China’s ‘transcoders’: how the tech sector is still luring non-computer science graduates with the promise of higher wages
- Tech, despite its reputation for long hours and employment volatility, still attracts people because of its higher-than-average salaries
- Many people are opting to switch from ‘less employable’ industries to the internet and hi-tech sectors, by learning to write code
There have been plenty of headlines recently about job losses in China’s tech sector, with economic headwinds, greater regulatory scrutiny and changing market dynamics putting pressure on employment prospects.
But fresh challenges bring new opportunities, and many people are still being drawn to jobs at firms that will define the next stage of the country’s economic development.
William Zhang, who studied linguistics in college and once worked as a translator, recently started working towards the Certified Information Systems Security Professional qualification, which could put him into a higher-paid cybersecurity job.
“I’m seeking a career path change as a cybersecurity expert. The job requires knowledge about computer code security, but is not as demanding as high-level programming jobs,” said Zhang, who is in his early 30s and currently employed at a major tech company’s anti-fraud department in Beijing.
Although his current job only involves research and report-writing, his employer provides online computer science courses for beginners. He is taking the first session on operating system principles. which can take six months. Next stop will be training on computer networks and databases, which could take about a year.
At the end of this, Zhang is hoping to land a cybersecurity job with a 50 per cent pay rise. This job will be responsible for ensuring that networks are safe from external threats, such as hacking – an increasingly powerful threat as more companies digitalise their operations. “The exact salary will of course depend on ability and experience,” he said.
Former journalist Jessica Wang has a similar story to tell.
After working in domestic media for several years and seeing a tougher news environment, she signed up for an intensive programming boot camp in 2021. Not only has she learned a lot, she has also lost 2.5 kilograms in just two months.
“It has been worth it,” said 31-year-old Wang. The training not only introduced her to programming languages including JavaScript, CSS and Ruby, but also helped her to connect with her current employer, a start-up that helps companies develop digital products.
She is now an entry-level project manager. Although it currently pays less than her previous job, Wang says over time “it is likely to generate a greater pay rise [for me]”.
Both Zhang and Wang represent a group of young people in China who attempt zhuanma, a slang term that loosely translates as “transcoding”. These are people who opt for a career change from “less employable” industries to the internet and hi-tech sectors, by learning to write code.
The tech sector – despite its reputation for long hours and employment volatility – still attracts people because of its higher-than-average salaries.
According to a report by Beijing-based higher education consulting firm MyCos last year, fresh graduates securing the highest-paid jobs majored in cybersecurity, software engineering and information engineering.
The average entry-level salary for these graduates was 7,439 yuan (US$1,074), 7,205 and 6,871 yuan per month, respectively. In comparison, the average monthly income in China last year was 3,073 yuan.
The “transcoding” passion even extends to the young Chinese community overseas, particularly those studying computing and maths. On 1Point3Acres.com, a popular online community for Chinese international students and working professionals in North America, the hashtag #IsItTooLateToTranscode was among the top 5 trending topics in the past week.
And the interest remains despite many tech sector job losses amid a global economic slowdown. In the US, more than 18,000 tech workers have been laid off so far this year, on top of more than 164,000 last year, according to Layoffs.fyi, a US website that tracks job cuts.
But this has not deterred many young jobseekers. According to Tedu.cn, an institution that provides vocational training in China, 60 per cent of computer science trainees who got a job in the country in March have a non-IT background, such as linguistics, chemistry and law.
The technical challenges for these non-STEM graduates are not getting any easier with the advent of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot that has passed Google’s Level 3 test for entry-level engineers and answered some of Amazon’s software coding interview questions correctly.
However, both Zhang and Wang are aiming for something different than pure programming, which they say lacks human interaction and is very likely to be increasingly automated.
“For me, being a project manager [is attractive] as it requires a more comprehensive skill set that makes it harder to be replaced by AI,” said Wang. “You’ve got to get someone to lead a project, someone that knows more than technology.”
