Switching to E-commerce Website Operations: My Hangzhou Job Search

This is my account of switching into e-commerce website operations after roughly six months of job hunting. It follows four roles—sports promotion, e-commerce sales, livestream operations, and website operations—and the move to Hangzhou that accompanied them.

A bit of context

This post is kind of a checkpoint for me.

After roughly half a year of trial and error, I finally landed a job I feel pretty good about — working in e-commerce, mainly around website operations.

Looking back, the whole process was a lot more messy than I expected, but also more real.

🌧️ The job search phase felt a bit out of control

When I first started looking for jobs, I honestly wasn’t in a great rhythm.

I applied to quite a lot of roles. Some never replied, some dropped off after a short chat, and some I just didn’t feel aligned with.

It felt like I was always waiting for something to happen, but nothing really landed.

At some point, I talked with my girlfriend and we decided: let’s just go to Hangzhou first and figure things out there.

That decision turned out to matter more than I thought.

🏠 Once I got to Hangzhou, things became very real

We moved there together. She handled the apartment side of things, I focused on job hunting.

And right away, reality started to feel different from planning.

I still remember the first apartment viewing. The agent asked for a 500 RMB “viewing fee” upfront.

I paused for a second. It just didn’t feel right, so I walked away.

That moment kind of set the tone for the early days there — things weren’t smooth, and you just had to adjust on the go.

Most days were basically a loop of hotels, interviews, and apartment hunting.

Nothing was stable yet, but I had to keep moving.

💼 My four job phases

If I break this period down, it was basically four different roles.

The first one was a sales-related job around sports promotion. I was quite excited at the beginning, but it didn’t take long to realize it wasn’t the right direction for me, so I left.

The second job was also sales, but in e-commerce. I did both offline promotion and cold outreach. That period actually taught me a lot about real-world communication and execution. But the ceiling of the role was quite limited, so I eventually moved on.

The third job was in an MCN company, mainly handling live-stream operations. That was my first time getting into more structured operational work like controlling live sessions and coordinating workflows. The environment changed quite a bit during that time, and I only stayed for about a month.

The fourth one — and the one I’m currently in — is in e-commerce website operations. This includes SEO work, content updates, social media, and sometimes filming or editing. The team is small, communication is direct, and overall it feels much more stable compared to everything before.

🧭 Looking back

If I had to describe the last six months in a few words, I’d say: messy, shifting, and a bit lucky.

A lot of things didn’t really make sense while I was going through them. You just kind of move step by step, without having a clear picture.

But looking back now, the biggest change wasn’t the jobs themselves — it was slowly figuring out what kind of work I actually want to stick with.

✨ Final thought

This is just a checkpoint in the journey.

I’ll probably keep writing more as things change.

What did website operations involve?

In the role described here, the work included SEO, website content updates, social media, and some filming and editing. This is different from a dedicated frontend developer role: website operations involves maintaining content and channels, while frontend development focuses more on building interfaces and functionality.

That distinction matters. This is an account of finding a direction through four roles, not a claim that I landed a frontend engineering job.

Questions to ask before switching roles

My experience is one example, not a reliable timeline or salary forecast for someone else's career change. When comparing roles, ask:

• Does “operations” mean sales, livestream control, content maintenance, or website growth in this team?
• Which daily tasks would I want to keep doing, beyond the appeal of the job title?
• Do the communication style, work environment, and living costs fit my situation?

For the development side of my personal projects, see rebuilding my blog and my Next.js internationalization lessons.