finley does have a point. What is it you’re seeking? Money or a new experience? Have you considered talking to family or your good friends about it?
You’re not wrong for declining the offer though. What it sounds like they’re offering you is what local mid-high managerial positions in Taiwan get, not an expat!
How I see it. Do not give up just yet. I would ask your boss or the HR department on packages that other employees have received going abroad. If it’s a big company like you’ve mentioned, there should be set rules/regulations on what benefits you should receive.
I know a friend of mine got transferred from Holland to Taipei (from a research position to a managerial position) and he got paid his EU salary and benefits on top of that. Of course this will depends on the company, but I think that should be the standard.
As an expat package it’s risible, unless you’ve some over-riding personal reason to come here then tell them to sod off. Go to Manila or Bangkok instead, you’ll have more fun and get a proper package.
I’m going to say that this isn’t always true. If you come out here, there’s also the real possibility of pigeonholing yourself into a position that DOESN’T transfer back west. You can’t ever really go home because the only thing you’re good for is being sent back out here - especially if you think that adding Chinese to your resume somehow makes you more employable back there because it doesn’t.
As for the offer: the holidays are good enough, the subsidized flight is nice but the pay is atrocious if you yourself actually are an engineer. The problem is that you described yourself as an “assistant engineer” which to the Taiwanese manager is going to sound like you’re neither highly-qualified nor highly educated (are you? Bachelor’s/Master’s degree? In what?)
If you yourself are an engineer, there are foreign companies offering 1000 to 2000 dollars more per month for work in the semiconductor industry. If you’re experienced managing teams you can get more. If you’re not, then this offer might be the best you can expect.
In terms of cost of living, on that salary you might be looking at paying 10% of your salary in taxes and health insurance - if you stay more than 6 months in a calendar year. You could probably end up paying less in fact, but I haven’t run the numbers. Then you need a place to live and transport. Food is cheap if you eat local food, can be much more expensive if you eat western food and drink imported beers. If eating at home is important to you, you should expect to spend more than you would at the supermarkets back home for the same quality of product unless you just like eating rice (better quality, lower price than Europe). Flash memory is also quite cheap here but you can’t eat it.
Some examples of housing for say, 25 thousand ntd -not too high, not too low- gives you 3 bedrooms, furnished, AC, newish building with elevator and 24 hour guard.
Let’s say you will be deduced around 10 thousand in national health insurance, tazes, and other details from your salary.
You gotta find out how much does your ticket home cost. I know China Air and other Chinese airlines have it very cheap to Europe, even local nice airlines like EVA and China Airlines have offers like 30 thousand to Amsterdam or Paris. So you might need some more, a bit bit, not too much, there.
If you have no debts, if you are young and can invest some time exploring what opportunities come up, you might want to consider this offer in spite of the fat that it may not be so economically attractive. If coming here won’t be a great loss, you might wanna consider it.
Out of all the places on earth I can imagine working, those two would rank somewhere alongside Mogadishu or Lagos. Horrible pollution, horrible people, and weird expats who think they’re God’s gift to womankind (or mankind, depending). And the salary package depends on the company, surely, not the destination country.
However, I agree with the various comments suggesting that the negotiations aren’t over yet. If you are important to this project - and you obviously are, or they wouldn’t be sending you - then make sure they pay you appropriately. No need to hold them over a barrel, but state your case in terms of what you can deliver (financially) to the new business.
Plus I got engineer friends who have worked there. No fun if anytime you have to go out you have to book your bodyguard a week ahead… or simply not go out.
There is always a reason why the packages are more attractive. The danger involved may be cool for adrenalin junkies playing James Bond or Playboy of the East. Normal folk see the bullets flying and hightail it outta dodge.
Manila would be dodgy, Bangkok is quite easy to live in , not a whole lot different than living in Taiwan I think and more international stuff and yes lots of shopping malls. It is rather polluted as many cities in Asia are.
Some people might say the same of Taiwan, there’s a few recent posts on the subject in fact.
Of course they’re wrong, Taiwan is the vanilla option of east/south east asia, but you were talking about seeing what the world has to offer previously. If the OP wants to live in asia and make a decent wage then I think Bangkok and Manila are worth a look.
After reading all your answers i can tell you, this is not an expat contract, its an local contract with a small benefit package. Druation is set to 2 years.
