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But at what cost
Mmm, China perfidiously stealing the hard-earned talent of Western engineers? I know just the solution! They should build an anti-communist self-defence wall:
We no longer wanted to stand by passively and see how doctors, engineers, and skilled workers were induced by refined methods unworthy of the dignity of man to give up their secure existence in the GDR and work in West Germany or West Berlin. These and other manipulations cost the GDR annual losses amounting to 3.5 thousand million marks.
Some fine historical irony. Of course, given the way the university system works in places like the US, there's not even a good argument that this imposes costs on the public, who trains personnel only for them to leave and benefit some other state.
Maybe this is what Trump's wall is for.
Damn, guess they'll have to introduce laws to improve transparency in hiring /s
Microsoft, Apple and Google all collectively shed one single tear as their concerns for their multi-billion dollar profits. For the Execs that is.
Such disgustingly deliberate word choice when China hasn't dropped bombs in, what, 60 years? The bombardment is happening in Gaza, not the fucking tech sector
Ok but hear me out
"To bombard someone with letters" is an expression actively used in the English language.
China hasn’t dropped bombs in, what, 60 years?
Almost correct. The last war-sized conflict China took part in was the 1979 Chinese-Vietnamese war [1]. That was 45 years ago. Battle-sized events between China and Vietnam have occurred up to 1991 [2], that would be up to 23 years ago. Skirmish-sized events with India are as recent as 2021. [3]. As for what occurs in Gaza, I agree. Bad stuff has been happening there. Going by the tonnage of things blowing up, Gaza is a gang shootout compared to Ukraine, though.
China is Bombarding Tech Talent With Job Offers.
But at what cost? 
heyy send some of those bombs my way!|
Wish China would offer to triple my pay but I don't speak any chinese languages so they probably won't.
I should learn Mandarin
Based. The west has long relied on international brain drain (caused by imperial wars and neo-colonialism) to accumulate the "best and the brightest" and put a stranglehold on the tertiary/quaternary sectors. It's amusing to see the shoe on the other foot, especially after the western tech giants have worked so hard to suppress tech worker wages.
In fact, the West gobbling up skilled labor is a factor of imperialism and underdevelopment. Labor is the superior of capital, so the loss of a skilled engineer is always worse than whatever remittances they might return home.
I'm not talented enough to get poached 😢
As Western governments make it harder for China to access sensitive technologies—a trend expected to continue under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump—many Chinese companies are trying to get ahead by luring away top engineers in areas such as advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
Hopefully the wsj made up the part about AI. They would do more harm to China than good
Chinese capitalists are just as prone to bullshit as western ones. Chinese government might reign it in but they are slow to react.
It depends on what they mean by "AI"
It's a shitty marketing buzzword so it can mean anything from algorithmic logic to LLMs. Not all "AI" requires it's own nuclear power plant and a Great Lake to operate.
AI has plenty of good uses. Its just capitalism that finds the shittiest ways for them to be possibly used.
Wym?
Those perfidious Asiatics, offering competitive salaries to experienced engineers! Very anti-competitive. I know what we should do - we can quadruple down on harassing researchers and professionals with Chinese origins. Heck, anyone vaguely Asian will do.
I found this line very funny:
State funding for Chinese companies enables them to offer salaries beyond what Western companies can pay.
Source?
ASML made €8 billion in net income in 2023. TSMC, $30 billion (not Western, but mentioned in the same breath). I'm sure they could scrounge a few coins from under the couch cushions to match salaries if they wanted to.
But if they offered higher salaries, how would shareholders afford to buy their third yacht?
So true, but also y’all did the Chips Act and some of the most heavy handed protectionism seen this century. The fuck you talking about
Oh no! Won't someone think of the executives? Anyways.
They should bombard me with job offers
Just let me work remote, thanks.
From what I've read about working at Chinese tech companies, you will not get to work remotely. In fact, you will be required to work in an office for 10 hrs a day instead of coming and going as you please.
Just look at the TSMC factory in AZ as an example. Taiwanese work expectations are not very compatible with how top US talent wants to work.
For 3x the money! Sign me up but I would need a pretty bad ass contract to jumpship!
Didn't see any specifics around hours in the article though.
Is it twice the pay for twice the working hours? 996 or whatever they call it?
If you're a top engineer (or any similar senior position) for a western company, you ain't working 40 hr/week. 50-70 hours a week is going to be the norm for that type of position in the west as well.
Well the work takes 20 hours per week in any case. It's just a matter of if the hour sheet is getting 40/50/60/70 marked in
I don't know what tech companies you worked for, but when I was working for a software company, I was averaging 45 hours in a client IT position, and all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours. And that was during normal periods: things definitely went into crunch mode around version releases and client go-lives. As far as I can tell, this is true across the broader industry.
all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours
Sounds insane. Would you say that was useful work for some broader goal, or was it just about money? I could not imagine working like that.
That's the expectation but apparently according to scientists, and easy to verify empirically, human cognitive levels decline after some four to six hours of deep focus depending on individuals and unique situations. So the ones grinding for 60 hrs all the time basically don't get anything more or better done. It's just time sheet theater.
Crunch can be an emergency situation kind of thing but that's not sustainable and all and needs its own recovery.
The point wasn't that this work culture was good, but rather it doesn't make sense to single out China when it's endemic to the tech industry worldwide.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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