叡揚資訊股份有限公司

When I first joined, the salary wasn’t high and the work was exhausting.

When I left, the salary still wasn’t high, but the work wasn’t exhausting.

There was harmony on the surface, and the pressure wasn’t great.

If the company thinks you aren’t suited for promotion, they won’t promote you, no matter how long you’ve worked there.

They would rather look outside for a manager who has never written code to promote and sell products. Of course, people like this might say, “I can understand code.”

I solved many problems for many customers and became close friends with them. I put my heart into it, cared deeply about their concerns, and kept doing so until they retired.

Even during the most exhausting times, I felt happy.

But that is simply my personality; it has nothing to do with the company. It just happened that this period of experience was at MiTAC Information Technology.

A bit of advice for anyone who wants to join: start directly as a PM. Otherwise, you won’t even be able to support yourself.

To those who want to leave but worry about their abilities: You can do it. You’re capable.

The fact that you want to leave means you’ve improved and your technical skills have grown. You’re different from them.

You don’t need to wait for someone to notice and come give you a hug. You can stand on your own now.

1. The company requires WFH during typhoon days; otherwise, you won't be paid.

2. There are no clear KPIs, so veteran employees who are good at dodging issues have it easy.

3. There aren't many systems in place, so there's not much pressure.

4. On the surface, everyone at the company is very nice.

5. The pressure isn't high, and the bonuses are modest.

6. WFH is possible.

1. There aren't any particularly serious drawbacks.

Typically, new employees do not work overly long hours. There is a basic year-end bonus and benefits, although bonuses depend on the number of projects taken on. For a software company, it is not small by Taiwan standards, so you can gain exposure to many things. There are good people.

1. The technology is relatively outdated and has lower market value. You can gain broad exposure here, but it is difficult to go deeply into any one area. Some programs should be decisively phased out because their efficiency is extremely poor. I have supported some ASP-based MVC projects, and they were truly bloated and cumbersome.

2. The more capable you are, the more work you receive. If you can handle a large workload, tasks will keep piling up, and eventually you will never finish working overtime.

3. An advanced version of the “the more capable you are, the more work you receive” problem: you are frequently reassigned to provide support. Because turnover is high, sometimes by the time you have been supporting a unit for a while, you no longer know what it has been through before.

4. Although I have encountered good supervisors, I have also encountered extremely poor ones, mainly in other departments.

5. The overall system is not sufficiently完善, so there are many unnecessary tasks.

None

The supervisor proactively approached me to interview for a research substitute position (the supervisor said so personally)

Yet on the day, the supervisor barely spoke to me and did not test my professional abilities, seeming very eager to get rid of me

They probably thought other people had plenty of time

None

You need to be prepared going in: it’s impossible to do only the tasks associated with your level.

Responsibilities have never been clearly distinguished.

The position you interview for would be more appropriately called simply “Engineer.”

The birthday celebration is like a famine; if you’re interested, you can watch YB’s videos.

Very funny

Overall, it’s a pretty good place, and employees also receive benefits. From time to time, there are movie screenings, outings, activities, year-end banquets, casual-dress days, and so on. It’s a fairly decent company.

Unfortunately, workplace bad habits are far too serious. Some senior employees specifically bully newcomers; if you don’t do as they say, you’ll be immediately isolated (because no one will pay any attention to you). Before long, you’ll be preparing to pack up and leave. The senior employees all protect one another, and newcomers can’t compete with them because they even have supervisors backing them up. Fight back? Unless the company’s owner is backing you, I don’t think you have much of a chance.

Complain to a supervisor? Don’t be naive. Supervisors are blind and only pay attention to the senior employees’ reactions. They won’t be willing to give up a senior employee in favor of a promising newcomer, even if a supervisor actually wants to help you (I suppose I was thinking too highly of people).

They say jobs should be given to capable people? Sorry, but the newcomers’ abilities are far better than the senior employees’. All I can say is that there are quite a few good colleagues, but if you count them up, there aren’t exactly few bad ones either. If the supervisor doesn’t help maintain a healthy environment, I honestly feel you’d be better off working as an assembly-line operator than coming here.

※What exactly is wrong with this senior employee? It’s simple: during one period of employment, they managed to drive away all of the dozen or more newcomers—even as many as twenty—who were hired. If fewer than five newcomers were driven away, you could still attribute it to poor employee quality. But if more than ten were driven away, what else could be wrong with this senior employee? [Other departments don’t have this problem.] The most outrageous part is that the supervisor is short-sighted and focused only on protecting their favorite employee, and is unwilling to reflect on what is wrong with the person they trained. Sigh—it’s truly a shame for such a good company.

