview, the department supervisor said that the writer was not suitable for the position and immediately left the call. HR B also agreed, saying that the writer’s résumé was not suitable for the position. Later, after HR A had finished their other matters, HR A joined the call and asked the same interview questions again, making the writer answer them a second time. HR A also ultimately felt that the writer’s résumé was not suitable for the position being interviewed for.
Overall: From submitting the résumé and receiving the interview invitation to the online interview, it felt as though HR and the department had not reviewed the applicant’s résumé or relevant work samples. In addition, all scheduling for the interview invitation was handled by HR; this was also the first time the writer had encountered an interview invitation being rescheduled at short notice. After the entire interview process, the writer felt that unless this is your top-choice company, there is no need to waste your time~
None~
No need to waste time interviewing with this company~ even being notified of the interview result takes 2–3 weeks!!
Overtime pay is always provided, in full compliance with the Labor Standards Act.
A very suitable place for newcomers to gain experience for a year or two.
A company dominated by PMs, where engineers are just the PM’s dogs.
Only PMs have the authority to give performance reviews. As for the PMs’ own performance reviews...呵呵...they also evaluate themselves.
Personal preferences are the KPI standards. Don’t assume that everyone will notice if you obediently and diligently do your work; good performance ratings are given to people they like.
Some people obediently do their work and even work overtime until they are exhausted. Sorry, if they don’t like you, you’ll obediently get an average rating.
Some people clock in and then go buy breakfast, watch YouTube, and chat with coworkers. If they like you, congratulations—you get an outstanding rating.
None
I was referred by a friend for an interview and waited for over a month. After finally receiving a verbal offer, they then told me they were no longer hiring.
A company that has absolutely no respect for interview candidates.
No overtime; leave work on time
A place that operates according to the rules
The internal administration is terrible. They often quietly issue announcements and then say that an announcement was made and we should follow its instructions.
I’ve been employed for half a year, and I leave work on time every day. There is almost nothing to do during working hours.
There is a fixed annual raise of 3–5%, a year-end bonus of one month’s salary, and a performance bonus of 0–2 months’ salary. Project bonuses are paid in May each year depending on the circumstances.
(The company is unwilling to include salary and benefits information in the contract or employee handbook, so it can only be confirmed through internal sources.)
A birthday bonus of NT$1,000; gift vouchers for PChome worth NT$500–1,000 are given for each of the three traditional holidays.
In addition to the benefits provided by the company itself, each department also has corresponding benefits. You need to confirm these with your department yourself. There are fairly frequent opportunities for dinners and employee trips.
If you work through December 31, you can resign afterward and are guaranteed to receive the year-end bonus. Resignation dates are always set on Fridays.<br>
The company is located above Banqiao Station. Occasionally, you really do see cockroaches in the pantry or on desks, but most of the time it is reasonably clean… I guess.
During working hours, almost no one will manage you, but when you encounter problems, no one will help you either. Just treat it as though you are taking on freelance projects—projects for Metaage Corporation.
During the interview, they said they needed a front-end engineer who would use Vue, Git, and Docker, and that agile development experience was required.
On my very first day at the company, I was assigned a Java full-stack project. No one understood the project because the engineer previously responsible for it had resigned, leaving only handover documents for me to study on my own.
The company does not actually use version control at all. Project handovers are done using ZIP files, which makes collaboration impossible; everyone has to take responsibility for the entire project.
For people who already have work experience, know how to protect themselves in the workplace, and can solve problems, this place can be described as unbelievably easygoing. Coming to the office every day and slacking off is very enjoyable.
For newcomers, career changers, or people who are easily subjected to emotional manipulation, this place is basically hell. The company has no programming standards whatsoever, and the schedules are a complete mess.
For engineers with even a little common sense, this place is a nightmare, and you will desperately want to get away as soon as possible.
Here, the supervisor will ask whether the programming language used in the project is Java or jQuery.
Unit tests are classified as unnecessary and a waste of time. If they discover that unit tests have been written in a project, they will delete them outright.
Git is considered troublesome. When communicating code, everyone sends ZIP files back and forth, and you cannot touch anything until the other person has finished making their changes.
All code is produced by copying and pasting and brute-forcing things. As long as it runs, that is all that matters.
