Moving to Vietnam for your career: what nobody tells you

Moving to Vietnam can speed up your career, but only if you come with a direction, translate your overseas experience and choose your manager with care. That was the view of three people who built careers here by different routes, speaking at the OV Summit 2026 in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Linh Pham left Lạng Sơn at 15 for the UK, studied at Cambridge, worked at Goldman Sachs and came home to found the trucking marketplace Logivan. Michelle Doan started in strategy and operations at DoorDash in Toronto and moved back to join Google in Vietnam. Stephen Turban built Lumiere Education, a global education company, from Saigon.

These are the lessons we would pass on to any Việt Kiều weighing the move.

Vietnam is not a retreat

For many Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnam feels like a place to reconnect, slow down or escape the grind of a Western job. Michelle's view is that this is the wrong way to approach it:

“I don’t think going to Vietnam is a retreat. If you think about going to Vietnam as a retreat, that is the wrong way to approach it. It is about propelling in the direction you want to keep building in, and moving at a faster velocity.”

Stephen made the same point more bluntly. Vietnam is comfortable enough that people drift. The lifestyle is good, the costs feel forgiving, and it is easy to say you are "working on projects" without building toward anything.

So the first filter is simple: are you moving to Vietnam with a direction, or hoping Vietnam will give you one?

Translate your overseas experience

Overseas experience helps only once you translate it. Michelle brought strong frameworks from DoorDash, and found they did not transfer unchanged. Consumers, business norms, trust and the pace of work all run differently.

“Global frameworks don’t necessarily work in Vietnam.”

What worked in other markets has to be adapted to how people here work.

Before you move, answer a few questions. What problem can I solve here? Which parts of my experience apply, and which do I let go of? How will I explain my value to local teams, managers and customers? The stronger path combines global experience with local execution. Importing prestige is not enough.

Talk to people a few years ahead

Before moving back, Michelle spoke with people who had returned five or six years earlier. They were far enough along to say what worked, what did not and what they would change.

Copy that. Talk to people who have lived through years two and three, not only new arrivals who are still excited. Talk to people whose careers sped up, stalled or changed direction after the move, and to people in your function, industry and stage of life. Michelle used those conversations to answer:

• What should I expect after landing?
• Should I continue my career path or pivot?
• What role makes sense in Vietnam?
• What support will I need?
• What kind of life am I trying to build?

Choose your manager before the brand

Asked what Overseas Vietnamese should look for in a job in Vietnam, Stephen said not to over-index on the company brand. Look hard at the person you will work for. A well-known company does not guarantee a strong manager or a strong team.

Linh added a local point: boss culture in Vietnam is strong. Your direct manager shapes your growth, your autonomy and your ability to do good work. A bad one makes the transition much harder. A good one helps you understand the local context faster.

Before you sign, ask: who is my direct manager, how do they make decisions, do they value overseas experience, will I learn from them, and do strong people want to work with them? In Vietnam, the boss is often the job.

Want to found a company later? Start with a job

Linh did not paint founding in Vietnam as easy. The market is messy, regulations change often, and customers can behave differently than you expect. For people who want more certainty, her advice is to learn the environment first: join a startup or a company, and see how people here build, sell, hire, manage and make decisions before you take the founder leap. A job in Vietnam can be the best preparation for a business in Vietnam.

A foreign degree is no longer enough

Stephen's view is that the value of simply studying abroad is falling. Employers now ask what you studied, what you can do, what you have built and whether you can explain your value.

Michelle agreed: degrees matter less when everyone has one. Self-knowledge, mentors, relevant experience and side projects matter more. She pointed to AI in particular. Even without an AI role, you can build tools, workflows or experiments that show you can work with new technology. Do not rely on your background. Build proof.

If you are looking now, OV Jobs lists roles in Vietnam picked for Overseas Vietnamese. And before you commit, read How to test a move to Vietnam before you make it.