This past year, I've been feeling resentful and bitter over Hong Kong’s technology industry. Being positioned beside Shenzhen and Singapore is a fxking curse, anytime a North American startup decides to expand offices, Singapore always take the cake because of superior engineering talent and political stability. The startup "unicorns" we have are overvalued, only serve regional markets and has a time lag technology wise (imagine WordPress apps and uber clones). Even worse, they treat engineering as a cost cutting center and outsource jobs to Shenzhen and the rest of mainland china to save on salary. For those who advice me to just work in Shenzhen, I've even tried that, to this date after 50+ applications I have yet to receive a single response. The national security law has forced what few startups we do have to focus more on expanding offices in Tokyo, Singapore and Taiwan to comply with customer demands for protection of data. I'm still a dumbass university student figuring out what to do now but it truly breaks my heart to see Hong Kongs tech sector being in the dumpster. In a narrow minded city that only preaches Finance and Real Estate, having a prominent tech sector can help us remain competitive and diversify our economy. TLDR: Hong Kong tech sucks ass and I'm bitter over it. Dont know what I should do next. Maybe I should just work in NA and chase TC TC: 0 (back in school)
Thanks for sharing this. Not many people here know about HK tech industry
no worries! thanks for listening in. just want to share a ground level POV instead of a politician or business exec claiming how strong and robust it is
I love HK and it’s somewhere I’ve thought about living but the difference in career opportunities between HK and NA is too large. Maybe Singapore would be meeting in the middle
how much of a salary cut would you have been willing to take to relocate to HK? or does career progression and TC have to be parallel for you to move
I’m 2 YOE and 125 TC. I’m relatively junior in my career so I’m not willing to miss out on opportunities at this time. Maybe when I’m more established I’d feel comfortable just taking time off work to live there for a bit
Come to NA and make 300k TC at 1.5 yoe
just curious, after taxes how much is that TC reduced to? (granted itll still be way more than what ill make in Hong Kong)
Depends on where u live but in Seattle you pay around 26% tax for that TC.
Since when Hong Kong has tech?
9gag lol
Sad to say but tech isn’t the only sector that’s gonna go to crap in Hong Kong, if I were you I’d seek to get permanent residency in a country that is relatively easy to immigrate to and with more political stability ASAP, eg Canada, New Zealand or Australia. Couple years down the road god knows if it’d still be possible for you people. Saying this as a Chinese person btw.
thanks for the advice, I'll try to make the best of it
too true, worked in HK as an intern a couple years ago to understand the tech industry. my advice is to just go to NA man. I love HK, but it’s not good for tech
would there ever be a reason for you to move back? Would it be a dumb idea to work in NA for a while (learn from the best plus TC) before coming to work on my own startup in HK
that’s one of my ideas too. getting funding might be an issue and starting a company is never easy. Leaving high TC is hard. i’m still 2 YOE so i don’t have plans to go back yet. definitely an option if you like entrepreneurship
Just leave hk
Janestreet ftw
any advice on how to get in besides working at faang and being a competitive programmer
On the plus, HK is awesome
Come to the land of teh free
hopefully h1b visa resumes
This. We welcome you