The workload distribution is extremely uneven. Within the same team, some people work overtime every day with fires burning around them, while others spend every day browsing Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, defecating, smoking, and taking walks. I have three years of work experience and am very happy slacking off at the company. Another colleague, a fresh graduate without a relevant academic background, is extremely miserable: they are busy to death every day, have to work overtime, and are also scolded for not knowing how to do their work.
Performance evaluations and promotion opportunities depend entirely on seniority and personal relationships; everything else is disregarded.
HR will first ask about what might happen, as well as your preferred order of assignments that you would rather not accept in the event that they do occur.
1. At first, I got to do what I wanted, and the job I applied for was as described on 104.
2. When there was a staffing shortage, they completely ignored the fact that I had not selected those units in my preference ranking and did not ask about my willingness. They assigned me directly without even saying it was an interview; I only found out it was an interview when I met the supervisor the next day.
3. They made it sound like there would be a team to collaborate with and help one another, and that there would be a manual explaining how things worked. In reality, I was thrown in and had to figure everything out on my own. Once I more or less understood how things worked, whenever a government agency demanded data, somehow I was expected to handle everything alone: administrative work, SA work, and management-level decision-making.
4. When I wanted to resign, I had already set a departure date, but the manager dragged things out until the last minute and even pressured me emotionally, asking whether I could extend my resignation date. HR also pressured me to go find a manager and get it handled quickly… In the end, I could only leave on time because a replacement was found on the very last day.
Overtime comes with boxed meals.
On some gxx projects, the company is no longer one that emphasizes software development standards as it used to. The schedules and designs are handled very haphazardly, and there is almost nothing in place—they only pressure engineers to work longer hours.
None
They offered me the job verbally and explained the working hours and other details thoroughly. They said the process would take a week, but after a week they said the company had decided not to expand its workforce. A very dishonest company.
A law-abiding, well-structured company that places importance on procedures.
The offices are mainly located in two places: Banqiao Station and the Minsheng Technology Service Building. The transportation and environment are fairly good.
Working hours are flexible, with no mandatory clock-in system.
The company values project management and software development skills, and there are opportunities to gain exposure to various software technologies.
There are many types of projects, mainly in the government and financial sectors. It is a good place to build up your skills and accumulate a strong résumé.
The largest shareholder is Chunghwa Telecom, which brings some associated benefits.
There is a salary adjustment every year, averaging around 4%.
There are quite a lot of paperwork and administrative procedures, so serving as a project manager requires patience.
The office environment is relatively unenergetic, with few small perks such as snacks and team-building activities.
The leadership team is rather low-key, and you rarely see them appearing publicly.
None
Work environment:
The workstations are very small and cramped, and the environment is noisy.
The break room is full of tiny cockroaches, so I absolutely wouldn’t dare drink water from the dispenser.
Mice roam around the office. If you leave food on your desk, it will be bitten into and left in a complete mess by the next day.
Mice also chew through electrical cables, network cables, and headphone wires.
Technology:
You won’t learn much of anything new; usually, you do the same thing every day.
They use a lot of outdated technology while constantly demanding that we innovate.
Supervisors:
The department manager only cares about projects and their own interests, completely ignoring employees’ feelings.
They won’t listen even when you raise concerns. If you say something they don’t want to hear, they instantly become selectively deaf.
After that, they start using underhanded tactics to keep tabs on you, mess with you, and pressure you.
They take credit for achievements first and blame the people underneath them whenever something goes wrong.
Development schedules:
To build good relationships with clients and project owners, they set extremely tight or virtually impossible deadlines.
Then, if you can’t finish on time, they tell you to work overtime; if you still can’t finish after working overtime, they deduct your year-end bonus.
When time is tight, they launch products directly without even completing testing according to procedure.
Pay:
The company constantly emphasizes that salaries are confidential and strictly forbids colleagues from discussing them with each other.
In reality, there are far too many cases of “equal pay for different work.”
Some people are so idle at work that they scroll on their phones and listen to music, while others are so busy that they work overtime day and night.
And they receive the same salary.
The year-end bonus is only guaranteed at one month’s salary. As long as you don’t fall in line, they use every possible excuse to deduct your bonus.
