Chinese engineers thrive in Silicon Valley
Print Edition
AFTER decades of hard work and dedication, Chinese engineers are well perched in California’s Silicon Valley to build a flourishing career and a prosperous life.
Both Zhang Xiaodan and Zhao Yao feel high times in Silicon Valley are yet to come their way, as they mingle into the vibe of high-tech giants like Google, Facebook and Apple.
“The company I work for has a great sway in the world. New things happen each day, which is exciting,” says Zhang, a software engineer working for a leading high-tech company, who came from Beijing and settled in the Bay Area in 2015.
Silicon Valley hosts a surfeit of high-tech companies and start-up enterprises, providing chances for Chinese engineers like Zhang to boost their careers, build a decent life and pursue wild ambitions.
“Chinese programmers are one of the mainstays in Silicon Valley. Many nutcrackers in many major corporations are Chinese,” says Zhao, 38.
He came from Hunan Province, won his bachelor and master’s degrees at the distinguished Tsinghua University in Beijing, got his doctorate at the Northwestern University in Illinois, served the Bell Laboratory and Google in tandem and is now director of data science at a high-tech start-up Shape Security.
Top brands attract top engineers and programmers to the valley, who innovate and create to earn their living. And those from China have been a strong presence.
“You know, (when) I look back on my team’s members, probably 80 percent of them were made up of either Chinese or Indians,” says Steve Mansour, CTO of Accord Interest, who had been hired by Apple and PayPal as a senior manager.
It is hard to ascertain the exact number of the Chinese people working for the companies here. But it is not wrong to say that their presence is now too large to be neglected, either for traditional tech giants like Google, Apple and Cisco Systems, or for rising Internet powers like Twitter and Facebook.
A 10 percent share is always the baseline.
“The peak of my team’s largest size was roughly around 300 people at eBay, and probably about half of them were Chinese. So I would say, they make a huge contribution,” Mansour says.
Prosperous with talent
Official figures said that the annual income for an average American family was US$55,000 in 2015, while the valley version stood at US$76,000, let alone the US$200,000 to US$400,000 an engineer makes a year at the several giants.
A yearning for a promising future and the confidence to achieve it makes Chinese engineers and programmers tether themselves tighter to what they have been accomplishing so far in Silicon Valley.
“Around me are amazing people. They fit in with the mechanism so well and dare to develop fancy ideas into real products,” Zhang says.
Diversity, innovation and good finance transforms Silicon Valley into a pilgrimage IT professionals have to make at least once in their lifetime.
Chinese players come no later than the others. They help build the scenery and share the fruits, leaving a non-erasable mark in the city’s high-tech landscape.
“Most of my friends think innovation as necessary and they intend to innovate. Our generation wants to take risks to tap our potentials,” adds Zhao.
Chinese engineers and programmers are making their call in Silicon Valley, through the elite education they received both in China and the United States, as well as a widely acclaimed work style featuring a combination of devotion and concentration.
An outstanding resume and total immersion have enabled Zhang to achieve more out of life and career.
“I studied Olympic math since a young age and attended the Middle School affiliated to the Renmin University. Mathematics has always been my favorite, which interests me a lot. After graduation from middle school, I applied for colleges both in China and overseas,” Zhang says.
With a decent salary and less financial concerns, she has become more daring in exploring new ideas in her career.
“Many people around me are devoted to their jobs. They are able to develop idea into reality. I think the Chinese people here become more daring to challenge themselves, which is a very good phenomenon,” she adds.
Education background and dedication give Chinese engineers a solid base and earn them a word of mouth reputation.
“I found Chinese programmers to be highly reliable, very technically capable. Absolutely I can’t imagine high-tech without the Chinese people, without the Asians involved,” says Mansour.
High time yet to come
Zhao has a larger dream to chase. In regard of his start-up project, he is weaving his resources in China and the US to carve out a larger domain in the field of Internet security and innovation.
“I had my bachelor and master degrees from Tsinghua University, where I gained a solid foothold in education. As we know, Tsinghua pays much attention to basic sciences, including mathematics and computers,” Zhao says.
Looking back, Zhao palpably owes his success much to his school years. Later when he started his career in the United States, especially as he began to hammer out a professional track in Silicon Valley, such a perception or belief proved true and more worthy.
“When you come to the United States for study or work, you will find what you learned before (in China) can now help you process much more difficult problems, even problems that others can’t get over with,” adds Zhao.
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