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Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

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Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#31

Post by pault »

czcar wrote: post #7
ashray wrote: post #3

Singapore is a pretty great place. That said, the place is freakishly expensive. I recently looked at Singapore as an option to move there and start up a.. startup. The entrepass will require $50,000 of paid up capital plus yadda yadda. That is, post company registration: http://www.mom.gov.sg/foreign-manpower/passes-visas/entrepas... Following that, there are quite a few hoops to jump through but the worst part is t…

Hey Ash, been meaning to write a blog post as someone who moved their startup from NZ to Singapore - it's not quite as dire as you supposed. Firstly, I would never recommend anyone to get the Entrepass - best thing to do is just to register a business and apply for an EP pass as an employee of said company. Admittedly in this scenario you would need a local director - but services for this shouldn't run over $1000/an…

Is it easy enough to get around and socialize in english?

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#32

Post by EliRivers »

pault wrote: post #31
czcar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Ash, been meaning to write a blog post as someone who moved their startup from NZ to Singapore - it's not quite as dire as you supposed. Firstly, I would never recommend anyone to get the Entrepass - best thing to do is just to register a business and apply for an EP pass as an employee of said company. Admittedly in this scenario you would need a local director - but services for this shouldn't run over $1000/an…

Is it easy enough to get around and socialize in english?

Singapore is English speaking. It's the first language for about a third, with about 20% having no capacity in English. It's the language of business, government and education.

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#33

Post by irahul »

I don't know about the tech scene in Singapore, but I recently visited Singapore and here are some random excerpts about Singapore.

1. As with any other country which isn't your own, familiarize yourself with local law first. Littering is a punishable offense; watching pornography is not an offense but possession, creation and distribution is; there are limits to free speech but considering you are a tourist or evaluating the place for business feasibility, I don't think that comes into play.

2. It's expensive. And the currency conversion isn't going to help you(1 sgd is 0.817 usd and 0.63 euro). If you are going to stay for long, the best option is to crash on an acquaintance's couch. I don't have any clue about budget hotels since I was staying at a friend's place.

3. Rents are crazy expensive. The rents for a normal 3 bedroom apartment will cost about 3000 sgd and a decent condo will cost you 5000 sgd. Considering that average salary of a techie is about 5000 sgd, I will consider it very high. Most of the working people share houses - it is normal to have 3(or sometimes more) people sharing a 3 bedroom apartment.

4. It's hot and humid, and this is coming from someone who lives in India(though in Bangalore, which is on the cooler side).

5. Taxes are low to non-existent for people on EP(Employment Pass). I don't know the details but my friend hasn't been paying any taxes. As suggested elsewhere, Entrepass will be unreasonable for small companies, and you are better off registering a company with a PR(permanent resident) and getting EP yourself.

6. From what I heard from my friend(she was working on Singapore Exchange's migration from mainframe to unix), the work culture is kinda high ceremony viz. be on time(I was a bit surprised); leaving early will raise eyebrows; seniority is based on how much time you have spent at a place and the work relations are generally formal. I have never been to China and Japan, but the description sounds pretty close to how people describe it. Anyway, this is an anecdote and I haven't seen the whole picture.

7. People are generally friendly and understand and speak English.

8. Public transport is good and affordable. Get the transport smart card(they call it MRT card I believe; you can buy it at any tube station).

9. Cabs are on the expensive side. There is some sort of surcharge for morning and evening peak hours.

10. The city has decent nightlife and I found it safe and secure.

11. There won't be any touts bothering you.

That's it as far as general Singapore information is concerned. If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to mail me.

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#34

Post by negamax »

brass9 wrote: post #25
czcar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Ash, been meaning to write a blog post as someone who moved their startup from NZ to Singapore - it's not quite as dire as you supposed. Firstly, I would never recommend anyone to get the Entrepass - best thing to do is just to register a business and apply for an EP pass as an employee of said company. Admittedly in this scenario you would need a local director - but services for this shouldn't run over $1000/an…

One of my companies is incorporated in Singapore. IIRC, it cost us between US$ 5-6,000 to register the company. Yearly maintenance cost is US$ 2,000+ (that includes a local business address, the services of a local director, bookkeeping staff etc.). We're using services of a firm called Rikvin assoc. They're kind of expensive. If you're physically present in SG, you may find cheaper alternatives.

Are you affiliated with Rikvin? You can register a company in Singapore at $15 one time charge. All these company maintainers are scams, offering EP, tax filing and what not. Singapore is so very business friendly and have e-governance. No need to hire such firms there.

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#35

Post by wheaties »

Did he just complain about "companies he never heard of" and "top tech" like Facebook? I hate to tell this kid but those companies you've never heard of are 90% of what it means to be a start-up. Start-ups aren't well known at all until they're already past the "might not be around next year" phase unless they go through a well known incubator. Facebook on the other hand is established. They aren't going anywhere any time soon.

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#36

Post by raghava »

Am a programmer currently in Singapore; some of my observations are as below.

1. Singapore is business friendly. But only for big businesses; investment banks and such. Small and medium ones will have a tough time considering the cost of living and expenses here.

2. Local IT job market is tuned more towards jobs in banks and insurance companies rather than in true programming/RnD. And as obvious, most of it is for maintenance or support of legacy CRUD apps.