Salary adjustments:
Fresh graduates may think the pay is good when they first join, but after five or ten years,
they’ll discover that people of the same seniority outside the company are earning almost twice as much as they are.
Overtime:
The Labor Standards Act stipulates that the maximum amount of overtime is four hours per day and 46 hours per month.
If you exceed the daily limit, they tell you to report the extra hours the next day; if you exceed the monthly limit, they tell you to report them in the following month.
Some people work more than 100 hours of overtime in a single month and can’t finish reporting it for two or three months.
Benefits:
The company is in Banqiao, but the employee trip was to Beitou, hehe.
Then, the company deducts an employee welfare fee of around NT$100–200 from your salary every month.
The company’s meteorological team has a great working atmosphere. In the group I’m in, we work overtime no more than five times a year, and we leave promptly at 6 every day. The supervisor is also witty and humorous, and there are quite a lot of women too XD. Honestly, there isn’t much work pressure, but I’ve heard that people in other groups sometimes work until 8 or 9 p.m. I can only say that the group you’re in matters a lot :3
Salary has always been a major weakness. In addition, engineers also need to write documentation. The PM will complete about 80% of it, while engineers only need to handle the remaining 20%.
Brightly decorated office
1. The salary is low enough as it is, and the year-end bonus is only guaranteed to be one month’s pay.
2. Work is distributed unevenly: some people slack off at work while earning high salaries, while others have to work overtime on holidays.
3. It’s unclear what the performance evaluations are actually assessing. Employees who work overtime until they’re exhausted receive lower scores than those who have nothing to do all day. When asked for the reason, supervisors cannot provide a reasonable explanation.
4. The company’s systems and processes are very outdated. Senior management constantly emphasizes that the company needs to innovate and wants to introduce new methods and systems, but employees who try to do so get harshly criticized because senior management does not want to change.
5. Those who are not pursuing career growth can come here for the experience... Employee training here is practically nonexistent. Your department manager may not even know what your work involves and therefore be unable to provide you with any support.
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When I previously provided support at Hong Chan (one of the predecessors of Data Systems Consulting Co., Ltd.), Hong Chan was quite good. However, hearing what it has become now is quite regrettable. Not long ago, I received an interview invitation from Data Systems Consulting Co., Ltd., but the invitation was not intended for me—it was for someone else. I was quite astonished that this company could be so bad that it even sent an interview invitation notification to the wrong person.
Basically, there is hardly anything positive to say. If anything, the company will order lunch boxes for you, but you still have to pay for them yourself. Compared with all the terrible working conditions and unfair treatment, having the company order lunch is the only advantage...
1. There are rats in the company.
2. The place is crawling with cockroaches. Can you imagine finding cockroaches inside the company telephone handset? There are also cockroach eggs everywhere...
3. The Banqiao office has only six toilets in total. In the morning, you have to queue up to take a dump. A bunch of people sit in there scrolling on their phones while defecating, and by the time you have waited outside, you are practically about to shit on the floor.
4. Low pay and poor benefits.
5. The company claims to be Taiwan's fifth-largest information software company, but the internal systems (leave-request system, working-hours system, etc.) are practically so unusable they make you cry your ass off...
6. The company is highly bureaucratic. There are many factions within the company, and departments fight and stab each other in the back.
7. Small salary increases.
8. I have no idea what the performance reviews are even evaluating. The person who ultimately decides your performance score is not your supervisor, and nobody knows what criteria they use. Can you imagine a new junior employee with limited technical ability, who has been there for less than half a year and contributed less to the project than you, receiving a higher performance score than you? Could they be a parachuted-in hire?
9. Management's staffing plans are practically all calculated on the basis of 12-hour workdays.
10. Many managers think engineers are garbage. Some even think that if you have little seniority, you are useless: listen more and talk less; do more and stop spouting nonsense.
11. The technology environment is closed off. Many outdated engineers hold unchecked power there. It is the Web-based era, yet many so-called senior engineers are still working with Swing...
12. Basically, a lot of the old-timers' technology is seriously behind the times. So if your skills involve things that these old fossils do not understand, you are garbage.
13. The company's network is sometimes very slow (and it happens fairly frequently), and the company's ITS (MIS) department often goes crazy sending out phishing emails at random.