I agree that 叡揚 is a good company. Unfortunately, some employees in the middle and lower ranks seem determined to ruin it. What a tragedy.

Company size

There are plenty of food options nearby (?)

Regarding the professional skills tree, it may depend on the situation in the department (because I asked directly XD)

I didn’t particularly notice it during the interview process; it may also be because, after hearing the qualities required for the position in that department, I didn’t ask further questions.

You can still look at the hiring party’s attitude before deciding. After all, even a good unit can have bad positions.

The business mainly serves government-affiliated organizations, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and other industries. Departments are divided by industry, and most business managers put a lot of effort into mentoring new sales staff. Although the turnover rate is high, it is a very good environment for newcomers to gain experience in sales, with many internal training courses available. Managers and colleagues in other departments are also generally easy to get along with.

Basic benefits are provided. Occasionally, overtime may be required when rushing to complete a project, but this is not the norm. Newcomers may find it relatively difficult to negotiate a high salary.

Most colleagues are friendly.

About parental leave

Due to family circumstances, I needed to take six months of parental leave. At the beginning of the following year, when my parental leave ended, the company said it could not provide a year-end bonus (nor could it provide one on a prorated basis). Rytass said that if I returned to work, they could give me the bonus; if I could not return to work, they could not provide it. It sounded as though there was no problem...

However... needing to take parental leave is a parenting difficulty that parents may encounter. Ultimately, being unable to continue working is also a helpless situation, yet the company said it could not provide the year-end bonus on a prorated basis... It was quite frustrating...

P.S. HR also said, “Then just come back for a day or two, and you’ll be able to get the year-end bonus...” (Should I say that HR is very flexible?! Do they really have to take care of employees in this way?!)

I don’t know whether, in Taiwan, there are “pure software” companies with around 500 employees that could be called “good”; perhaps I’m simply ignorant. Galaxy Software Services seems to be fairly decent. It should still be a good place to learn and gain experience when changing careers.

The company’s colleagues are generally kind: birds of a feather flock together. Although this may not count as a company advantage, the company culture determines what kinds of people it attracts.

There is still a place to hone your skills: newcomers can develop their abilities over two to three years. If you are not in the R&D department, programmers need to be more proactive. Colleagues are generally quite good (if you can stick it out), and you can gain considerable experience, with opportunities to work with both older and newer technologies. If you simply wait for others to take care of you, you will need to encounter a very good senior colleague or supervisor.

The work environment is friendly toward women and families (?): Many of the company’s employees are “young” parents. During their employment, some have married and had children, taken leave without pay to stay home and care for their children, and later returned to the company.

If you come here to learn, the starting salary will not be high: Many people who want to switch to the IT industry or are new to the workforce come for interviews. If they state a starting salary on par with that of someone with a relevant degree or experience, even an excellent interview performance will be of no use. It is mainly a matter of the interviewer’s first impression (unless you are recommended by someone inside the company).

It depends heavily on the department and supervisor: In addition to the company’s relatively traditional culture, different departments and supervisors mean different types of projects. If the fit is poor, it is like heaven and hell. Being driven away or scolded is probably to some extent due to these factors. This usually happens when changing to a different project; otherwise, quite a few people who leave later return to the company.

Hiding shortcomings and concealing strengths: The tolerance for “mediocrity” is quite high. As long as you do not commit a major taboo or have good colleagues, you can stay for a long time. Those who are capable need a supervisor or colleague with a discerning eye, and must demonstrate their abilities to these people so that they can help you get promoted during performance reviews (promotions are tied to salary increases) or receive bonuses (if you are not promoted, bonuses are the only option). Without someone who can recognize your abilities, you will keep being assigned work without receiving the compensation you deserve. There is no solution except to resign.

The company’s benefits have improved, but some things never change: Other than the protections required by the Labor Standards Act, you need to pay attention to your own rights and raise them with your supervisor at the appropriate time. After the implementation of the one fixed day off and one flexible rest day policy, because leave is considered a cost, employees are now reminded to schedule their days off. As for company trips, they are truly non-negotiable: if you do not participate, it is as if you received nothing, regardless of whether you could not register in time or were unable to attend because of work or customer requirements. If this ever changes, it should count as a milestone.

