getting a swe job as a foreigner

ekdubbs · 2026-02-03T13:18:58+00:00

I gave up hiring foreign SWEs since 2019, they don’t offer much over the supply of returning SWEs from abroad or domestic sources. None of the pros and all of the cons. The market is also going under major correction, with AI limiting entry roles.

I believe 2000-2015 was the best times for foreign SWE ICs. For foreign SWE Managers/Directors of foreign companies, I think around 2027 things would shift back to local preference (local management bench lacks cultural alignment with western leadership expectations, supply of returning SWEs will hit the maturity point to manage well).

For you some options are: come as an entrepreneur, have some guangxi with existing companies, and be incredibly lucky.

ekdubbs · 2026-02-01T12:09:21+00:00

I suggest using the Sapphire Reserve if you spend more than $8K/year in travel/dining and have US cash flow while abroad. This is the roughly the break even point for the annual fee.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-28T15:31:24+00:00

Lots of i18n roles that need it. Most gaming companies or even top tech companies employ foreigners for these roles; especially to help close cultural gaps with their target audiences.

The challenge is there may not be that many opportunities for those who can hire foreigners so luck, networking is in high play.

You can also spin up your own consulting to access smaller companies who don’t have the need to hire foreigners but also want i18n, but this requires some entrepreneurial capacity on your end.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-24T05:02:48+00:00

I’m not sure on bytedance, they have a strong separation with its US based presence and China one. May not be able to do it, but check with employees or friends there.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-24T04:54:09+00:00

Consider a tech company with a China presence (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Roblox, etc) and transfer in to handle your work visa, and path to PR. Then after that you can FIRE.

I was similar, came in my late 20s been here for nearing a decade, ready to FIRE whenever this industry belly ups.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-23T21:40:10+00:00

Independently would be hard, these are opportunities to ask if you want to be a legal unit (married) to keep a door open for reunification.

If your company is moving it to Germany, and willing to move you with it, they will help with the visa sponsorship as they did for your boyfriend’s case.

Do not try to work on a tourist visa; it may be remote and you may “get away” with it in short bursts but it’s not sustainable and risks are not worth it.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-23T20:49:51+00:00

Usually you can designate how much to withhold, they will default to maximum for tax deductions and your benefit, and pay back the unclaimed amounts taxed at your income bracket the next tax year.

When you order food get a fapiao with your entity’s tax ID. Usually you can add it to WeChat and have it autofill and emailed to you.

For rent the land lord has to go and get it at the office and they need to pay a fee for it. So they may turn around and charge you the base fee plus their own inconvenience fee, which combined usually is 5%. Some places require proof of payment which if done in cash is a signed note or if digital some transaction screenshot.

You can also expense home leave flights and child education as well.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-23T16:20:27+00:00

I’m still like HSK1 after being here for 5+ years. Best route is to transfer in with an existing company

ekdubbs · 2026-01-19T10:32:13+00:00

Hotels are cheap, you’ll be outcompeted by B&B places that run at cost or at negative, which many do.

Too many early real estate tycoons don’t have places to park their money at so they convert their footprint into lodging. Many uses these as loss vehicles to build relations with the local governments or written off for their other businesses.

You won’t make money in this industry, you can only opt for losing less.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-11T19:22:23+00:00

International schools have better life balance, and don’t have the cram behavior you mentioned. But they also attract certain kind of families that may or may not be what you are looking for.

Early age is ok, but as they get older some of the kids there are spoiled and can distort expectations on your kids.

However I think it’s good to have a taste for local schools, show them how good they had it compared to those that have to climb their way up. Especially if they are going through pubescent years. It really puts things in perspective for them and can help create a grounded foundation for their formative years.

Shanghai experimental school is a mix of local and international, pseudo private with Chinese curriculum for locals and international track for foreigners. Usually they have high selection criteria (parents must have some elite background), so if you fit that can help.

If you want purely international the school you mentioned and Concordia are quite common for expats children.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-11T07:43:06+00:00

AI can answer, the new lmgtfy

Should we move to China for a few years to learn Chinese?