14. To be continued—there is too much to write to finish it all.
Some assigned locations will treat you very well~ but it still depends on the department.
If you’re not related to the people in power, then even with 5–7 years of experience, you still won’t receive travel allowances, transportation expenses, certification exam fees, or the course fees required by the company. Even if you apply, it will never be approved—you’ll only get all kinds of excuses for rejection~
Pay is based on exam results and educational and professional background. With an impressive background and good exam results, it seems that a bachelor's degree holder can earn up to 40K.
1) This is a company that will screw people over! They notified me that I was hired, but when I proactively asked a week later, they only then told me that they were reducing staff—while continuing to recruit on 104.
2) They make the first year sound good, but apart from not receiving a year-end bonus, you're no different from a regular employee. Simply put, the first year is essentially a dispatched-worker arrangement.
3) They said the supervisor was on the way, so I waited for over 30 minutes. In the end, the person who came was not the supervisor from the hiring department.
1. Some projects may be eligible for overtime pay (some are not).
2. There is a health examination subsidy (but it seems you have to stay for three years before you qualify, or be old enough).
3. There is internal employee training (but sometimes only a few sessions are offered per year, and on the condition that your workload is not so heavy that you need to work overtime).
4. If you work at the Banqiao office, commuting is much more convenient.
5. Subsidies for professional certifications or external training courses (you may not necessarily receive them).
New graduates, please take note: if you are thinking, “I’m still young, so rather than worrying about my starting salary, I’ll focus on how much I can learn from this job”...
Then you may need to be more careful, because this place may extinguish your passion for programming, or even leave you with nothing but years of experience while learning no useful skills. As a result, you may have no bargaining chips when negotiating your salary with a future employer.
The company takes on “relationship-building projects” in hopes of fostering goodwill with clients and securing future opportunities to work together.
The defining characteristics of these projects are that the budget is small, the schedule is tight, and the company bids first and worries about the rest later. As a result, they are often understaffed, while the client’s requirements keep changing.
The key point is that management does not seem to push back against the client’s demands either..... (Well, it’s about building relationships~)
Moreover, at this company, you may think that you will learn the following at work:
1. Git
2. Spring
3. Hibernate
4. Docker
5. Jenkins
and all those commonly listed requirements that other companies look for when hiring.
But that is not necessarily the case. In the project I’m working on, what awaits you is a mountain of tedious business logic specific to the client.
Furthermore, since many of the projects taken on by this company come from government agencies, once you learn these domains, you basically will not use them at other companies. Put bluntly, they are useless.
Also, you might think, “That’s okay—I can just learn those technologies after work or on weekends, right?” That is a naive idea, because your workload will definitely be so heavy that you will need to work overtime just to finish it~
Still, everyone is welcome to take the plunge. Let’s complain and keep each other warm together :)
None
1. Manager's favorite saying: “I don't care, I just want to cost down.” They say it all the time, no matter when or where.
2. No overtime pay. Applying for overtime pay depends on the manager's mood; usually, they offer compensatory leave instead.
3. The salary is ridiculously low. They latch onto job seekers' weaknesses and do everything they can to suppress your starting salary.
The position held was software engineer, and you can learn many things, such as superhuman stress tests that build resilience to pressure!
The advantage is that you can learn many things because the manager is terrible. The technology is probably stuck in the past decade, and what they say is also from ten years ago. In practice, under the name of learning, they make you do everything, including the manager’s and PM’s work, so you learn a lot—but that is also a disadvantage. The company keeps a bunch of old deadweights who do nothing but draw high salaries, swaggering around all day with their seniority on display and nothing to do! Meanwhile, you are unbelievably busy...... The pay is not high either; overall, it’s a complete disaster.
It's basically above Banqiao Station, so transportation is quite convenient. Other than that, I really can't think of anything.
1. The supervisors are incredibly frustrating
I was unlucky enough to end up in a terrible team. The supervisors kept changing, and each one was worse than the last. They love playing around with whatever management charts or boards, showboating their own “knowledge” every day, and constantly doing stupid things that increase their colleagues’ workloads and stress. They also maliciously defamed colleagues who transferred to other teams, saying that they had emotional-management problems, were unfriendly, and wanted to cause trouble, when the truth was completely different.
