fasthandle

Yes.

'Fake Agile' is a term. But I think this is global.

It is hard to find Linux/Unix people. Those that develop the skillset are hot property for the BATs. Universities universally use Windows as a platform (students bring their own laptop) with exception for '985' classed colleges who are the elite institutions. But experience and certification is always needed for a new job. There is little positive-feedback for self learning.

Java is predominant, C# number 2. There is not a lot of appetite for experimenting as company culture is largely, though not always, hours-based. Python is very thin. Front-end is quite easy.

Have a try yourself: Go to 51job.com and do a search for skills. You can see a ton of Java (5:1 vs C# and 20:1 for Go) and not a lot of anything else.

There is no equivalent to Github. Github was 'blocked' two years ago for a few days and then unblocked because development teams ceased to function, BAT, government, international.

There is a sharing culture but little understanding of licensing.

Your edit: It really depends on the company culture.

Overtime in mainland China is hard-ceilinged at 36 hours per month (1.5 hours per day...). Beyond that is illegal, which is likely in large part why 996 companies don't like the spotlight in the current 'who knows' game of who Beijing/Xi will selectively select to be made an example of.

Triple hourly pro-rata pay is only for working over official statutory holidays, otherwise overtime pay is 1.5 pro-rata hourly rate for working days and double hourly rate for 'rest days' (this would include Saturday or Sunday for a Monday-Friday employment contract).

Yes, and no. IT development is one of the best paying professional jobs in China, commanding 3x to 8x a typical office worker's salary.

If you have skills, experience, or for a fresh graduate an interest, in what in the US would be considered a mainstream enterprisy (Java, Angular, .NET) and passable English or Japanese language skills, you can get a position in development with a Fortune 500 or as a contractor to a F500 without too much difficulty. Normal 9-6, 5 day work week, public holidays plus 10-15 days discretionary holiday per year, stability over fast-pace, middle class income (8,000 Yuan per month for 0-2 years experience, 20,000 per month in a Tier-2 city for 5 years experience; for reference rent for a newish 2 bedroom apartment within 20 minutes walk to the office would be about 3000 Yuan per month).

The BATs (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) pay more, 2x or 3x, and are the glamorous places for fresh grads to work. Good luck getting in though.

Want-to-be BATs are probably the worst employers. They lack the pay and prestige of BATs, lack the stability and sane working culture of F500s, and tend to have terrible management that lack conviction and realistic goals. Without a BAT or F500 early in one's career, it's hard to break away from want-to-be-BATs.

I know nothing about Games development, so no comment there.

There is a big age ceiling. 15 years experience doesn't pay much better than 5 years experience and will often be met with questions about why not able to move into product ownership of management, but that's another topic. Working in a Tier-1 city will mean rents are way higher, purchase of property probably unattainable, and wages probably less than double those mentioned above.

I hope that answers part of your questions.

To block the 996 Github presence on Github would mean to block Github, as Github is served via HTTPS. That's not viable as Github is far too useful to block (IIRC it and StackOverflow were blocked a couple of years ago but then unblocked due to uproar from the tech industry).

To block Github 966 pages specifically means the domestic browsers are pre-filtering URL requests before they're made. And that means these domestic browsers are pre-filtering all URL requests, HTTPS or not, VPN or not.

Perhaps all forms on pages loaded by these browsers are also being eavesdropped.

Safe to say any secure experience under these browsers is compromised.