3. Most of the smart local fellows move to UK/US and find the environment there quite enriching, and stay. Singapore gets boring after a couple of years.

4. Govt has raised minimum salary limit for an employment pass, keeping in mind the locals' emotions against increasing number of immigrants. Not many are vocal about their unhappiness about inflow of immigrants, but few are very much.

5. Startups here seem to be hesitant to get smart folks from nearby places like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines or India. Just couldn't understand why. My guess would be that an employment pass and dependent pass is quite costly for them, or that getting immigrant workers would be too much of paperwork and legal hassle for them.

6. Most of the shops here follow the true Asian work culture where number of years in a place trumps capability and competence. Singapore's culture is of very high Power distance index. The mandatory national service for all boys at their prime tunes and trains them that authority and orders must be followed unquestionably.

7. http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2011/12/15/wozniak-apple-co...

and

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson_pr.html

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#37

Post by stan_rogers »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #19
stan_rogers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your talent" would be a collective noun in this case, referring not to the talent held by an individual, but the pool of talented people to draw upon. The usage is analogous to team or crowd in this sense. (And yes, you could use the singular, shift mental gears to anthropomorphize Singapore and assign it the quality of talent, and keep the same overall meaning with a minor shift in grammar and metaphor. And who sai…

Talent is a non-countable collective noun, like money or sugar. Consider "Where has/have all your money gone?" Has is the correct answer, at least by American grammar rules.

Unless it's referring to people (actors, models, and so forth, as used in the entertainment, photography and fashion industries). Again, the rules are tricky, even in "straightforward" American (USA, that is) English.

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#38

Post by noto »

Personally, me and my friends have started a startup in Singapore from 2006 and shut it down after 5 years of trying to make it work. We graduated from Computer Science of NUS in 2006 and startup is unheard of during that time. Below is my opinion of "startups vs talent" in Singapore.

1. There are very good CS guys around in Singapore, but most of them stayed back at school to do PHD. The reason is very simple: Singapore IT jobs have little coding skills needed and most of the time it is just project management (with most of the coding jobs outsourced) or support work (calling up vendors, standby when server down etc). There is no way for us to grow our talent once out of school. College is the last place where we can do technically challenging stuff, so those competent CS guys prefer to stay in school.

2. Our govt is infact the biggest employer of our IT graduates, doing the stuff of Point 1 above.

3. Despite all the woohoo that the startup scene in Singapore is trying to make itself into, it is really quite pathetic here. Cost is high, funding is little, market is not in this region too. Naivety is still the main driving force of startups in Singapore. Meaning those that want to startup in Singapore are probably really first-timers that do not know what they are getting into (especially fresh grads out of sch), and probably understood startup as anything that has the mixture of "tech+biz"

4. Companies do not value startup founders that failed, meaning if founders want to find re-employment in other companies, it is doubly hard for them cause employers do not understand what do startups do and how their experience in startups can contribute in anything. Startup founders that failed in Singapore is treated like a bankrupt equivalent.

So with job market that is generally not technically challenge, and startups that are technically challenge but not making it at all, it is simple to see why "talent" is not found in Singapore

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#39

Post by ramchip »

jbm wrote: post #12
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Singapore is suffering from almost exactly the same problem as Vancouver, Canada. It's a fantastic city enveloped by the ocean and mountains, has world-class cuisine, and city planning that has a semblance of sanity to most observers. Yet, the young brains are draining en masse for Montreal and Toronto (not to mention California). It doesn't help that Vancouver hasn't bothered to match the aforementioned…

Brain drain to Montreal? I am a bit skeptical that anyone would want to pay Quebec-level taxes, particularly with the recent political issues at play. Could you offer some evidence for this? I'd love to believe it is true (as I am originally from there), but it just rings hollow.

Quebec has generous tax benefits for R&D work, for one. There are lots of game companies in Montreal using this.

Re: Singapore, where have all your talent gone?

#40

Post by nahname »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #10
ashray wrote: post #3

Singapore is a pretty great place. That said, the place is freakishly expensive. I recently looked at Singapore as an option to move there and start up a.. startup. The entrepass will require $50,000 of paid up capital plus yadda yadda. That is, post company registration: http://www.mom.gov.sg/foreign-manpower/passes-visas/entrepas... Following that, there are quite a few hoops to jump through but the worst part is t…

I think that Singapore is suffering from almost exactly the same problem as Vancouver, Canada. It's a fantastic city enveloped by the ocean and mountains, has world-class cuisine, and city planning that has a semblance of sanity to most observers. Yet, the young brains are draining en masse for Montreal and Toronto (not to mention California). It doesn't help that Vancouver hasn't bothered to match the aforementioned…

I was seriously considering moving to Vancouver from Calgary. It is really hard to find talented, passionate people in Calgary. But even ignoring the lower wages in Vancouver, the cost of housing is a bad joke.

My long term plan now is to move to Toronto. Plenty of flourishing tech communities. Industries where technology is a differentiator (Calgary is all cost centre). It is the small things that make a difference. I would love to spend an evening learning something from my peers, rather than presenting beginner level content because most of the audience is stuck using pre-approved MS technologies.

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