DSTA (under Mindef)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

And to add on, you will likely have to take a paycut when you quit

So true. A lot of people find it hard to leave because of the high pay.

Only procurement side easy to leave because pay progression is terrible on corporate end. Less difficult to bite the bullet and jump ship elsewhere.

how much is the annual increment in DSTA for engineer. Assume C performer. how many %?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

how much is the annual increment in DSTA for engineer. Assume C performer. how many %?

I only got 5% increment for B grade, but including salary review around 10% annual increment

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I only got 5% increment for B grade, but including salary review around 10% annual increment

Just as a PSA, for procurement, my increment was 2.8% this year.. C performer (and mind you, that's despite constant OT & the overall horrible working conditions mentioned in the other posts)

I really just want to emphasis that if you're a fresh grad hoping to join the DSTA procurement team, dont.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I only got 5% increment for B grade, but including salary review around 10% annual increment

frankly this is a slap in the face to those of us in procurement who get pathetic increment like what the above poster mentioned. Even B graders get nothing close to this.

no one is asking for amazing increment during covid but when only engineers get these kind of shocking raises while we procurement get nothing for being asked to do more with less?

nice to see what dsta's "effort" to retain us look like.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

frankly this is a slap in the face to those of us in procurement who get pathetic increment like what the above poster mentioned. Even B graders get nothing close to this.

no one is asking for amazing increment during covid but when only engineers get these kind of shocking raises while we procurement get nothing for being asked to do more with less?

nice to see what dsta's "effort" to retain us look like.

dsta procurement is a good experience to have if you want to develop a public sector career in procurement

Originally Posted by Unregistered

dsta procurement is a good experience to have if you want to develop a public sector career in procurement

Perhaps. But that is a separate issue from remuneration and working conditions.

And it speaks volumes about dsta if other public agencies can easily pull its procurement staff over at the drop of a hat

hello,adding my two cents here.

this place is a complete nightmare and lots of ppl are near breaking point and burning out.I myself am considering following my ex-colleagues and quitting because the sheer stress and anxiety caused by the job is just too much. you'll always be carrying the blame for engineers even if its their fault for delays. imagine having to support insane number of projects on your own and then get thrown under the bus by engineers when they push everything to procurement.

they'll tell you that dsta is the center of excellence for public sector procurement and all that jazz about other agencies wanting dsta staff, but after going thru this shitty experience here, do you really want to do procurement again? most ppl end up hating the procurement role and leave for different field of work.

join if you are desperate but you better have an exit plan because very few ppl will be able to put up with the working conditions long term.

Procurement is a toxic place to work in because of the high workload and uncooperative people (management, SAF, DSTA engineers).

Workload is extremely high. It is not equally distributed among teams but workload is high across all teams. OT is expected, just a matter of how much. Eventually you will realize that there is no way to re-prioritize because everything is urgent. When the user complains, you are required to come up with timeline to explain why it is not your fault. But end up still your fault and you are required to expedite as if it was your fault. Other projects will be affected and you are required to do the explanation all over again.

SAF is the biggest culprit for the additional workload. Most of them have absolutely no idea what the heck they are suppose to do and procurement is expected to 'help' (hidden meaning: do for them) them even if it is clearly not your responsibility.

Knowledge - You get some procurement knowledge but hardly get to apply them or think through. The workload is too high and the priority is to complete the procurement on the path least resistance. You do get a lot of government procurement knowledge which is useful when jumping to other public agencies. It's the center of excellence because of the amount of work on your plate that grows so fast that you get expose to a lot of procurement issues in a short time.

Salary - The salary is about the same as other public agencies and private sector. There are some differences but it is still a salary that other public agencies and private sector can afford to pay easily.

No harm joining if you can't find a job but keep a lookout for better jobs. You don't want to be in a situation when you feel burnout and there's no backup jobs.

Can an above average engineer earn above 12k after spending 10 years in DSTA?