The Alibaba Group is offering an annual salary of 400,000 to 1.5 million yuan (US$61,516 to US$230,686) to attract talents from across the Strait. But the notoriously long working hours and reports of deaths from overwork dampen Taiwanese graduates’ interests in Chinese tech firms.

According to a post on a Taiwanese forum, the tech giant is hiring for a number of positions, including front-end developers, Java, Go and C/C++ developers, algorithm engineer and hardware design engineer. The Alibaba Group, which has offices in Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, is looking for fresh graduates from master’s and doctoral programs.

Though the salary offered by Jack Ma’s group is 1.5 times more than that offered by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, many Taiwanese netizens expressed concerns about the benefits and working hours, which were not stated in the recruitment notice.

Some noted that the sum received by employees after tax and insurance deductions may be significantly lower. Some said only staff who hold a management position and receive a bonus from shares can obtain such a high salary. “It is not attainable in the first year,” said a netizen.

At the same time, the group is facing growing grievances from its own workforce, as employees criticized the grueling work culture that is causing a burnout. They complained about the 361 mechanism, where 30% of the workforce receive more than half of the bonus and are entitled to promotions and salary raises during the annual assessment. 60% of the employees split the remaining bonus, while the remaining staff are not given a raise.

The mechanism causes great anxiety, said an employee, who also lambasted the company for using an outdated management method. Though the hiring advertisement may set a high expectation, its offer lacks behind that of other tech companies.

There are also complaints about the company’s management model on the popular Chinese forum Zhihu. An employee does not recommend people to apply for Alibaba as the company is embroiled in a scandal amid authorities’ investigation. “There are many more better companies to choose from,” he said.

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