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Comment by molteanu | Hacker News Reader

This, together with this comment [..] especially in the German speaking part of Europe, are still run like factories, barely have flexible working hours and don't even want to hear about remote work as managers prefer having a close eye on employees at all time. from a previous HN discussion [1], has made me wonder if there is any Chinese market for remote SW developers from the other parts of the world.

It seems like the Chinese run at the speed of light these days while I'm still left to do Jira's and time sheets and bug hunting and colleagues that are really not that interested in anything software related at the same old 9-5 job.

Is China a viable alternative? Do you have any experience working with Chinese companies, startups, sw shops, etc?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082232

View on HN

https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU

9am-9pm, 6 days a week for $41k a year.

The infamous 996 that has even the Chinese authorities worried [1]. Yeah, forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder.

[1] https://www.scmp.com/tech/start-ups/article/3005947/quantity...

Another good article from the same site about this issue:

https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3002533/no-sle...

Some are trying the "996" every other week thing now.

Yes, I remember that from a previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19513727

I am a software dev in Bytedance (company that created Tiktok) in Shenzhen. In general I like it here. The company is listening to feedback, coworkers are very friendly, and the work is challenging with good pay, I am definitely learning a lot here. Having said that, the workload is quite heavy - we have to work every other Sunday (Saturdays always off). If you are interested in a referral drop me an email at georgy [at] bytedance(dot)com. We have devs in the US as well.

What’s compensation like? Competitive with US companies? Equity awards?

It seems like the Chinese run at the speed of light these days

What native Chinese-built software products have done well outside of China?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-survei...

Tiktok

Though that seems to have been built on the back of a massively expensive advertising blitz:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-18/tiktok-br...:

> ...[Bytedance] is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise on Facebook in the hope of luring away more users. Over the past three months, for instance, 13 percent of all the ads seen by users of Facebook’s Android app were for TikTok, says app-analytics firm Apptopia.

That's been their MO in China as well. IIRC, the mainland Chinese version, Douyin, was being heavily and repeatedly promoted with the Chinese equivalent of ads during the Superbowl.

Remember when Venmo

After having lived in various places in China I would say that the most important criteria to consider is whether you'd actually enjoy living there.

You might be disappointed with Chinese companies who still make their devs clock in and out the old fashioned way.

Sounds like your job just sucks, you could find a better one in the states, China is always an option also but try foreign companies there first for a better work life balance.

Haven't worked for Chinese owned ones per say, but have worked in China, I would say it's very viable. Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are also worth looking at - though the cost of living in HK is astronomical.

HK and Taiwan don’t pay their devs very well (they value other things, not software). If you are American, Singapore might be difficult also unless you have a good tax accountant. China on balance provides the best deal in Asia for programmers.

I'm not considering a move to China or those parts of the world. But since they're moving at such high speeds, I'm betting their workforce needs are quite high, so "every help we can get" should be a good motto.

Their workforce is huge and very competitive. Also, they probably speak Mandarin in their big companies...

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