Foreign engineer aiming for chip-design jobs at MNCs in Taiwan, how realistic w/o fluent Mandarin?

Work Working in Taiwan
1

Hi, I’m from India, planning to apply for master’s this year at NTHU or NYCU. After that I want to work in chip design verification, ideally at a foreign company like NVIDIA, AMD or Qualcomm here rather than at a local firm or foundry.

I keep seeing these companies listed as options for foreigners but can’t tell how real that is, and I can’t find firsthand accounts either way.

Trying to figure out:

  • Do foreign grads actually land these roles at the MNCs, or does it mostly go to locals?
  • I’d arrive with basic Mandarin and keep learning. Is that enough on English-speaking teams, or do you really need fluency day to day?
  • How’s it been for foreigners over a few years, real career growth or does it stall?
  • Anything you wish you’d known before moving here?

Not sure if it’s worth two years and the money if the likely outcome is getting stuck. Any honest take helps, thanks.

2

It’s possible to succeed if you are really good at what you do, the sky is the limit, maybe you will become the Nvidia head of Taiwan and your son will become president of Taiwan like how Singapore has an Indian ethnic president. But only if you are really exceptional, like that one engineer in Claude who created Claude Code in their first week after joining the company.

But if you are just average, then it will be very very difficult and you are setting yourself up for failure. Maybe look at UK, US, Canada, Singapore instead.

3

Taiwanese companies are chock full of Indian designers and software designers.

Just look at Mediatek, Acer, and ASUS.