From Cambridge to Korean tech: Josie’s 10-year journey

Meet Josie, a British fullstack developer at Shuttle in Seoul. We sat down with her to learn about her journey from the UK to Korea, what it's like working in tech here, and her advice for having a tech career in Korea.

Profile snapshot

Name: Josie Daw
Nationality: British
Current role & company: Fullstack developer at Shuttle
Years in Korea: About 10 total years
Visa status: F-2-7
Languages spoken: English native, Korean KIIP Level 5 but a lot worse these days

Background & career

Q. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your current role?

Josie: Hi, my name is Josie Daw and I’m a fullstack developer who also sometimes makes apps for fun. My primary focus is working on tech for good and social impact, whether building websites for non-profits or organizing events to help people get into tech.

Q. What was your career path before moving to Korea?

I had just graduated with a masters from the University of Cambridge in Modern British history, and was considering continuing to a PhD and going into academia.

Q. What inspired you to work in Korea?

Brexit.

Experience working in Korea

Q. Tell us briefly about your company (size, industry focus, notable achievements).

Shuttle is a small startup that helps non-Koreans order food and groceries online.

Q. How did you find your current job? Was the hiring process challenging as a foreigner?

I found the job on LinkedIn.

No, it wasn’t challenging. I specifically targeted companies that had job postings in English and I wasn’t confident in my ability to pass an interview fully in Korean. The process at Shuttle is one of the best I’ve encountered: a short introduction call with the hiring manager, a call with the tech team, a (compensated) coding challenge, a review of the challenge with the team, and then an offer.

We’ve streamlined the process even further since I’ve joined, but usually the coding challenge and feedback interview with the team after is the best way to assess someone’s ability and culture fit, we have found.

Q. Can you describe your typical workday?

My work day usually starts around 10 am with a daily standup shared on Slack. I answer any questions or investigate bug reports that might’ve popped up while I was offline, and then move onto my tasks for the sprint.

Most of the time I work independently for the rest of the day on my assigned tasks, checking in with my manager or other coworkers as needed. I usually get caught up in my tasks and don’t take any breaks until about 4 or 5pm, when I take my dog out for a short walk. Then I finish work when I come back and log off for the night.

We have the most flexible working culture of any that I’ve seen in Korea, and work metrics are based on actual productive output rather than time served.

Q. How does Korean work culture compare to your home country's?

This is based on my previous work experiences, as my current one is generally similar to the UK in many ways (as my manager is British).

Korean working culture is basically the opposite of UK working culture. Korean working culture is basically based on “time served” rather than actual productivity, merit, or other tangible outcomes. This means that in Korea, people are promoted or given better projects based on seniority rather than their actual ability to drive or complete their work.

In every standard Korean office I have worked in, this has been the case. I have heard that international companies in Korea also use merit as a metric, but the vast majority expect you to be sitting in an office 9 hours a day at least to be considered a minimum level of productivity- even if you do almost no work each day. This is also the reason why Korean managers generally micromanage. They need to also prove that they are doing something just by being present, even if their efforts actively hinder productivity.

My first tech job hired me as the only foreigner in the office, because the tech team of 9 other Koreans had an incredibly low productivity output. Under Korean law, permanent workers cannot be easily fired for low output and it lis very difficult to fire a full-time, permanent worker for low productivity. It means that permanent workers can spend hours a day doing very little and perhaps complete 5% of work or less per day and remain secure in their job.

The hiring manager hoped that I, as a British person and a very different attitude, would inject some productivity into the existing team.

I quit at my 90 day probation marker because I had spent 2 full weeks commuting over 3 hours a day, to receive no work of any substance but continually promised that a project was coming soon. The reality is that a new, junior foreign worker could never have changed that team attitude towards work/productivity and only built resentment from the others.

Q. Do you speak Korean at work? How is communication handled in your team?

In my first tech job, almost everything was in Korean. I still remember painstakingly writing a message to a coworker who immediately replied, “Did you use Papago?” I learned a lot quickly and have since lost most of those skills.

These days, almost everything is in English. I still need Korean to be able to decipher Korean APIs or identify particular Korean bugs, but generally I use English. Several of my coworkers in the tech team speak almost zero Korean.

Q. What challenges have you faced adapting to Korea's work environment?

These days my life is easier, but I can still remember the struggles that I had with the Korean work environment. I’ve already mentioned productivity, but another one is hierarchy and rigidity. Non-Koreans are often insulated from these two, but not always. We are given a lot more allowance to speak up in meetings or to our managers in ways that our Korean coworkers are rarely ever permitted.

We are usually protected from the repercussions of speaking up or challenging authority, because we, as non-Koreans, are rarely taken seriously. We are expected to leave Korea after one or two years and we are absolutely never expected (or often allowed) to climb the corporate ladder. This is, unfortunately, even more true for women or people who are not white.

Lifestyle & community

Q. What's your life outside of work like? How have you built your social life here?

I live in the suburbs of Gyeonggi, so my life is a bit more quiet than most. To make up for it, I join and start projects, organize events, and try to actively connect with various communities often.