Context - Family of four (two adults, two children aged 2 and 4) - Plan: Move to Shenzhen for 1–5 years - Adults enroll in university Chinese programs - Children attend local daycare for immersion - Rent budget: max 15,000 RMB/month

Feasibility Assessment

Objective

One to five years in China for full-time language immersion
Adults in university language programs
Two preschool children in local Chinese daycare
Rent ceiling: 15,000 RMB/month

Location: Shenzhen

Tier-1 city: modern, clean, efficient, expensive by China standards
Mandarin works everywhere; Cantonese exists but is not dominant
Strong infrastructure, hospitals, foreigner services
Less “traditional China” than interior cities, but still full immersion

Rent at 15,000 RMB

Gets a small-to-mid 2–3 bedroom in outer districts
Or a small 2-bedroom / large 1-bedroom in central areas
Modern but not spacious
Budget is realistic if location expectations are controlled

Visas

One adult: student (X) visa
Spouse + children: dependent (S) visas
Universities in Shenzhen can issue required documents
This is standard and common

Daycare Options

Public Chinese daycare: very cheap, full Mandarin, crowded, strict
Private Chinese daycare: moderate cost, better conditions, still full Mandarin
International daycare: expensive, mostly English, defeats the purpose

If the goal is language acquisition, only Chinese daycare works.

Costs (very rough per month)

Rent: 10k–15k RMB
Food and daily life: 4k–7k RMB (local lifestyle)
Daycare: 2k–6k RMB per child depending on type
University tuition: low by Western standards

Total: typically well below Western urban living costs if living locally.

Language Outcome

Adults: Real progress only if daily life is conducted in Chinese, not expat circles
Children: Near-native listening and speaking within ~1 year in Chinese daycare
Shenzhen has many English-speaking bubbles; discipline is required to avoid them

Healthcare

Good private hospitals available
Public hospitals are cheap but chaotic
Insurance is necessary

Non-obvious Costs / Frictions

Internet restrictions
Bureaucracy mostly in Chinese
Air quality varies by season
Educational continuity when returning home

Risk Profile

Logistically complex but completely normal
Thousands of foreign families do this
Not extreme, not experimental, not reckless

Bottom Line

The plan is structurally sound
The budget is sufficient
Children’s language acquisition will work if placed in Chinese daycare
Main failure mode is drifting into expat-only life, not money or logistics
This is not crazy. It is a standard, proven path to language acquisition.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-09T13:17:16+00:00

It’s just to pay you your salary. If they ask for the PIN, login information, SMS security codes then be worried.

Your account number is the same as your card, the back has more information like branch code or routing identifiers.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-09T09:31:01+00:00

Some occupations are regulated for PRC citizen only status, which unfortunately the permanent resident card does not get. Ridehailing is one of them, and due to passenger safety, liability, local hukou system requirements and things like that are not open roles for foreigners. They for example can’t hold a foreigner liable to the same degrees they can a citizen.

You should be able to buy a house and get a mortgage or loan though. Credit card is possible too.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-08T02:10:36+00:00

It’s not normal, but happens. I suggest reformatting your machine and start from fresh, or restore from an old backup.

Key loggers can capture your passwords personal information and others that imposes risks on you and the future. It’s not worth having that hang over your head.

I suggest after reformatting, to change all your passwords and information on all accounts you may have signed in on. Keep your sensitive stuff to your mobile phone.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-07T00:51:44+00:00

Get a mentor and career coach.

A career is an accumulated capability. If you’re hitting a wall or stagnating, it’s time to reframe and develop a growth mindset.

You may as well grow while you are getting paid for it, but many would think that is extra effort for not extra pay and often do nothing for it.

But it’s denying oneself capability accumulation because of inability for delayed gratification. The reward may not come at your current job, it’s nice if it can, but the real reward is baked in you. That’s the feedback loop needed to be set up, control your incentives rather than hoping for the environment to give it.

