Upon arriving at the facility, Bruce handed in his smartphone and passed through metal detectors. He was in awe of the semiconductor production line: Overhead rails carried wafers from one station to another while workers in white protective suits kept the machinery running. “It really just felt like I was touring some kind of living thing that was greater than humans; that was bigger than us,” Bruce recalled.

TSMC made attempts to bridge some of the cultural differences. After the American trainees asked to contact families and to listen to music at work, TSMC loosened the firewall on T phones to allow all staff access to Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify. Some Taiwanese workers attended a class on U.S. culture, where they learned that Americans responded better to encouragement rather than criticism, according to an engineer who attended the session.

Several former American employees said they were not against working longer hours, but only if the tasks were meaningful. “I’d ask my manager ‘What’s your top priority,’ he’d always say ‘Everything is a priority,’” said another ex-TSMC engineer. “So, so, so, many times I would work overtime getting stuff done only to find out it wasn’t needed.”

Training in Taiwan, which typically lasted one to two years, wasn’t all miserable, the Americans said. On the weekends, the trainees traveled across the island, marveling at the country’s highly efficient public transport network. Bruce spent his weekends hiking and frequenting nightclubs. He chatted with the families that run night-market food stalls, and entertained strangers who requested selfies with foreigners.

For the Taiwanese, many of whom planned for extended stays in Phoenix, that meant relocating entire families — toddlers and dogs included — to a foreign country. Many regarded it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the world, practice English, and send their children to American schools. Younger families planned pregnancies so they could give birth to American citizens. “If we are going to have children, of course we will have them here,” a Taiwanese engineer told Rest of World. “As an American citizen, they will have more options than others.”

Many experienced a culture shock. The bustling cities of Taiwan are densely packed and offer extensive public transport, ubiquitous street food, and 24-hour convenience stores every few blocks. In northern Phoenix, everyday life is impossible without a car, and East Asian faces are scarce

“Everything is so big in America,” said one engineer, recalling his first impression. He recounted his wife summarizing her impression of the U.S.: “Great mountains, great rivers, and great boredom.”

Having spent years under the company’s grueling management, they were used to long days, out-of-hours calls, and harsh treatment from their managers. In Taiwan, the pay and prestige were worth it, they told Rest of World — despite the challenges, many felt proud working for the island’s most prominent firm. It was the best job they could hope for.

Sometimes, the engineers said, staff would manipulate data from testing tools or wafers to please managers who had seemingly impossible expectations.

A former TSMC staffer who worked on the education program said managers were instructed not to yell at employees in public, or threaten to fire them without consulting human resources. “They would say, ‘Okay, okay, I get it. I’m not going to do that,’” the employee recalled to Rest of World. “But I think in the heat of the moment, they forgot, and they did do it.”

Chang-Tai Hsieh, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, told Rest of World that TSMC had found the U.S. a challenging environment to operate in because of the complicated regulatory process, strong construction unions, and a workforce less used to the long hours that are commonplace at TSMC in Taiwan.

Sitting in a room together, the engineers admitted that although they had made some progress in acclimating to life in the U.S., TSMC had yet to find a balance between the two work cultures. Some Taiwanese workers complained that management was being too accommodating in giving Americans less work, paying them high salaries, and letting them get off work early.