Don’t use 104. It’s for college graduates who are 22, not middle aged ppl.
Contact a headhunter. They would have openings for senior positions OP is looking for.
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There are suitable jobs for you in Taiwan, but they are rare and will require patience, and of course the financial means to keep paying the bills while unemployed.
If you are up to it, i would consider consulting and working on a project base. It will be easier for companies to take you as a specialist consultant on a project basis then find budget and work for a full time physics PHD.
a friend of mine is doing that outside of TW, in my home country (works 2 days a week, its enough to pay the bills).
Another option is Academia - as a guest lecturer in one of the universities.
Connections matter a lot more too. If you know/worked with someone who knows someone, that’s going to get you more jobs than going through resume sites or especially HR. Seriously, talk with your ex coworkers or friends. They can get you a job faster than a million years of job searching. Even remote work too.
Those will overcome any age or language issues.
104 sucks ass. Don’t bother putting your resume there. All the jobs I have interviewed for, or worked at from 104 all sucked. Job banks are for shit employers who no one will work for or someone who can’t find compliant workers.
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Sure it’s not the optimal platform for him but as I said, might as well, nothing to lose. He should be trying as many channels as possible.
Headhunter is a good suggestion.
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One suggestion, although not sure if this is relevant to your field. You could try the startup scene here. If you want to innovate that is where to be. Angellist used to have a decent amount of Taiwanese startups advertising on there.
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Higher age than the average candidate and lack of Chinese aren’t dealbreakers on their own if you can offer something amazing (which I think you can), but the combination is a serious problem. I think your best bet is to reach out to recruiters. LinkedIn, while not that commonly used in Taiwan generally, is big in the Taiwanese tech industry. Try reaching out to some recruiters there.
The alternative is to do what I did, but this is very time consuming (and it could backfire). Get a job in your home country, make yourself indispensable to that company, apply for a Gold Card (which it sounds like you’ll have no problem getting), and then tell the company you’re leaving if they don’t allow you to work remotely from Taiwan. 
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I agree, create a LinkedIn and apply to a few dozen semiconductor type companies on LinkedIn. In my experience, finding a good job as a foreigner can take 6-12 months, but keep at it.
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OK, the bell ringed here! So, you are over 45 years old, with a Ph.D., plenty of experience, and a foreigner! THEY THINK YOU ARE EXPENSIVE!
If it can help and I’m you, I would apply for jobs and send the salary range I would like to have, I think you would break the ice above.
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It is possible. I did it twice. What positions are you applying for? If you don’t know Chinese do not apply for technician or customer service positions, stick to R&D or some such.
Also make it absolutely clear in your application that you are in Taiwan.
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Better than not saying it…?
@PepePerez not impossible, but not easy. With your experience it should be possible to find a company interested in you. Try to have someone take a look at your resume and make sure it looks as good as possible. Also try headhunters. They’re mostly misguided idiots but many do seem to do something.
Having a PhD could land you some teaching / lecturer jobs too. Consider that as an early and pleasant semi retirement.
Thanks again for your answers here, happy to find people willing to give a hand. Many options you commented I already did, other I will try or at least consider.
When we moved here I knew Taiwan is not Holland or Denmark, for example, where you can live, work and work as a functional person in English, in particular, I heard about the difficulty to find a job if you are not local or speak the language, I thought that there are so much industry in my different fields that it would make up eventually, but alas it ain’t the case, yet I always knew there’s a possibility for the worse to happen. Main problem is now that having brought local wife here + our kid make things worse to move again, as she’s home and wants to settle here.
Anyway, I’ve been more than enough moaning about here. This is what it is and I assume my fault on “miscalibrating” my options here, I prefer to fuck it up rather than not even having tried it…
Thanks again everyone, really!
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Man you need to grow a thicker skin. Try to leave your ego aside and see what to do about the feedback you received. It could be the case that your resume isn’t well written and some HR turned you down because of it, so apart from telling that poster to fick off, go find someone who can proof read it.
Or be thankful, disagree if you feel to do so, and have your freaking resume checked by a native speaker.
Edit: and contact universities. Some of them have Spanish language department. If you can find a technological university that runs classes in Spanish your life here would be awesome. But I’m not sure if that exists here.
I didn’t talk about egos, just tried to get some help. In one of my last messages I just said thank you to everyone for their help. I did not tell anyone to fvck off or anything. And thanks for your advice about getting my CV checked by HR or badly written, but it is definitely not the case.
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You didn’t but your ego got on the way. Listen, that was good feedback, you decide what to do out of it. Go fix your resume.
Did you try with recruiters agencies like Michael Page? A lot of foreign companies in Taiwan use agencies. Taiwanese have a lot of issues doing interviews, they often are very aggressive and insulting.
Again, thanks a lot for your advice. I have no ego for many years now. Again, in one of my messages (I think more than in just one) I said thank you to everybody who gave an input. And final again, please, let me know which part of my CV has to be fixed, I would be, again, really grateful.
What do you mean? Do they insult foreigners during interviews? I thought Taiwanese are kind of Japanese, trying to be polite and somehow mannered. My wife is a local, and although her qualification is not as high as mine, she has a bunch of job offers, she is hesitating and negotiating higher salary contract as she fears she’ll be the only income for the family as long as we stay here…
Well you didn’t. So far I am the closest to your situation, instead of responding to me you are engaging in stupid arguments.
Finding a job can take time anywhere. Might want to start contracting work, consulting, ITRI as I mentioned just to get something going and time to meet more people. Work any angles with companies you may have worked with before.
OP didn’t mention if he needed a high paid job or not. Getting a high paid senior position usually takes a significant amount of time.
Also he definitely needs a Chinese version of his CV. When I started off in Taiwan I couldnt speak or read Chinese but the Chinese CV just made things easier for everybody. Many managers in Taiwan may hate dealing with English but the top boss or dept head could love to work with foreigners and speak English, so you just have to meet those people somehow.
Some smaller companies/dealers may be interested to hire you to help with managing their vendors, customers, or projects or to be the face of certain projects if its the right fit.
OP should be getting some calls from headhunters…but firsrt needs to be active to reach out to them. Be flexible what kind of job one could do.
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