sorry whats SVC? service?

Yes sirrrrrrrrr

Tiagong HQ engineer higher pay , promotion faster than SVC engineer? Is that true? Why?

True. Go ask HR

HQ Engineers are who? Which one is GDS under?

Not sure whether it is uniformly true, but generally, those engineering divisions (GDS, SIOT, DSAI, etc) have it better than the rest of GovTech - better than not just SVC, but also the minority of engineers who directly report to non-engineering divisions (product management divisions for example).

What to do, GovTech's founding bedrocks are the precursors of GDS and DSAI, whilst the precursor to SVC is just the legacy burden that GovTech has to carry forward from IDA

Not necessary. Some working groups (minority) are funded purely by short-lived funds by SNDGO and/or other govt funding bodies. Hence the use of contracts for these positions. For such positions, whether renew or not is not whether u cui or not, but whether the one who push for the proposals, i.e. ur boss or boss's boss, is cui or not.

But I agree, at the point of interview, not easy to differentiate whether the position is those renewable basis, or part of a project funded by govt grants.

Actually how you all know HQ ones have it better? Tiagong from who?

Honestly, if you not converted to perm means you very lousy.

gotta take a hard look on yourself. just stating facts

on the flip side, many of the best engineers don't want to be converted to perm also

anyway, contract has a better deal than perm