[ElectronEngIe]

Hi,

I'm an Irish electronic engineer with 6 years experience in product design and development, specialising in firmware, embedded s/w, system integration and application development. I posess 1st class hons. BE and MEngSc degrees.

At the moment I'm discussing a position in Field Application Engineerng with a US company which is about to base itself in HK to cover the A/P region. The position will involve direct liasion with customers for integration and development of the company's product into customers' on an OEM/ODM basis.

Essentially I'm competing with HK residents as the job would be offered on a local employment, and not expat-type, basis. I've been asked for my salary expectations. Can anyone help out here? I very little idea of the employment conditions for "locals" and salary information is difficult to come by. I obviously wish to maximise my income but am wary of pricing myself out of the market!

In addition, would it be a good idea to request an amount of the salary as housing allowance as I doubt that this would be included. Would this be a tax-efficient ?

Thanks,

P.

[berryplucker]

This is a bit of a how "long is a piece of string" question. My guess would be around HK$30-35K per month. But you are competing with a lot of local talent in that field and if you are also new to the employer then it is not clear what skills/knowledge/experience you bring which a local wouldn't have.

It is tax-efficient to have a proportion of your salary deemed as "housing allowance" (I think it should be around 15%) but at this sort of salary level the savings are not great overall. (Expect to pay around 15% in tax.)

[ElectronEngIe]

Thanks for the information, all close to my own thoughts. Now all I need to do are run the numbers to see if it makes sense from a financial perspective!

[fly]

Perhaps you can approach your employer to include a clause for a salary review after 3 months, given that you can then both better guage your value (to the company and vice versa) after that ?