[weishigoname]

Come to Shenzhen, you will see, salaries like Tencent, alibaba, can offer are much higher than SV, in the conditions of you should be expertise in some technical area, and good background, like google, facebook, etc working experience. what they offer can be at least double companies, like google, facebook, can offer in the same technical level.

[yughurt]

You're also working twice the hours, no thanks. 996? No one is actually productive when you're working for that long.

[adnanazadsg]

This is unfortunately a common phenomenon where people from countries in the west see negative press about another country and assume its a universal issue. Often thats not true - companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and many others are willing to bend over backwards to get the best talent.

There's a lot of other companies that want their employees to work overtime, but thats probably true in a lot of countries - probably even in the US.

I wish there was some way of balancing the news coming out of countries - without resorting to censorship. It would remove a lot of prejudice,

[rak00n]

Jack Ma of Alibaba endorsed 996 - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/15/busi....

[adnanazadsg]

"If we find things we like, 996 is not a problem," Ma said in a blog post Sunday on Chinese social media site Weibo. "If you don't like [your work], every minute is torture," he added.

I agree with this sentiment, I happen to work 996 on my own stuff mainly because I love it. I know a lot of people who have jobs and pour themselves into it because they love what they do as well.

I'd say its only an issue once you are being punished for not working 996.

[rak00n]

You missed the other part.

"I personally think that 996 is a huge blessing," he said. "How do you achieve the success you want without paying extra effort and time?"

[adnanazadsg]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the point you're trying to make regarding how Jack Ma might be part of the problem.

But its not really a "China" problem. There's a lot of startups and mature companies in the US that have similarly aggressive personalities at the helm who demand a lot from their employees.

My main point was the notion that people are assuming that its universal in China, when its not always true (whether its more prevalent than in the US or not - i dont know).

The only reason I'm even making this point was because how grandparent to my comment made a simple comment about how companies in Shenzen pay a lot, and the response to that was a blanket "but 996" when that might not be true.

[krageon]

The way to remove prejudice is to educate people like you are doing. Fundamentally, it is expected that the rest of the world sees less news about your country than you do. That's how news works.

It would behove us all to expect and believe that a country is usually more nuanced than the extremes that make it across a border.

[RAIN92]

Especially in the US, I'd say. US have pretty long hours compared to Europe.

[weishigoname]

It depends, it is true if you always get the dirty works, like coding without much thinking, but if there are some innovation ideas come to your mind from time to time, life will be much easier, and your promotion will become easier.

Got promotion is not easy here, you need to be expertise in some technical areas, and pass promotion interview, there will be many questions from many experts during that interview, you won't be considered as qualified until every answer from you satisfies them, that is why many young engineers choose to leave in one or two years, there are not much chances for them, and even you are true expert, you will get frustrated.

but life is not that hard than you think, I have a Tencent's game engineer friend, he is a tennis fun, what I get from him is they have tennis activity every day, and he can go off work at about 6PM to play tennis 2-3 days every week.

and I heard some guys from google, they need the same long hours work and pretty stressful, just they don't need to stay at the same work place that long, they have the working place flexibility.

[fooker]

Not in these places.

[robbyt]

As an American without any foreign language skills... How do I find a job there?

[gpetukhov]

You can update your current location to Shenzhen in LinkedIn. I regularly get messages from local HRs there. Btw, I work in Bytedance (company that created Tiktok) in Shenzhen, if you are interested drop me an email at georgy [at] bytedance(dot)com

[9HZZRfNlpR]

IT is one of those few sectors where it's possible to find work in Europe without the local language.

The problem for Americans (that I have talked to here) is that allegedly your IRS is absolutely ruthless at taxing you even if you decide to settle down here. I'm sure good accountants help, but some people say they are having even problems opening bank accounts. Banks are afraid or the IRS too somehow.

Otherwise it shouldn't be a big problem, I guess you do have to bring something to the table compared to the same local guy, but life's more relaxed here. If you like that, it's a good idea. If you are crazy ambitious money and career wise, nothing beats America.

[Zach_the_Lizard]

The US has global taxation of income. Perhaps overseas banks don't want to deal with Americans because of the reporting requirements imposed on them?

[mixmastamyk]

See FATCA.