The best way is to join groups and events that you’re interested in, or even create your own! I know a lot of people in Korea struggle with loneliness and end up only being friends with coworkers. There are so many more people to meet in Korea, but it does take courage and sometimes you will face rejection.

I try to view every event that I join as an opportunity to learn something new, rather than to specifically meet someone new or collect business cards. If I learned something from the event, even if I didn’t meet anyone, I have already gained from it.

Q. How much has knowing Korean (or learning it) helped in your daily life?

It depends. In some cases it has been helpful, but more often than not I use the knowledge from KIIP Level 5 to impress Koreans rather than anything else. You need to always know enough to get around by yourself, and you should absolutely memorise Hangul and basic vocab/grammar as your top priority. Contrary to what some people might think, Korea is still not accessible to people who cannot read or write Korean. If you have at least those basic skills, you can get by, but without those, your life will be much harder.

I would also encourage people to learn about Korean culture, and not just from films or tv. One of the best things I did while studying Korean was to read Korean folklore. It taught me so much about historical and modern Korean culture that I never would have learned, and made me appreciate the country more.

To be perfectly honest, most of the time I only use Korean to say “네, 아니요, 괜찮아요” these days.

Q. What was your biggest culture shock when you first arrived?

Inflexibility in customer service and beyond. I don’t mean “the customer is always right”, but rather the many situations where non-Koreans hear “Please understand our unique situation”. In many cases, the person behind the counter is simply uncomfortable serving a non-Korean, so they will just say “No” or “Not for foreigners” instead of giving a real explanation or suggesting an actual solution to the problem at hand.

This inflexibility (and often, outright discrimination) leaves a lot of non-Koreans feeling frustrated and confused, and contributes to why many people ultimately leave Korea - because it is so hard to live your life as a mature professional in a country where everything is designed around temporary immigration or marriage visas.

Reflections & advice

Q. What tips would you give to someone searching for a tech job in Korea?

Make sure you are eligible for a visa before even thinking about anything else. Most people are not eligible for Korean visas and most companies are not eligible to sponsor visas.
Understand what you are signing up for: come to Korea to experience something very different from your home country, but do not necessarily expect career development or a salary match to your home country.
When Korean companies say they are looking for someone who has a high Korean level, they usually also mean someone who is familiar with Korean working culture and will follow the many unwritten rules, so bear that in mind.
Prepare for an exhaustively long application process which can include IQ tests and MBTI tests, and you absolutely can fail a personality test in Korea, so make sure you know the “right” answers!
Multinational companies usually have a streamlined process for hiring non-Koreans, but many companies do not and you may be left in the dark and uninformed about a lot of things even until your arrival in Korea.

Q. What can Korean companies do to better support and integrate international employees?

Korean companies should provide a lot more support to new employees, both before and after arrival. Many international employees get taken advantage of just finding their own apartment, for example. Most Koreans are fully aware of the rules and hazards of renting an apartment, but do not protect their international workers from being mistreated or scammed by landlords or realtors. Who else can protect the newly arrived workers who may not even speak a word of Korean? This type of responsibility has to fall on the company.

Additionally, Korean companies seem to forget that having a more diverse workforce who are able to speak up and share ideas leads to more innovation, and ultimately more profit. They should treasure their international workers, not punish them.

Korean companies also need to be held accountable by the government when they are abusing workers. In Korea, many tech workers are on E-7 visas and their visas and lives in Korea are tied to the contract. A lot of contracts these days are also unlimited, and so the skilled worker is stuck at that company until they generously decide to let them leave the contract or the worker has to leave Korea.

I have heard of many, many cases of Korean companies abusing, exploiting, and blackmailing skilled workers on the E-7 visa. This type of thing makes it riskier for everyone to consider Korea as an option, and must be resolved if the Korean government wants Korea to be taken seriously for skilled tech workers.

Q. What's one thing you wish you knew before moving here?

How inaccessible many aspects of Korean life are without a visa and even more without being married to a Korean.

Oh, and to rent a house you will usually need at least $20,000 in cash as a minimum deposit.

Q. Would you recommend Korea to other international tech professionals, and why?

Korea is a great place for young professionals who want to experience something different for a year or two, or for more experienced workers who are placed in Korea by their company for a project.

However, in my opinion, for tech professionals who are focused on building their career, I wouldn’t recommend it. The reason is because, generally, it is almost impossible to climb the career ladder in tech unless you are an internal transfer or you are at least part Korean.

Another reason is because salaries in Korea are often much lower than in most western countries for the same role, so tech workers in Korea experience a double negative of depressed salaries and stagnating positions, making it much harder when they are trying to negotiate for their future roles outside of Korea.

Rapid fire

Favorite Korean food: 한우 (barbecue)
One must-visit place in Korea: Jeju
Most surprising thing about Korean tech culture: The unique terminology for every possible thing.
Favorite Korean word or phrase: 몹시 (meopsi meaning extremely, very) - I just love the sound of it

Connect with Josie

Website: https://josiedaw.com
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/josiedaw

If you want to be next and contribute, send us an email to florian@dev-korea.com.

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