Ask Slashdot: Find a Job In China For Non-native Speaker? 402
An anonymous reader writes "My fiancée has recently been accepted into a Chinese university into their Ph.D. program, and I've been looking at jobs in China (specifically the Beijing area) and not having any success. I'm a developer with 8 years of experience (java), mostly on the server side, so I'm not lacking in the general experience, but the problem is I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese. I am a native English speaker from Canada though. The only jobs I've had any responses from were teaching positions for simple English which isn't exactly my first choice. Has anyone had any experience or success as a programmer finding a job in China, without being able to speak the native language? Any websites I should be focusing on?"
Construction or landscaping (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what people who can't speak the language do in the US.
OH my... (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like you need a remote job (Score:4, Interesting)
I think your prospects of finding a local job are dim. You are no more likely to be hired there as a programmer there than a non-english-speaking coder would be in the US. It looks like you are an IT programmer, and quality IT programming is all about understanding business requirements well. You can't even read the business requirements, much less understand them. And no company is going to pay somebody to translate for you when they can just hire a local coder instead.
Concentrate your efforts on an English-speaking coding job that will let you work remotely. You may end up on a lot of middle-of-the-night conference calls, but you'll be better off than being an "English Teacher."
Teaching = best salary (Score:5, Interesting)
Language consultant (Score:5, Interesting)
The only jobs I've had any responses from were teaching positions for simple English which isn't exactly my first choice.
Wrong bzzzzzt. Thats like a CIA trained chef looking for work and applying at McDonalds (which only hires illegals and non-english speakers, so maybe its a closer analogy than you'd think?). A /. analogy would be hiring a CCIE to pull cable.
The way to roll in dough is to download a large chunk of github, write a very short shell script that parses out comments, and develop a curriculum that trains the natives to understand our crappy comments, and possibly how to write non-crappy english language code.
I always laugh when I "view source" on a web page and see its full of hindi comments, or even worse a pitiful attempt at english language comments.
Position yourself where the natives already had "how to ask where is the bathroom in English" classes and they already know java like you claim to know. Now your carefully designed one day / three day / one week seminar will be hired at the local equivalent of $1000/day to teach Chinese java coders how to read english comments and write english comments. Also touch on the comprehension and creation of vaguely english variable and class/object/file names.
You may only get hired a couple times to teach at a couple shops, but you'll make a couple hundred contacts who hopefully will think you know what you're doing, which leads to coding contracts, coding jobs, etc. Also frankly it looks cool on the resume when/if you come home, cooler than yet another "implemented a shopping cart online" blah blah that everyone locally has done a zillion times.
Look for US companies that offshore (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather than looking for work there, try to find US companies that offshore work to China. Failing that, try applying with a firm that works with US companies, though don't expect to be paid much above what they pay their locals.
My employer [demandforce.com] has an offshore team in Beijing. Most of the developers there speak pigeon English and would welcome a native speaker to help improve and we'd welcome someone to help bridge the language gap that can be quite difficult over Skype and such. I'd look for companies like us and inquire about whether we'd be willing to hire you to work in the China office. If you've got a good Java background, I'm sure we'd seriously consider hiring you to work at our China office. We might require you to train for a couple of weeks in SF first and come back for a couple weeks a year, but I'd hope that wouldn't be a problem for you. As a bonus, you'd likely not have to deal with getting a Chinese work permit, though you should probably confirm that.
If you're interested, respond to this comment with some way to contact you and I can send your resume to HR.
Re:Construction or landscaping (Score:3, Interesting)
Find a Chinese Uni. with a foreign partner (Score:4, Interesting)
I had the same situation a few years ago. First, you can totally forget any local programming jobs. Chinese programmers get paid about 2000 RMB / month (a pathetic pittance) and there is a long line to get a starting position.
I found a compromise for the teaching English route; teach IT classes *in* English. Find a university that has a 'learn abroad' exchange program with a university in the USA or UK. Their students there in China will have a requirement to take courses taught in English, preferably by a native speaker, in order to qualify for the exchange program. This is vastly superior to just teaching English and pays better as well. I taught at China Agricultural University which has such an agreement with University of Portsmouth in the UK. There are a lot of others with the same situation. To find them, work backwards: browse the websites of the schools in the UK and US in the foreign exchange section and look for their partner schools in China. If there is a 'you must complete x hours of courses taught in English', apply to that school in China.
Either that, or before you even go set up a "100% work remote" gig with an employer here.
Re:Construction or landscaping (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe race wasn't intended. Construction and landscaping is stereotypical illegal immigrant work, and when people think illegal immigrants they think Latinos. It still raises eyebrows when you talk about dropping off orange soda and KFC to an inner-city homeless shelter even if you have a ton of soda and KFC left over from your nephew's birthday party. It wasn't your fault if they ate all the pizza and drank all the Coca-cola, right?
I won't deny you don't raise some relevant points. It is going to be an up hill battle unless he starts learning Mandarin. Even if he telecommutes or freelances online to English speaking areas he'll be isolated locally.
Re:Are you nuts? (Score:5, Interesting)
I emailed a company in Shenzhen a couple of years ago, asking if I could do an internship as a CS major. They said yes, and when I arrived they had me working on improving their perception in the eyes of Westerners generally. I re-translated technical manuals (Chinglish to English) and re-wrote whole sections of manuals (they were awful) and did some prototype testing. They really wanted me to come back full-time after school, but I got an offer from a US firm that I couldn't refuse.
I had a great experience, but the company was "different" by Chinese standards. It was a start-up, created by younger (sub-30) engineers who were creating original, high-quality work that they were proud of. They were not owned, in any part, by the Chinese government, which gave them a significant competitive disadvantage within China, but their product was recognized as top-rate outside of China.
If you can find something like this, you might even offer your services at a discount in the short-term. After getting to know you, these newer companies will see the benefit of having a seasoned outsider. Don't plan on writing much code, though.
Re:I've spent a year traveling and working in chin (Score:4, Interesting)
One word: guanxi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi [wikipedia.org]