Looks quite large

They look at educational background and somewhat discriminate against non-national universities and junior colleges

They don’t pay much attention to experience

Low starting salary, and low salary increases as well

1. The R&D department offers opportunities to learn.

2. Good location, and colleagues are easy to get along with.

1. The cost accounting is very strange. I work in a profit-making unit, and all sorts of unexpected expenses, large and small, are included in the department’s costs—telephone calls, workstations, overtime pay, and so on. The company itself offers hardly any benefits, and if this continues, even the department’s small perks will be gone. Some people say there is overtime pay, while others say there isn’t. Because it is tied to department costs, with this bizarre accounting method, if you happen to have a more obedient supervisor, naturally there is no overtime you can report. I was even once questioned by my supervisor because the call charges on my desk phone were too high. I have never made a private call, and I really don’t understand why a supervisor has to meddle in such a trivial matter.

2. The employee trips mentioned on 104 are simply employee trips—there is no additional travel subsidy. There are about four itineraries each year, with two buses per itinerary, so there are roughly 320 spots (including family members; any excess cost must be paid out of pocket). However, the company has more than 500 employees, and each person who gets a spot can bring up to three friends or relatives. Many people cannot get a spot, so the benefit is effectively nonexistent.

3. There are no regular salary adjustments. You practically have to wait for a promotion to get a raise, and even then the increase is very small. They also insist on having a strange position called “PA Programmer Analyst,” which is really just making you do an SA’s work for a PG’s salary.

4. Do not work in a non-R&D department under any circumstances, especially as a student worker. You will neither get paid nor learn anything. The underlying systems are quite powerful, so programs can be written without particularly strong technical skills. Because of this, some supervisors basically treat PGs like production-line workers.

5. It is a retirement home of a company, but it is no longer suitable for young people today. The company does not proactively dismiss people; even those with poor abilities are simply left in place without consequence. Some can even get promoted once their time comes. These people occupy all the positions, leaving young employees with no way to advance, while forcing them to handle a pile of troublesome tasks that the people above cannot resolve.

6. When working at a client site, the company provides no communication equipment whatsoever. The mobile phone and internet costs are all your own responsibility. Now they have even introduced internet telephony: calling an extension makes your mobile phone ring. It sounds modern, but it is basically the same as giving the client the employee’s personal phone number. The internet calls also consume your own data allowance. The only reason for switching to internet telephony is that physical telephone lines are expensive. How expensive could they possibly be? It’s not as if every phone has to be connected like the main switchboard. Just thinking about this makes me angry—I'm going to write my resignation letter in outrage.

Everyone is very friendly.

The internal systems development department seems not to have a concept of costs and focuses on learning.

On the front line, one person has to maintain a large number of clients, whereas the internal systems development department seems to create a new system every year, using different technologies each time. There is plenty of time to learn, so it is a great place to learn!

If you want to learn, I recommend going to that department.

The back-office departments propose productivity improvement plans. The key point is that the people in these back-office departments are usually those who were unable to adapt to the frontline environment and moved to back-office positions. Can the productivity plans they propose actually be applied in real-world environments?

Why not first try applying the constraints of the real-world environment to the internal systems?

It really depends on the department and manager. Before joining, I recommend asking current employees about the department’s atmosphere and what the manager is like, so you’re less likely to waste each other’s time.

The salary increase is indeed not very substantial, so when the timing is right, go ahead and ask! Also, capable employees do have a chance of receiving an exceptional raise.

Definitely a great place to hone your skills—as long as you’re willing to learn, you’ll gain something.

There are both pros and cons~

A company whose career tree is somewhat different from others; its career tree roughly looks like this:

Mage (programmer) ─ Tank (system analyst) ─ Priest (PM) or Assassin (architect)

There are higher levels above these, but employees with 0–15 years of experience are mainly situated in these classes.

Given that a typical project should have a tank, priest, and mage, the following situations arise.

I’m a mage. Can I keep casting spells to fight monsters and become a high-level mage or senior mage?

Sorry, no. If you don’t move toward becoming a tank, your salary won’t increase. Besides, you should try different things. Learning tanking skills will help you in the future, and everything you learn belongs to you.

I’m determined to become a tank. Is that okay?

Yes, but you’ll still have to start out as a mage.

People who want to become mages then level up to become tanks faster than those who want to become tanks, because mages cast spells more quickly and have shorter skill cooldowns.

