Working in New Zealand
“Haka Haka Hu! I’m passing my mana to you — you’ll definitely get this job!” After a rousing Māori war dance, the Māori guy across from me struck a Hadouken pose from Street Fighter, but what came out of his mouth wasn’t “hadouken” — it was the words above.
After thanking the Māori guy, I walked out of the University of Auckland gates and boarded the double-decker bus home. Who would have thought my first job interview in New Zealand would end with such a uniquely Kiwi blessing? This Māori guy might have been a student at the university, volunteering as a fundraiser for an anti-poverty organisation. I told him I was here for an interview, and he improvised a Māori-style blessing.
The Haka is a Māori performance. Originally, it was performed before tribal conflicts to boost morale and intimidate the enemy. Legend has it that when the first Dutch colonisers discovered New Zealand, they named it after the Dutch province of Zeelandia — New Zeelandia, following the same pattern as New York, New Orleans, New Jersey. When this guy landed and saw a group of Māori performing the haka, he thought they were welcoming him with song and dance. He went up to them and got thoroughly thrashed before fleeing, never to return — leaving only the name “New Zealand.” Today, the haka is performed at welcoming ceremonies and celebrations. Premier Li Keqiang saw one during his visit last month. The most famous haka is performed by the national rugby team, the All Blacks, before their matches. But since rugby isn’t widely watched in China, not many people know about it.
“Mana” is another famous Māori word that many Westerners find hard to grasp, but for Chinese, it’s easy — it’s like inner strength, Qi, or spiritual power, something that can be transferred between people. Maybe that Māori guy’s mana really worked. Half a month later, I got the offer from the University of Auckland. I’ve now been in my new role for about three months. Time to write something about it.
New Zealand’s Software Industry
Before deciding to emigrate, I had mentally prepared myself. You hear stories about doctors driving taxis and PhDs working construction. Starting over in a strange place isn’t going to be smooth sailing. I’d prepared for the worst — if all else failed, I’d go pick fruit at a kiwifruit orchard, eating one for every one I picked.
First, I checked the universities — I wanted to stick with my old profession. I discovered the country only has six universities. Easy enough to browse through all of them. None were hiring computer science teachers. So, no university. What about colleges? I searched and found plenty of colleges, but then I discovered the weird thing: in New Zealand, “college” means high school (or sometimes technical school), not a second-tier university like in China. So if someone tells you they’re studying at “XXX College” in New Zealand, they’re basically at high school level.
Since I couldn’t do my old job, I’d settle for being a coder. I’d been teaching computer science and writing code for years. I’d never worked at a software company — never eaten pork, but I’d seen plenty of pigs run. This chapter is what I found from researching the coding job market, plus some hearsay that may not be accurate. After all, I ended up back in academia anyway — never did get to taste New Zealand’s pork.
In March, a news story about NZ IT went viral on WeChat (see below). It said Wellington, the capital, was building the “Silicon Valley of the Southern Hemisphere.” All they needed were coders — they’d fly you in for an interview, and if you got the job, you could immigrate directly. Several friends forwarded it to me, all raring to go. And then? Like every viral news story in China, three days later, nothing.
I followed up on this story later. Turns out there was a “then.” Over 48,700 people applied. How many got interview opportunities? 100. That’s a 0.2% acceptance rate — and that’s just for an interview. How many actually got jobs through this? Even fewer. A 0.2% acceptance rate — you’d be better off taking the civil service exam for Zhongnanhai and becoming a leader directly, rather than coming to this remote corner of the world to be a coder. For details, see:
More than 48,000 from around the world apply for a LookSee at Wellington
Most applicants were from India, followed by the US. About 2,000 Chinese coders applied — slightly more than the Philippines and Singapore, fewer than Poland. So plenty have the inclination, but few actually follow through. By that ratio, about 4 people could come to New Zealand for interviews. I don’t know if any actually did, but if they did, I guarantee they’d be bitterly disappointed. Why? Compared to China, the US, or India, New Zealand’s software industry isn’t really an industry. It’s a cottage industry.
