Ah those are mostly electrical engineers, asic, fab, process, rtl, etc. some sw and firmware but vast majority are EE. EEs get paid better here than software but Taiwan is a leading EE power and quite weak for software so the pay disparity is to be expected.
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Yeah, thanks for providing your perspective as an employer, BTW.
The reason Taiwan is weak at software is because Taiwanese firms want immediate profits and the software development life cycle is too long.
that’s def part of it - taiwan firms aren’t willing to invest in it cuz you need a bit of patience to see the rewards. but also sw eng is kinda new and taiwan had forcefully hitched its wagon on physics/EE in the 60s, 70s, and 80s back when the kmt govt could do whatever it wanted. by the time sw was obviously going to be big in the 2000s, taiwan was already a democracy where it’s harder to do govt driven large-scale industrial planning.
also a big thing is language - the strongest sw powers are essentially the US (#1 by a mile), and in the next tier, uk, ireland, india, canada, and australia - all these countries are native english speaking. france and china are both also strong but china mostly cuz it can throw its 1.4 bil pop weight around, while japan and korea are up there too but a lot weaker than you would think considering both are quite strong at tech in general. basically, native english is a huge advantage, and countries that don’t have it punch well below their expected weight class.
Thankfully Google uses your search history to generate images – maybe browse some other sites instead?
See below using Incognito: same issue. You don’t have to scroll very far to see something off-putting. I also mentioned about endless Taipei 101 pics which your image and mine confirms. There is so much more to this amazing place than one building or its relationship with China.
My point being if Taiwan wants to diversify it’s economy, there’s a good place to start, with tourism. (Not right now obviously)
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The Mickey Mouse types are all trying to date Minnie Mouse.
where are these grads going to come from? Even the Indians want to go to America
Or is Taiwan looking to get second tier indians? The ones that didnt get the US visa?
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I’ve done my duty with sperm, but no favors from Taiwan money bank: must have Taiwan citizen act as guarantor for check sent from foreign country.
So I send my checks to foreign country bank.
Taiwan ghost island.
This is the only issue I have with what you said. Economic policymaking hasn’t changed since Taiwan democratized. It’s still largely done by experts, and the legislators only vote on local issues. We still have grandiose economic planning projects like 5+2, Asian Silicon Valley, etc. Global Taiwan Institute did a study on this:
https://mailchi.mp/globaltaiwan/occasional-report-taiwan-miracle-redux-navigating-economic-challenges-in-a-contested-democracy?fbclid=IwAR1bEQEl1hP-Jqn-VBYQJq-aJDe5qqVlSGPpY6jhE45aWLklQt87ZNRtGKo
I code in R and Python. Can you explain how English helps?
I cousin (who’s EE in Taiwan, he got his PhD and Mizzou) said that when you register a software patent you post it up before anyone can use it. China doesn’t care and uses it anyway. That’s how its software progress is so fast.
Check who the president of the US is right now.
Yeah if you go on Reddit forum every three days some idiot rediscovers the photo of Taipei 101 from Elephant mountain.
There is a heck of a lot more to Taiwan , especially it’s natural side, but I myself don’t mind that being relatively unknown becaise it’s expensive enough here just with domestic tourists and I like that some mountainous areas and aboriginal towns are pretty quiet.
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" It’s the salaries here. On average, STEM workers are vastly underpaid in Taiwan compared to their peers in other countries".
and that’s why most of the engineers I know that speak good English are trying to get out of here to the USA.
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How will you know what code to write, and be able to collaborate with the people you’re working with effectively, if you don’t speak a common language fluently?
Engineers frequently need to interact with stakeholders, including business owners/product managers/PMs, and read documentation that comes from other teams and locations. Unless you’re working in a domestic firm, there’s a good chance that you’ll have some interaction with stakeholders who can only communicate with you in English.
Having to build translation layers just so your engineers can communicate with others in the organization is not ideal for international companies.
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Hrm if that’s the case then the planning community really dropped the ball by not pushing software cuz they really didn’t. Just seemed like it’s easier to do that when you have an authoritarian govt (i.e. china or pre-dem taiwan). They succeeded with EE beyond imagining though so it’s sad they couldn’t catch the next trend. Or maybe they were too successful and the new generations of smart engineering-minded Taiwanese still wanted to go into EE instead of SW so there just wasn’t anyone left.
Like, all programming languages are in english which is a minor advantage. The BIG advantage is how the entire global community is english. All books, tutorials, forums, etc are in english. If you are programming in python, R, C, java, javascript, and you don’t know english, then you are cut off from stackoverflow, from reddit, from the 500 books about the subject, from programming forums, and from the rest of the world. All you have access to are book translations from an old version, a few niche websites, and maybe a few basic reference guides if the maintainers decided to translate it.
China actually grew off the back of their insane protections. When everything is banned, then someone has to fill the vacuum. If taiwan banned everything, i have no doubt there would be some taiwan company like baidu that filled in that gap, even if they aren’t as good, that’s still sw development.
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Ah yeah the daily 101 photo with the caption “wow look at this hidden spot i discovered in taipei! taiwan is so pretty!”
Not enough ppl “discover” Taiwan’s east coast sadly.
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Well that’s the danger with planning. You don’t know which industries will be lucrative. That’s why the US does very little beyond funding basic research. Taiwan really doesn’t have a choice because businesses are mostly mom-and-pop and needs a central push.