Those who want to become tanks have to wait until a position opens up above them before they can level up.

The tank is the most tragic class. The ideas of “being tempered through hardship” and “one-stop responsibility” probably mostly come from this class.

Tanks promoted from mages are fragile and are often run over by monsters. Or, when the younger mages beneath them don’t have enough firepower, they also have to tank groups of monsters when there are multiple windows.

On top of that, they may be afflicted with all kinds of debuffs from the enemy, such as stun, silence, and poison.

You must be wondering: What about the priests?

The people who make it to the priest class are probably:

1. All-rounders or generalists; all-rounders are the legendary experts.

2. People full of passion, ideals, and ambition.

3. People who wanted to become priests from the beginning.

4. People who didn’t want to become assassins and had no choice but to become priests.

5. People who finally made it this far and now just want to rest.

6. People who don’t want to become priests but find changing companies too troublesome or lack the courage to do so.

You may still encounter priests in categories 1–3.

But things aren’t necessarily smooth sailing for priests in categories 1–3, because they may encounter fragile tanks or mages who use weapons to bash monsters.

Salary and benefits have already been discussed in many other posts, so I won’t say more about them.

Promotions are based on performance, yet employees don’t even know the results of their evaluations.

Not every employee’s strengths can be put to use, and unsuitable employees also occupy positions.

Last year, I was recruited as a downline for direct selling while working there. They openly invited me outside to discuss whether I wanted to do direct selling... I won’t say which department it was... Those who know, know.

I worked there for a year. I strongly do not recommend it. “Training room” is just a nice-sounding name. The boss’s only sincerity lies in selling dreams instead of honestly discussing compensation and benefits. People with real ability don’t stay long. Management only listens to the empty frameworks proposed by those with advanced degrees and PhDs, such as “Dr. Bullshit C.” After submitting my resignation, I felt absolutely no regret—only glad that I had experienced this pitfall. I also hope that anyone who reads this won’t repeat my mistake. I can only give it the lowest rating. If there were five stars, I would absolutely give it the worst possible rating!!!!

A few years ago, I would still have recommended joining to hone your skills and gain experience. But now, almost all of the experienced employees with real ability have been driven away. If you’re willing to be led by someone who joined a few months earlier than you as a substitute service employee—or willing to take a gamble on joining an internal project—you could still consider it.

Every company has good departments and bad departments; it’s just that the bad ones here far outnumber the good ones.

I assume those defending the company were probably in decent departments. But if the person defending it is a manager, and the department also has a high turnover rate, then I really have nothing to say.

The reason people used to stay for a long time was that there were many problems in the department, while the management team remained complacent, coming up with wild ideas and making empty promises every day. The problems were never actually resolved, and these kinds of managers kept getting promoted. It’s truly bizarre.

Think twice; supervisors often make the R&D team keep busy with pointless work....>!!!<

At this company, highly educated people who are good at talking get credit because the boss likes listening to them. The engineers down below who work themselves to death don’t even get credit for their hard work, and if they report overtime, they’ll be mocked for being inefficient. It claims to have good benefits, but in reality, everything is saved wherever possible—penny-pinching to the extreme, and not generous at all.

If you're looking for a pure software company, it's best to avoid this one. This company has a poor reputation in the industry (saying “poor” is already being very polite—use your imagination....). You don't necessarily have to waste your life to learn something. There are many better options out there.

Do you like preserving historic sites? Or would you rather study the technology of the era you were born in? Then you've come to the right place!

Let’s start with the drawbacks:

1. No licenses for development tools are provided.

2. The company trip is awful, and there’s still an out-of-pocket fee. Registration fills up very quickly—this is true.

3. There are no additional bonuses at the year-end party, and the gifts are terrible—I agree, especially since I’ve never won anything.

4. You have to buy your own computer, but the company provides a subsidy.

5. You can’t report all of your overtime hours.

6. You need to maintain legacy programs.

3. Three years ago, there was a movie day, a spring banquet, and a beverage day. I think I know which department you’re from now. The company made money three years ago, so departments had more budget.

Think about it:

1. You can buy a computer you like and replace it once every three years. It depends on personal preference. The company gives every new employee a new notebook, but what happens to the notebook after they leave—does it go to the next person? Then someone will come out and say that the company assigned them a lousy computer.