New Zealand has virtually no software companies of any size. A startup burning through cash in China has more employees than a software company here. Ten people or more counts as a big company. Why are they all so small? No market. First, the population is tiny — no economies of scale. Even with some local-specific needs, the whole country has only 4 million people. If 10% of them use your software, that’s 400,000 users — fewer than a Chinese startup gets from a few spam emails or QR codes scanned on the subway. Second, English-speaking Western culture means there’s little localisation demand. Google made a Māori language search — that’s about it. But most Māori speak good English anyway, so there’s no real need. In China, with so many localisation requirements, Microsoft even developed a special government version of Windows 10. The direct result is that international tech giants only have sales offices in New Zealand — no R&D. Google has a 5-person office here. Apple uses commission-only temps. Facebook has single-digit employees.
Compared to China, New Zealand’s software industry is practically in the Stone Age. No mobile payments, no mobile ride-hailing, no mobile ticketing for flights, trains, or movies, no mobile food ordering, no mobile stock trading. The biggest online shopping platform, Trade Me, is basically Taobao from 10 years ago — still selling second-hand goods. Logistics are terrible — even same-city delivery can take half a month. Since you can’t do much with your phone anyway, nobody cares about phones. My boss is still using an old Nokia Lumia 430. If any Chinese software company bothered to come here, they’d wipe the floor with local competitors. But the market is so small, no one probably thinks it’s worth it.
Because software companies are all so small, they want generalists — someone they can hire to do everything. The term “full stack developer,” which I’ve always found a bit gimmicky, is hugely popular here. They want one coder to handle all the development. Along with that, agile methods and tools are very popular — Scrum, for instance. A few people meet every morning and know what needs doing. As for hiring, since the companies are so small, many don’t even have HR departments. Almost all recruiting is outsourced to a handful of agencies nationwide. As for the business itself — because they’re small, they’ll do anything for money. If there’s no project, they lay people off. When a project comes in, they hire. Many people are contractors, brought on for a specific project. When it’s done, everyone goes their separate ways. The whole New Zealand software industry feels to me like a bunch of dorm-mates picking up freelance work on the side. “Do one job and get out” mentality.
The most absurd case I encountered: a lawn-mowing company somehow got wind that someone needed a mobile app developed. So they started recruiting a coder. Just one. I wonder if that coder also had to mow lawns after finishing the app.
One of my colleagues told me about interviewing a British guy. The Brit said, “I worked at a small company in the UK — only 100 people. You guys are supposedly New Zealand’s biggest Python company, so you must be huge with great pay, right?” My colleague said, “We have 20 people.” The guy left without looking back. I imagine he cried when he found out.
Compared to Chinese software companies, there’s one good thing: no overtime.
The Job
Finally, let me talk about work. Nobody wants to hear about the technical stuff, so let’s focus on the interesting bits. The University of Auckland is the best in the country, ranked in the global top 50 by QS. But I’ve always felt QS inflates rankings for British-system universities — including Hong Kong and Commonwealth universities. My position doesn’t involve teaching, since English isn’t my first language and I’d never worked in a purely English environment before, even though I taught in English in China. That was just showmanship. My work is mostly research.
Speaking of research: New Zealand has never produced any world-changing scientific breakthroughs. So they treat research like showmanship too. Nobody forces you to write papers, apply for grants, or go for awards. It’s all very casual. The country doesn’t value research either — only 1.2% of GDP, less than China and far below the global average of 2.1%. When the national budget came out recently, our vice-chancellor immediately emailed everyone crying poor. Why the vice-chancellor? Because the top brass at NZ universities are government appointees — they don’t actually manage the place. Maybe they handle ideological education, like a Party secretary?
The VC says no money, and warns that our rankings will drop and don’t say he didn’t warn us. So where does the government money go? I looked at the budget — it mostly goes to maintaining stability. But it’s a different kind of stability from some other country. That country uses a big stick — strengthening the legal system and internet surveillance. New Zealand uses a carrot: “Don’t worry if you’re poor, the government will redistribute wealth. Feed people and they won’t make trouble.” The problem with this approach is it flattens the class structure — nobody feels motivated to get ahead. I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t repeat myself.
