It's not bad already. For me,
NEA (Engineer)
Year 0 - 4.5k [NX13]
Year 1 - 4.6k (No grade, slight adjustment)
Year 2 - C, 5k (Emplaced to permanent) [NX12]
Year 3 - B, 5.3k
Year 4 - B, 5.8k (In-grade promotion) [NX12A]
Background -
NS, straight As from top JC, FCH and masters in engineering from top overseas university, non-scholar.
NEA has a separate ranking session for scholars where the majority of high CEPs and performance grades are reserved for them, leaving the farmers to fight over scraps - this is what they don't tell you, and is blatantly contrary to what PSD claims publicly. It is a direct consequence of the scholar retention KPI, which is a major KPI for HR - HR will get into trouble if too many underperforming scholars quit because they are ranked poorly.
During my time, presented to and hosted forums with SM Teo, HCS Leo Yip and two other PSes multiple times while being secretariat of 3 concurrent CEO-level inter-ministry/bilateral forums (most people only do one secretariat duty at a time). Left because my CEP never changed from the default in 4 years (i.e. same CEP as someone who coasted along doing the bare minimum). The average scholar got similar performance grades and higher CEP with far less work, while certain scholars got higher performance grades and Group Director (NX8) CEP within 2 years, also with less work.
Good exposure and starting pay, bad career prospects. Bad senior management who lied to me to wait it out in the hope that things would get better (when they knew very well that it wouldn't); good middle managers who told me my CEP and encouraged me to leave (even helped me with job referrals) since there was no future for non-scholars and I would only end up working for them while they got the credit.