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Comment by magic_smoke_ee | Hacker News Reader

Basically 25% of what American SWEs make. I can only surmise the cost of living is much lower in Taiwan.

They don't have that many SWE...so be careful on your comparisons. 95% of their engineers are non-SWE...and those engineering disciplines do not make 4X those salaries listed above.

It is mostly, but real estate in Taipei is more expensive than SF.

yeah of course, but many organizations have a rigid corporate ladder to overcome. this seems like one of them, and their many "cultural differences".

they are incentivized to underpay americans, complain that they "can't" find talent, to ensure the relevancy of Taiwan

but their arguments are weak and solved with compensation

They are not solved with compensation...simply put Taiwanese in both the US or Taiwan will put in more hours and work harder regardless of pay. Will compensation get some US workers to work as hard...yes...but not enough for what is needed to expand the AZ plant and keep it running. The numbers in the OP are Taiwan salaries...AZ salaries are upwards of $140-150K (not including bonuses) for someone with <10 years experience. These are not SWE...these are mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers...not in competition with Google, Apple, Meta, etc.

Yep, not that many top-tier talent in the US willing to be in the factory for the graveyard shift under high pressure. The lines run 24/7 and if anything is slightly wrong techs need to be already on site to go fix it, because it's crap tons of money for every second of downtime. That leads to a corporate culture where even R&D has similar pressures from your boss (because essentially you're always racing with the competing fabs).

Ive never understood this culture. This kind of operation could be achieved by having several teams of folks working in shifts so noone is working crazy long, no? It seems like the company is unwilling to invest in the manpower required to achieve that SLA? fwiw ive heard similar things about the fruit company.

They have 24/7 people on site, 4 shifts that cover the work...but those are generally techs in the US, which have associate degrees or less. In Taiwan they are generally engineers that work the 24/7 shifts.

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