2026 job search journey🫠😎
i’m wrapping up my graduate study so i’ve been doing a job search since May. actually prior to that, i was also casually finding a job but i stopped because of my thesis 壓力，可是我心裡師說應該有別的事要做 他建議我繼續找工作。
a little bit of background about me.
i previously was a ux designer, and prior to that i was studying information engineering in university of gadjah mada. now i study industrial management. at first, my goal was to learn about ergonomics, something still related to my previous job, but then God had another plan and i ended up doing research about language model. so the role that i’m applying for is AI engineer. the 2018 me wouldve never thought i would apply for AI engineer jobs 🤣😭 but well i just have to try it.
i’m being realistic, i’m not a top student both during my bachelor’s or master’s, nor that i won a lot of competitions or do groundbreaking research, so expect this to just be a normal diary of job search, not some fantastic job search story. so, some companies that I applied are top global companies, and some are also small or local Taiwanese companies (again, just being realistic)
before may
since last year, i had 2 interviews unrelated to engineer. the first one was like a senior role of product design in Tainan. i was actually hesitant because of the “senior” title, but then still went with it. i had an initial call and eventually they gave me a take home assignment which was a lot. and then long story short, i failed the assignment. but it was a nice discussion, the HR even knew what “university of gadjah mada” was, because he worked in indonesia for some time haha.
and the latest one was in a multinational company, i bet most of us use their products in daily life. i had an initial call and first interview, both conducted in english because the user is from the US. it was for a UX engineer role, but this is not a software UX, more like hardware UX. after that, the HR said they needed some time to confirm the job because the business wanted to move the role to China. and after a month or so, they finally notified me that they no longer want to hire this position in Taiwan. i was quite disappointed because the company was multinational, the job was interesting, and they have shuttle bus from Taipei to Hsinchu, and i think employees can also do work from home. but anyway, let’s move on.
may - june
after getting some encouragement from my psychologist, i decided to continue my job search journey. and i figured to try ai engineering roles even though i probably have confidence issue with my ai engineering skills. before landing my first ai engineer interview, i had to do A/B testing to my resume lmao, and finally with the current version of my resume, i have quite a lot invitations. my first interview was in the early May, it was a 面對面面試, i think because taiwanese like onsite interview, they can see your body language, etc. quite different from indonesia’s interview culture. also here most of companies will need you to write basic information like weight, height, family members, education, previous job, which is all in chinese. that first interview was in Taoyuan, where I had to commute for like one hour and a half. I spent 200NT for this interview trip😭. the interviewer was very nice, he set the atmosphere very relaxed, so i wasnt nervous at all, it was also conducted in english so i mixed english and mandarin. around 2 weeks later i got the offer from them, but after 2 weeks of communicating with them, i decided to reject this offer because of the salary expectations difference.
another interview was with a lab in Taipei. it was also onsite interview, but at least the cost was only 30NT. i interviewed twice and now in the process of waiting the final result. the interview was also in english, but they asked me whether i can read and write chinese. to demonstrate my skill, sometimes i speak chinese to let them know my chinese level. while they can speak english, they expect me to be able to follow the discussion in chinese, and not create any delays when doing discussion or decisions (the director said this to his colleague in front of me, in Chinese, but obviously i understood the whole thing lmao). cries in Chinese**
in between of those dates, i also did some logic test for two companies, including one top hardware company in Taiwan. eventually i was rejected even though they said the result was excellent, so i thought maybe that was just for KPI. but i was so stoked that i got their take home assignment file, so i did that assignments to also practice my engineering skills and put it on my resume. they also had TOEIC test, but honestly speaking, i’m very confident with my english skill, because i yap a lot. i also had screening call with another company from Hsinchu, but eventually the role of AI engineer has to communicate often with the supply chain department, which they all speak Chinese, i think they think it would be risky if i speak to the supply chain department and misunderstand something, and create a fatal problem lol. another recruitment was with the largest PC vendor but i was rejected after the coding test (i will try to remember what the coding test questions were)
i’m about to tell you the most exciting interview i’ve been. so i had this interview for ML engineer role. because the interview was like near my oral defense day, my mind was somewhere else. and i underestimated the interview, thinking it was just another interview like the usual. i prepared, but not that much. and it turned out to be the most technical interview i was ever on. the interview lasted 75 minutes, the discussion was mainly about my master’s thesis. some of the questions from the interview were: “how does LoRA work?”, “what is attention?”, “what machine learning methods do you know?”, “what is agentic AI?”, “explain the formula of BERT”, “what is K-means?”. i do understand that my concept knowledge is not really that deep, especially the things that i dont encounter daily in my life. like okay I know what it is but no way i remember all the equations haha. my answers weren’t wrong i think, but for an engineer role, i knew that more technical answer was expected.