So if i consider taking this offer, my current position at Lam will get deleted, means i am kinda fucked if i do a mistake and regret it (which i will never know if i dont give it a try). Anyway, to consider doing this step i want a financial base which fits my experiance i offer, which after reading your answers and talking to different managers in my company is not what i should expect.
Also, after yesterdays conf call the COO from Taiwan did not sound like there is a way to polish this offer they made into better. Well, i honestly dont know what they are really able to do anyway…
I don´t have a bachelor or master, here in Austria it is not necessary to be successful. I made my Mechatronic apprenticeship and after that i specialized myself in refurbishments in the semiconductor industry. I am still not old though, i am at my early 26.
So before i got this offer i planed to either do some Quality engineer qualifications or take 1 year (paid leave from company) off for studying abroad (South Korea, since i lived there 2 months).
Last thing i need to tell you, i compared how much money i save here at the moment and how much i can save after doing math from average costs of living in taiwan from google and your answers. In Austria i save 500€+ compared to what i can expect in Taiwan. Some might be interested what i get here, it´s 3000€ plus 2 fixed bonuses every year and i dont mean the 13th and 14th extra salary we have here.
For now i told them that i want more salary or a better package like housing to consider their offer, waiting for an answer from Taiwan now.
I can’t comment on the refurb side of the SC industry as I’m only familiar with the R&D and front/back end processing part of the industry, but I can tell you that freshly minted Masters from Taiwans top university’s are getting 40k to 50k per month + bonus at the big fabs.
So, if you do take the position I would strongly recommend you keep the fact you don’t have a bachelor or masters degree to yourself. I know the value of serving an apprenticeship but a minority of people will be rubbed up the wrong way knowing this.
LAM is a well established company, from what I can see Talus is some sort of spin off placed in Taiwan? I don’t know, but can’t you try to get a different position within LAM or some other company such as ASML or some other big europe/american based company, then get a secondment here. I think this would be a safer option if you’re just looking for a few years experience in another company.
[quote=“BabyBlatter, post:29, topic:154920, full:true”]
Of course they’re wrong, Taiwan is the vanilla option of east/south east asia, but you were talking about seeing what the world has to offer previously. [/quote]
I suppose it depends on the OPs threshold for adventure, which seems to be fairly low
Oh sure. Worth a look. But as I said, money isn’t everything, and working with Filipinos or Thais, surrounded by the general filth and degradation of Manila or Bangkok, would be considerably more stressful than working with Taiwanese people in Taoyuan, IMO. I reckon he’d go postal after two years of that.
Oh yes. All over. Although I have this strange white V-shape on my chest. It’s amazing what a diet of recycled oil and carcinogenic pesticides can do for you
In Taiwan, however, it is necessary in order to get a work permit, unless the law has recently changed. Is your COO aware of this?
Yes exactly, Talus is a company split between Manz AG and Lam Research, because there was no refurb center yet for the tools Lam offers.
I always have my eyes open for other positions or postings abroad, but 80% is about the States and i totally do not wanna apply for the States.
Am i right if i believe, that this is the first offer i got outside of Austria and maybe takin the first right away isn´t the best idea anyway if im not 100% sure about it?
If you wait until you’re 100% sure about everything, you’ll never do anything. It’s impossible to predict how things are going to work out.
Realistically, the absolute worst that can happen is that you’ll end up in a slightly boring job and will lose ~5000 euros a year in a salary cut. That’s hardly a career-ending scenario.
If the company was set up with foreign money and the shareholders are foreign companies, there is no reason they can’t retain you as an employee at your present company (Lam?) and pay you partially or entirely in euros. If they won’t, it could be they’re just having a bit of fun with you. But TBH you’re 26. Unless you have Elon Musk-like talents, you’re going to get screwed over a bit, and I wouldn’t worry about it.
Ask about the work permit issue. It might be a show-stopper.
This is a good move. I think if they upped the salary to a little under 100K NTD and gave you housing/moving benefits. It would be a good opportunity for you. However, in my previous post, make sure you have a parachute.
I see that even with the upped salary, you would still be saving less, however, I think you would be gaining some cultural knowledge of how Taiwanese and how Asian companies operate, as well as get to experience a completely different world.
It’s not necessarily a good career move, although
It could well work out like that eventually.
What it would be is a good ‘screw it lets do it move’.
You only live once.