Lack of motivation is fully reflected in daily work. I haven’t been here long, but I’ve fully experienced the inefficiency and slowness. In China, people complain about inefficiency. Here, everyone seems content. Slow is fine, inefficient is fine — what’s the problem? For instance, work starts at 9, but nobody’s fully assembled until 9:30. Real work begins around 10. Work for an hour and a half, then lunch at 11:30. Chat through lunch until 1:30. Afternoon tea starts at 3. Work ends at 5, and people start drifting away at 4. Hardly a few hours of actual work. Forget overtime — there’s a big sign in our building saying everyone must leave by 6, or they’ll be locked in. No overtime even if you wanted to.
The school gives everyone 5 weeks of paid leave per year. And it’s real leave — you can’t contact them by phone (phone numbers are apparently private, and nobody knows each other’s numbers). One of my junior bosses got into Zen meditation and took a week off for a retreat — getting up at 4 AM to meditate until night, no phone, no contact, completely unreachable. Whatever earth-shattering problem arose had to wait until he came back. A week later, he returned to the office with a shaved head and a pair of Chinese Feiyue sneakers, with the “feiyue” logo prominently displayed. He said they were standard-issue meditation shoes. I suspect he was scammed by a fake monk.
Sick leave? Unlimited. My big boss says at every meeting: if you have a cold or cough, stay home. Don’t come to work, or I’ll send you home. Fever, cold — that’s normal sick leave. But even more absurd: you don’t need a doctor’s note. Just send an email. A few days ago, a colleague sent a mass email saying he was taking half a day sick leave because he “didn’t wake up properly.” I won’t post the email here. My world view was shattered. Since when is not waking up properly a medical condition? Don’t they know alarm clocks exist?
Let me describe what I did last Thursday. Started at 9. Meeting at 10 at the business school with someone doing stock data mining. Chatted for an hour. My colleague said it was too early to go back at 11 — he knew a spot in the business school where you can have coffee with a great view. Off we went. Great view. Chatted for another hour. Finally, lunchtime. Headed back to our faculty.
Back at the faculty, ate lunch and chatted with colleagues until past 1. I mentioned we’d been to the business school’s viewpoint. A colleague said that’s nothing — the top floor of the science building has an amazing view. How had we never been? She led us there. Incredible ocean view. We all admired it and chatted for a while. Got back to our desks around 2. Barely sat down when at 3 there was the official afternoon tea — ostensibly to relax and spark creativity, but really just a bunch of people chatting nonsense. After an hour, it was 4 — time to wrap up. Everyone saw it was nearly knock-off time and left. So there you have it. Nobody works hard, so no groundbreaking research gets done, and everyone seems fine with that. Leave changing the world to the US and China. Greater power, greater responsibility. Kiwis just want to shut the door and enjoy early retirement.
The faculty is basically a mini United Nations. In our cloud computing group of four, the junior boss is German, with three members: an Indian, a New Zealander (second-generation Pacific Islander), and one Chinese (me). One level up, the academic boss is American, and the administrative boss is Swedish. Perfect example of an immigrant country. You hear every accent in meetings. I can now identify: British English, American English, Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English, German English, Italian English, Mainland Chinese English, Hong Kong English, Taiwanese English…
Finally, working in English. I think my English is decent. But I’d never worked in a fully English environment. And my job isn’t coding, where I can hide behind a screen all day — I need to talk to people. My feeling is that speaking English has a “cold start” period. Every morning when I start work, I’m most hesitant. The more I speak, the more fluent I become. By end of day, I feel like I can conquer anything. Then I go home, switch back to Chinese, and the next morning I feel like I’m starting from scratch again.
Afterword
Three months — one semester by New Zealand’s academic calendar — doesn’t seem long. On my first day, a colleague told me they were building stairs next door to connect to the terrace. Three months later, the stairs haven’t progressed at all. Maybe that’s the New Zealand pace.
Coming from the fast-paced life of China and Hong Kong, I can’t help feeling New Zealand is a country without ambition. Staying here, you might gradually lose your drive and let life slip by without noticing. But sometimes, walking down the street or sitting on the bus, I look at strangers and see most of them smiling. These are smiles I rarely see on strangers’ faces back in China. And I can’t help thinking: a country that makes most people smile unconsciously can’t be all that bad.
Last time I enabled tips, I got over 2,000 RMB. Unexpected. I’ll enable them again. If you don’t tip now, Apple will soon take 30%. Next article, in three months, about buying a house in New Zealand — everyone’s favourite topic among Chinese, and another chance to feel the strength of our motherland. Stay tuned.