The media in Taiwan have highlighted the lucrative compensation packages purportedly being used to tempt engineers to fill key roles and fuel Nvidia’s ambitious expansion plans. Senior engineers should aim to get more than NTD$5.5 million per annum, reports Taiwan’s EBC News (via Ray Wang on X). Converted to USD, that’s less than $185,000 annually, but potential employees will also be eyeing the traditional annual bonuses given to Taiwanese tech employees, and some enviable stock options.
Readers will probably be aware that Nvidia is tipped to open a second R&D center on the Silicon Island. Nvidia will need the most highly skilled personnel to make the most of this new facility, and that doesn’t come cheap.
We have taken a closer look at the data shared via the wonders of machine translation (see above). The news in Taiwan certainly seems spicy, with the translation suggesting “Nvidia robs people,” but that is explained in more business-like terms elsewhere in the infographic: “Last year, Nvidia used high salaries to poach people from the industry.”
Nvidia’s efforts to acquire more skilled engineers will have to continue apace, due to the R&D expansion plans. Nvidia postings on the company's jobsite, reviewed by Tom's Hardware, indicate the company has 97 jobs available in the country at the time of posting.
The grades and the salaries
The headlining salary of NTD$5.5 million $185,000 per annum, is what EBC News says is being offered to poach or retain senior engineers. For an engineer with perhaps just two to three years' experience, the source hints that NTD$3 million (about $100,000) isn’t hard to achieve. Last but not least, a postgrad (Master's level) engineer joining Nvidia fresh from their studies should be able to ask for a salary between NTD$1.5 to 2 million (roughly $50,000 to $83,000).
Remember, these salaries might seem low depending on where you live, but we should factor in some very generous annual bonuses traditionally given to Taiwanese tech employees, plus the potential of great stock options. The cost of living isn’t bad in Taiwan, either. Numbeo data indicates that living in Taiwan is 24.9% cheaper than living in the U.S., excluding rent, or 37.9% cheaper when rent is factored in.
Taiwanese media has a relatively strong tech focus, and everyday news programs mix in lots of stories about companies such as TSMC, MediaTek, Acer, Asus, and others. Thus, alongside news of the latest soap star’s sex scandal, you will see nuggets about the aforementioned companies, the semiconductor industry in general, (mostly tech) stocks and shares, and even the discussion of tech like CoWoS, HBM, and High-NA EUV. Oh, there’s plenty of politics too, and always something about China’s latest saber-rattling activities around the island.
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