2. Uneven distribution of work
Some people have worked for so long that they no longer even know when they last had a weekend off, while others spend every day browsing Facebook. Although morning meetings are supposedly required, there are always people who can skip them, and the supervisors do nothing about it. For example, one person completed more than a dozen projects in their first year at the company, while another, after a year, had not even finished a single feature in one project (and it was not some extraordinarily difficult feature).
3. Having a PM is basically the same as not having one
Our PMs love pushing engineers in front of clients and asking them to confirm requirements with the clients. They will even just give you the client’s contact information and tell you to communicate with them yourself. They do not write documentation, do not know how to operate the system, and during testing and acceptance, they will even email asking for a “高手” to accompany them. They always like to bypass the supervisors and directly tell you to do things, and every task that comes in is needed immediately—within three days.
4. The pay is very low
I’m too lazy to talk about it; just read the earlier posts and you’ll know.
5. The person who points out problems is treated as the problem
It is obvious that the entire management system has problems, but as soon as you point them out, you immediately get labeled. The people above think you are causing trouble, that you have the most problems, that you love complaining, that you are not a good employee, and that you are someone who has not been tamed. Ridiculous, right?
Fresh graduates receive a standardized salary. Whether the experience is good or bad depends on the department and manager—the manager determines everything about your work. A good manager leads you forward, while with a bad manager, you have to deal with problems on your own. I happened to have a bad manager (strong technical skills, but only with Java; poor management skills; uneven distribution of work; low EQ; emotional; likes to micromanage and also loves to scold people). The project I participated in was also a government project, and the PM’s incompetence was limitless. When there was a system problem, instead of simply staying at the company and resolving it immediately, you had to commute in person to explain what had happened to those government officials. The PM and manager wouldn’t go... It was basically a situation where an engineer also had to maintain client relationships. At one point, I felt like I was in sales rather than an engineer...
The pay is too low… equal work, unequal pay… if your supervisor doesn’t like you, you only get a few hundred added to your salary each year… a raise that feels pointless.
The good and bad depend on the manager. I happened to have a terrible manager: lazy, emotional, extremely low EQ, lacking leadership skills, and fond of bragging. I was even subjected to verbal abuse by the manager (including threatening language about my life). Project work was unevenly assigned, and scheduling problems led to excessive overtime. Although overtime pay was provided, the entire team could not even receive that month’s overtime pay in full. Overtime pay tied to contractual arrangements had to be delayed for another month and was also paid in installments... When clients had questions, the manager hid in the office and sent engineers to meetings and system demonstrations. Engineers handled the entire process, including maintaining client relationships. Sometimes, when meeting with clients, the manager would even arrive late. The PM also sometimes failed to take responsibility, asking engineers to give presentations to keep things going (without informing them beforehand that they had to present; it had been agreed that the manager would present)...! When I first joined the company, there was hardly anyone to guide me. They threw a bundle of code at me and told me to figure it out myself. For business-related knowledge, I had to find my own way. Development was done without specifications: I was told to first make a prototype, then the manager would decide whether to make major or minor changes based on how they felt....! Write the code first, then write the software design documents (there was no SA, so you still had to write them yourself).... There are endless things to complain about! It really depends on the department or team—some are good and some are bad. However, when I joined, I was only told that I was joining the Technical Division; they did not specify which department. After I joined, they assigned me wherever there was a “pit of shit.” The scope of work was broad and extremely demanding, but they considered this “learning,” so they rationalized all kinds of unreasonable work assignments.... Therefore, everyone should choose carefully.
Whether overtime is paid depends on the department. Companies that do not necessarily pay overtime generally do not offer raises either; new employees who have worked for several years without a salary increase, or who have received only a few hundred dollars more, will want to leave. Use your own judgment. New hires all receive the same rate; a quick search will probably tell you why people want to leave. Taipei salaries are not enough to support a family...
Whether overtime is reimbursed depends on the department. Companies that do not necessarily pay overtime generally do not offer it at all. New hires who have worked for several years without a salary adjustment, or who received only a few hundred dollars more, will want to leave. Consider carefully. New hires are all offered the same rate; a quick check will probably reveal why people want to leave. Taipei salaries are not enough to support a family...