it was also the first interview where the interviewer did not want to use english. i couldnt explain my thesis in chinese, so i used english. luckily i understood everything the interviewer said in chinese, so the interview still went smooth. after 75 minutes of being cooked, i really regretted not doing it perfectly. i quickly went to the internet to see how i shouldve explained those concepts during an interview. but the rice has become porridge (LOL), so i could only wait the result. they said they would inform it in 2 weeks. but to my surprise, after the weekend, the sent me another invitation for the second interview, scheduled a week after my oral defense.
the second interview, i was cooked even more. there were 4 engineers in the room, cooking my thesis harder than my professors lmao. two of them are like young people, and one looked like early grandpa. and this grandpa was cooking me the whole time. he was also worried of my chinese skills, because most of the time i used english. that day was not a very good day, i was so sleepy and i slept before the interview. so i did not warm up my chinese speaking.. and then, the grandpa said my chinese was just A2, but he expected B2 lmao. and then he was talking abt how i graduated from a top school in Indonesia, so he thought technical skills should be fine. okay after 100 minutes of cooked, i thanked them and left. that day, i was like mentally tired because i did the interview in outdoor space lmao. and then i just said to myself, i gave my best.. onto the next one.
i also have another interview scheduled in July, and i requested them to make it online, because the location is in Taoyuan near the airport wtf. and the transportation is a bit complicated.
but anyway, 3 days after the cooked interview, the manager called my cellphone and offered me the job!!!! i was trying to keep my attitude. and the next day he gave me the unofficial offer letter. this offer was much better than the first one, first because he told me the salary, the bonus plan, asked me how long i need to think, and even not rushing me about the starting date!!! so i accepted this job, although i’m scared. they said they’re going to evaluate my Chinese skills as well. i’ll do my best!!!! so excited, so relieved, that finally my job hunting era is finished for now.. i can rocus on finding a place to stay, and wrap up my thesis, and probably go back to Indonesia for some time.
after a week, i also received another interview invitation from a company in Taoyuan. it was kind of a family owned business, but i think the job is not really something that i can learn a lot from. and also the salary was lower. after the interview, i discussed with my family and then i just decided to accept the offer that i got previously, so that i can focus on finding a house and finish my thesis.
takeaways:
this is also my first time doing mass job search, because in my previous job i did not do this kind of thing. so if there are things i can conclude, they are:
as Alisa Liu said, our energy is finite. one company recruitment takes a lot of time and effort. at first, i was mass applying to lots of jobs, but after 1-2 months, i decided to become more pickier, so that i will not get burnout.
attend interviews, even though you don’t really want to. Every time I receive an interview in another city, i was always asking myself: “do i really want to spend this much effort, time, and money?” i get that this might contradict to the first point, but attending interviews is a compound learning experience. you will know what questions are usually asked, you will be more relaxed in every next interview because you’ve done it so many times. since i’m interviewing in Taiwan, it also gave me a lesson. most of the times I could not enter the company so i had to use their telephone to call the HR from outside the gate, which at first for me was confusing and i had to speak Chinese. you also need to spend time to fill their information needs (name, education, job experience, family, expectations, blood type, height, weight, etc.)
timing is important. you will get offers from different companies in different time. you need strategy to delay your answer so you can wait for the result of another recruitment. i may not convey this very well, but i think you understand what i mean.
negotiation. i’m not sure how negotiation is done in Taiwan. some people say usually Taiwanese doesn’t do negotiation, quite different from Indonesia i think. i tried negotiating implicitly, but it was not a success lol. i couldve been more direct, but i’m afraid that’s not how it’s done in Taiwan.
chinese!!! as much as people are cursing me for learning chinese too much, thats what made me passed the screening (at least). it also made you able to depend on yourself.
and with that, my job hunting era is finished!! i’m so excited to get back to working, blend myself in a taiwanese environment, see if i fit as an engineer, and build a long-term career in taiwan! fingers crossed and i hope to survive this.
if you reach this part, thanks for reading the whole thing.. hope it’s useful one way or another. Bye!!!