Engineering and Technology Careers are Not Valued - Singapore is "High Cost Low Tech"

Ex-Engineer,

Advise on how you proceed with a change in career?

If you want to have a stab at the financial industry, you need to arm yourself with some financial credentials to make yourself look credible. For me, I had a strong interest in finance, did an MBA and now doing a CFA. Had a choice between finance or management roles in MNCs, chose finance and turned out to be a much better decision. But everybody's path is different and you got to choose one that suits you.. However, I did only have 2 years of engineering experience before I changed my career. I would imagine it gets harder and harder to switch your career if you have more years of irrelevant experience. I believe in constant upgrading and hate to be in a comfort zone, coz once you're in a comfort zone .. your career life pretty much ends there and then.. Good luck!

a point of view from a fresh grad. fresh graduated engineers are actually paid rather well in sg compared to most other jobs. if u graduated from nus/ntu u'll probably start between 2.5k to 3.5k a month. its nothing compared to front office positions in banks, but remember that these positions dun all go to business grads. if u are not a dean's lister or a first class, u'll can forget about being hired and u'll probably start at around 3k at some other position as well.
glamourous banking jobs are a lure to all fresh grads. even top students from engineering go into banking. but don't expect these jobs to be comfy. they are often high stress with long hours. remuneration is nearly always comensurate with (1) the quality of the degree u have; (2) the hours put in on the job and (3) the experience u have.
other countries may pay their engineers better. but if ur thinking of going overseas then ur not going to go far armed with just a local degree. again, the better paying jobs go to grads from harvard, yale, stanford, cambridge and oxford.

You doing sales for financial products?

singapore engr is low cost, low tech...

dont think the grads from harvard, yale, stanford, cambridge and oxford go into the better paying jobs in engineering sectors in their countries.

Well engineer is definitely a low paying job. This is because the amount of effort and time, you chip in will never be tally. Nevertheless, the task can be tedious and nerve wrecking. That is why most of the engineer is bald! Not just that, engineer always face a lot of time and pressure to deliver a product to the client. Things will certainly get worse when there is a budget and time constraint to fulfill. Solving problem is also another task, which will be encountered from day to day. Problem can be complex and sometime can get very stressful if you dont have the skill to solve the problem. Last you also must be good in application for science and technology able to learn new things quick and fast under time pressure. I would say overall, Engineer is underpaid. ENGINEER = Professional Labour.

7K a month
alot or less?

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7K is alot but how many years of experience after graduation from university you got??

What type of engineer are you, what industry?

Is 7K your basic pay? or does that included your allowance + OT?

I can tell you that my old bird engineer in my company (in aerospace industry with 16 years exp, a university graduate), now only earn about 6.1K only...

Is this good or bad??

to JImmy,

6.1k ? After 16 years experience? Is a normal pay mate. Work to eat, eat to die. I will call it a slavery pay.