Rise of the Software Craftsmen in Singapore

Great article.

Malaysian here. A lot of what's mentioned in this article also applies to Malaysia. Being an engineer doesn't carry the same prestige as being a manager - there's a perception that if you are still coding at the age of 35, you must have failed at life. That bit about computer science graduates being stuck in "enterprise IT oblivion" - that also rings true over here. The end result is that:

A) It's really hard to find real engineering talent. As in people who understand the harder computer science topics. Don't talk about deeper machine-learning stuff - even finding people who can code up a webapp from scratch is a challenge. Most of the smart ones are now either working overseas, or are now in non-technical positions.

B) Our IT projects are woefully sloppy. Just visit any *.gov.my website for proof.

If you want to understand why finding engineering talent is so difficult in Singapore and this extends to Southeast Asia, and get a sense on the people who are involved here. This is the article to read.

Singapore is a really difficult play in my experience. The work culture is cut-throat at best is what I found and backstabbing at worst. Limited resources with a lot of people competing is what I suppose leads to this. Neither I nor anyone else I knew had a good experience on work there. Hopefully start-ups do change that culture. But if the same continues it is difficult for the survival of start-ups there.

Thanks for the mention.