It was reported last week that Apple is setting up a R&D facility in Taiwan, but the company hasn’t made any confirmation of it as yet. There’s an obvious advantage here for Apple, such a facility would house Apple’s engineers close to their supply chain partners. A new report from Digitimes reveals that Apple has started hiring engineers in Taipei, it has also posted job listings for senior positions. The report also talks about a possibility of Apple opening up a maintenance center in Taiwan.
The senior positions that have opened up in Taipei include positions for a senior packaging engineers, reliability engineering manager, senior AC-DC design engineer, engineering project manage and a senior software instrumentation engineer. Taiwan is said to be a favorable position for Apple given the high skill level as well as relatively low labor costs. It is unclear exactly how many people Apple is looking to hire for this new facility and if work will focus on products other than the iPhone. There’s also a possibility of Apple forming partnerships with other companies in the region to diversify production and lower costs. The maintenance center is said to provide after sales services, hiring for it has reportedly not begun as yet.