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Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

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Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#11

Post by dougmwne »

Funny. I just read about 996 in a comment on another HN post today. I couldn't believe that schedule could actually exist in Chinese workplace culture so I started doing some research. Sure enough, this hellish schedule is actually quite common and official at major Chinese startups and tech companies. It seems like it's not as common at western companies operating in China. There's even a joke about 007: 0AM-0AM, 7 days a week.

Of course this flies in the face of my own experience that for the majority of people, productivity tops out at 40 hours per week unless it's for very short periods of crunch time. It's odd to see people so burnt out they've lost the self awareness to see that they've stopped adding value with their perpetual motion.

Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#12

Post by sniperjzp »

cjhanks wrote: post #3

Are you a talented dev in China tired of 996? American and EU companies are looking for you.

I worked in EU (Paris, France) for a year, was paid about 30% less than working in China, not to mention high living cost in Paris. The benefit is people DO have work-life balance. I'm working in US right now, one of FAANG, I'm paid way more (>4x) than EU and China, sometimes I still need to work till midnight, but not as hard as when I was in China.

Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#14

Post by currymj »

geyang wrote: post #5

It is taking longer and longer to get a work visa to the US if you work in ML or quantum computing. US don't want us.

there is some chance this will completely reverse around February 2021 if a different administration is elected. the current White House has promoted paranoia towards China, and made a general push to curtail even legal immigration.

Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#15

Post by muzani »

cjhanks wrote: post #3

Are you a talented dev in China tired of 996? American and EU companies are looking for you.

American? No. The visa system is the worst in the world. I got past a few interviews, only to hit a block on the visa thing. I've stopped applying since Trump became president, as things will only get worse.

Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#16

Post by ceohockey60 »

This self advocacy is encouraging and long overdue IMO.

The Chinese colloquial term for developer is "码农". Its literal English translation is "code peasants" -- not the most flattering or respectful way to call software engineers.

I've recently heard horror stories, where 9-9-6 is no longer enough inside one of the Chinese tech giants, and 10-10-7 is expected (10am-10pm, 7 days/week)

I hope this brings about some positive change and won't just get blocked by the authority.

Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#17

Post by mariopt »

whoisjuan wrote: post #6

I always had a question about hiring Chinese engineers remotely. Is it easy to handle salary payments to China and will the Chinese Firewall interfere with any web development activity they have to do? Is anyone here doing it?

Not sure about this but I think yes. China has network filtering software for VPNs, in fact, the more advanced anti VPN blocker tools are Chinese due to the firewall.

They have several websites blocked like Google, Facebook (no OAuth integrations). Anything that involves networking might suffer. They would probably get a police visit if the firewall has triggers for sshing into a server (common in devops). Not joking: https://github.com/ukanth/afwall/issues/420#issuecomment-262...

Maybe they could work but would have serious limitations I guess. In a "communist" country, don't even know if they have a tax status for freelancing given the government behaviour.

The only work around would be to have a based company in China to outsource.

Re: Chinese Devs Using GitHub to Protest 996 Workweek (9am – 9pm, 6 days/week)

#20

Post by atr_gz »

dougmwne wrote: post #11

Funny. I just read about 996 in a comment on another HN post today. I couldn't believe that schedule could actually exist in Chinese workplace culture so I started doing some research. Sure enough, this hellish schedule is actually quite common and official at major Chinese startups and tech companies. It seems like it's not as common at western companies operating in China. There's even a joke about 007: 0AM-0AM, 7…

It's not just tech - lots of jobs require people to work 6 days a week in China.
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