2. Overtime pay: One person takes 10 hours to write the same program, while another takes 20 hours. If the latter reports 10 hours of overtime, is that fair? Could this end up with people slacking off during the day and only starting work after reporting overtime? This should depend on how the work hours required for the program are calculated. Is that fair? When you can’t figure out how to write it, do you receive appropriate support?

3. Raises: Just like lottery winners, people who don’t win feel that it’s fake. A few days ago, I heard someone say that they had received a NT$3,000 raise for two consecutive years. All I can say is that as long as you have the ability, the company is willing to give you a raise. There are performance evaluations and headcount limits, and of course, those ranked among the top few in the department get raises sooner.

4. Maintaining legacy programs: For the software services industry, maintenance projects are actually an important source of revenue. If a software company told you, “We won’t maintain our system after five years,” would you dare buy it? Just look at DigiWin’s TIPTOP: its 4GL programming language maintenance fee for 30 licenses is NT$700,000 per year, and maintenance projects may also involve other customization and optimization needs.

Putting aside the salary, benefits, workload, and management, the location and work environment make this a fairly good company, and the colleagues are also easy to get along with.

If you want to make friends or have a convenient commute, you might consider it.

It feels like the situation differs between departments, as mentioned in the earlier comments?

In the few departments I know, I’ve hardly ever seen people work overtime, and everyone gets a raise each year.

I have heard that project departments have more issues because they prioritize clients, which leads to these problems.

BTW,

if you need software, you can also talk to your supervisor—the company buys it as well.

I’m not sure what amount of annual raise is considered too little. Is NT$4,000–5,000 too little, or is that normal?

Do you feel that it’s difficult to communicate issues to your supervisor?

At least from what I know, communication is still quite smooth.

This company is basically stable, after all, most of its clients are government departments. However, its outdated management mindset holds back young people, making it difficult to advance, and it is not flexible enough either (you only get the salary corresponding to the position you take on). Even if you take on more work, it is seen as proof of your ability, but it still has nothing to do with your salary. The low salary issue has already been widely discussed within this company, but I think the software development department is a good training ground for young people. Still, after staying for about two or three years, you should more or less move on.

As for the sales department, all I can say is: don’t consider it. If you work in the same industry, you’ll find that the caliber of people coming from company 655 is getting worse and worse. They don’t even research their products properly, and many salespeople may be inexperienced hires brought in to reduce personnel costs (or perhaps the salary simply cannot attract experienced candidates).

The engineering department has the same problem. Most new hires are people doing alternative service in lieu of mandatory military service. I think the development department is OK, since it is a support unit, but for product or information security roles, when pushing these efforts to the customer-facing side, they do not provide adequate technical or “communication” training. It makes people suspect that they are acting as agents for these products only for short-term gain.

Many departing employees include quite a few experienced people (some may have worked at the company for 5–10 years). They left after becoming disheartened. In fact, everyone used to feel a strong sense of belonging to this company. It may have been small, but it had a warm, personal atmosphere. However, things have gradually changed, especially now—even “managers” make unwarranted negative comments about former employees simply because they left.

That’s all I have to say.

If you’re a recent graduate, think carefully about some departments. For others, it’s not a bad place to gain experience.

Work hardware, software, and environment

1. There are plenty of places to eat nearby, and transportation is fairly convenient.

2. The building is clean, but for some reason the men’s restroom on the GSS floor has poor ventilation.

3. The laptop subsidy is NT$28,000, paid in installments. The laptop becomes your personal property after purchase. Whether this is good or bad depends on your perspective: on the positive side, you can choose one you like, but for me, the NT$28,000 budget was not enough for a development laptop, and I would have had no use for it after leaving the company.

4. The company does not provide properly licensed development software.

5. Coffee costs money; only one day per week is free.

Salary and benefits

1. Salaries are not adjusted every year, and the increases are not particularly noticeable.

3. Overtime is the norm. Of the roughly 10 overtime claims submitted, I could only receive overtime pay for about two; the rest were forcibly converted into compensatory leave, and in some cases overtime could not even be reported.

4. The number of spots for the company trip is limited. Registration fills up about one minute after opening, and as someone stationed off-site, I never had a chance to get a spot.

5. The company has approximately 500 employees, but the total prize money at the year-end banquet is no more than NT$300,000, and the boss has never added any extra money.

Various challenges

1. End-to-end responsibility

2. EQ

3. The projects use outdated technology; this depends heavily on the department.

Working at GSS depends a lot on luck—whether you end up on the right project—but most projects are disasters.