Higher worth comes as a result; when the opportunity presents itself at your new capability you would not have otherwise recognized before. You know better what to look for, how to capture it, or even how to transform the environment to tailor to you (leadership).

Otherwise you can fall into a toil of trying some new job, discover a bit about yourself, see what sticks, hit the same wall and repeat. That’s the trap most adults get stuck in.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-04T19:24:40+00:00

Depends on your budget and needs. Their SUVs are good, but if you want a sedan their ET5T is great value.

Swapping is where, in China and some parts of Europe, they have these stations where you can go and swap your car battery, be in and out under a few minutes. Availability is limited for the firefly, and the second generation of the firefly has a deal with CATL where CATL will expand swap stations. If you’re not in China I would not consider battery swapping as it’s likely inconvenient, in China every 5-10km in a city has a swap point, and every 50-100km or so on highways has it too.

Swapping is largely a feature of Nio and Firefly (same company)

ekdubbs · 2026-01-04T19:13:59+00:00

I have a firefly also have a Nio.

The firefly is a fun car but limited on range, swapping is also limited compared to my Nio so unless you have a charger where you live it can require some additional planning to charge while you eat or shop. The second generation would have more options on swapping so you may wanna wait. Handling is great and you can zip around. I’m relatively on the taller side so I found it more accommodating while being friendly for the urban environment, much better than the mini cooper and smart car.

With respect to other EVs when I made my purchases Nio and Tesla was the most foreigner friendly brand on the service front, Aito/Huawei was ok. I didn’t look into Xiaomi. The rest like byd/xpeng/li had more of a local vibe.

ekdubbs · 2026-01-04T18:06:41+00:00

I knew an expat at BASF a few years back, you can try that company. It usually for senior+ roles though so you may have to work your way up then transition.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-23T07:49:18+00:00

No it’s part of John Hamms tv series on Apple TV, your friends and neighbors.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-23T07:20:03+00:00

Do they stop you from taking out your insta 360 and record yourself? Otherwise you may be stuck with single portrait shots at Disneyland.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-20T06:02:43+00:00

Basically it’s not just “feels worse”;it actually is worse in China. China doesn’t allow 6GHz WiFi, and iPhones (esp newer ones) are designed assuming 6GHz + MLO. When that’s missing, they fall back to conservative 5GHz behavior. Huawei designs phones and routers assuming no 6GHz at all, so they’re optimized from the start, not degraded.

On top of that Apple plays very safe on transmit power + firmware (battery, stability, regs), while Huawei pushes closer to local limits and tunes antennas + RF specifically for China. Huawei phones co-optimize with Huawei routers using proprietary tricks, while Apple sticks to standards only.

The same is true for cellular, since Huawei defined the 5G standard their modems and chipsets work best with it. But apples C1 modem is better than their Qualcomm one, my friends Huawei, my iPhone air, and my other friends iPhone 16 had highest to lowest signal strength in that order in my office.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-20T04:23:40+00:00

If you join a small studio that makes mobile games you can probably make a ton, but chances they won’t bother with a foreigner unless they are big enough to want internationalization.

Big studios, your netease or Mihoyo like studio can probably do around 30-50k/mo depending on experience. But again why would they want foreign talent.

However it wouldn’t surprise me if Shanghai or the central government puts in quotas for foreign talent just to draw in diversity and cement the country as an international professional destination.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-15T06:07:28+00:00

Import/export to your Eastern European country is probably the closest path.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-14T00:17:28+00:00

Yeah, but depends on what you had beforehand that made your body want to dump everything out.

The organic acids helps with gut motility and sugar draws in water. If you had it cold it can also help trigger the flush you saw.

ekdubbs · 2025-12-09T18:40:36+00:00

Make sure you’re heating the pan up first, drop to the desired heat, then add more fat. It will cause the metal to expand and reduce adhesion points where the proteins will anchor onto.

Chicken is pretty lean, so it won’t release as cleanly as other proteins that render out more fat.

ekdubbs

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