Based on an analysis of policy documents, questionnaires and interviews, the paper discusses the experiences of Chinese young academics on tenure-track contracts. Findings suggest that young academics perceive tenure as a managerial solution to governance reform. Meanwhile, a population-resource imbalance and the uncertainty in career progression interactively and collectively create an involuted culture where overwork is normalised for self-adaptation. While young academics are experiencing insecurity and anxiety, the study found that they adopt a wide range of strategies to actively adapt into the context. Drawing on the competitive nature, the tenure system is interpreted as both a managerial approach and a training mechanism. This competitiveness and its related precariousness seem to remain, however, uncharted in social perception. An analysis of these issues illuminates tensions and conflicts in the implementation of the tenure-track system in the Chinese context, which have important implications for future managerial policies and practices.