>> Communication Throughout the interview process I spoke with 3-5 employees, and I’m pretty sure everyone was Chinese. I thought maybe the interviewers (recruiters as well as engineers) were based in Beijing, but no, they were based in Sydney. I wouldn’t have any issue with employees being Chinese, but I do have an issue if the people I’ll be working with in Sydney speak terrible English. >> Comp After passing all the interviews, I told the recruiter I was looking for at least 150k base pay, to which he assured is doable. Few days later he came back to me with offer of 125k plus bonus. I would get 160k+ only if I get that bonus. On top of this, they refused to give me details of the bonus program unless I signed the offer. After back and forth with the recruiter he sent me part of the contract related to the bonus. Criteria for meeting bonus is unclear and whether I get the bonus comes down to decision by my manager. Furthermore, the company reserved full rights to not only change or remove the bonus incentive at anytime. Even worse, the company reserved the rights to take BACK the bonus after giving it to you. >> Working arrangement: Despite them telling me during start of the interview process that I have to go to office a couple days a week, when I got the offer the recruiter said I have to go to office everyday, and that that’s a global TikTok policy which they had no control over. Either that’s a lie or there’s so much bureaucracy that your day to day quality of work life balance is up to Tiktok HQ. >> Summary So many red flags. It seems to me they make employees in Sydney come to office everyday, to the point where they don’t have enough meeting rooms available. Without the bonus, the base pay was very very low. Based on what recruiter said, either 1. Sydney office working policy is completely determined by someone at global HQ with no understanding of Sydney working culture Or 2. They tell blatant lies to use the global HQ as scapegoat for poor working arrangements. Surely Sydney office and each team has the power to decide if they want to work remotely or not. But instead they told me that it’s a global policy.