It used to be that Silicon Valley was the only place to grow a high-powered career in tech. But that’s no longer true.
These days, developers have options outside of that narrow strip of land between San Francisco and San Jose. In the past 10 years, the international tech scene has grown to the point that developers can find a home in Tel Aviv, Toronto, Amsterdam, or Berlin — all burgeoning tech hubs.
However, if a developer wants interesting work, there’s another place to look: Southeast Asia.A diverse region bordered by China to the north and India to the west, Southeast Asia is home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Mobile phone penetration in the region is already at 110 percent, and Internet penetration, though still low, grew by more than 10 percent in 2016. All this has given rise to a thriving tech startup ecosystem. But job opportunity isn’t the only reason developers should start looking east. Here are some others:
1. You’ll be working on some of the world’s most innovative mobile apps.
There was a time when Western technological innovation set the standard for the world, but others have caught up – and even surged ahead. The New York Times noted a year ago that mobile-first Asian economies are now leading the way in the development of innovative new mobile apps.
What makes Southeast Asia mobile-first? The region’s relatively low level of economic development made a PC revolution unrealistic, so it has leapfrogged into mobile technology. An affordable Android smartphone was usually the first “computer” most people had.
As a result, developers and designers here have been thinking deeply about mobile compared to their desktop-focused counterparts in the West.And unlike in the U.S., where startups can be highly specialized, the tech sector’s relative youth means successful apps in Southeast Asia use one slice of market share to expand swiftly into adjacent spaces. For example, Garena, one of Southeast Asia’s newest unicorns, started out as a games platform but has since expanded into mobile payments and social commerce. My company, Grab, is working on a mobile payments system to complement its ride-sharing app. This rapid expansion gives talented developers unprecedented opportunity to shape many different products and features within one company and build up a wide array of competencies.
2. Your work will have a strong social impact.
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