Really that bad for engineers?

how much are civil engineers paid these days? say a fresh grad from local uni

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It depends on the industry you join. For e.g. if you can get a Principal Engineer job in a oil & gas refinery or chemical plant, then should be able to get above 10k. If it's some other generic engineering/technician job in manufacturing plant or sme then I think it is no different from good honours perhaps 5-6k tops.

Besides industries in Singapore , how's opportunities/prospects in research/teaching positions for a Chemical PhD?

[Wing Chun]

Guys, anyone working in Baxter or JMS as engineer? Can let me know how is it like? Culture, pay, work etc

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi there, thank you very much for the clear and prompt reply, but I would like to clear up some stuff first.

What I initially meant was that I have already been offered a job at a very reputable company in Japan and the pay is around 2.5k (excluding bonuses and OT pay and overseas deployment pay) but as I mentioned, please just take my word that it really does provide very valuable experience in the field of project management in transport and on top of that, there are very frequent overseas deployment as well. Yes, the pay is very low compared to SG standards, and that is the very reason why I posted my question above regarding whether it is worth getting the valuable experience, and coming back to apply to public sector.

Reading this, are there any change in opinions or...?

I took up a 2.5k job in a consulting job. Then joined public sector after 7 years.
I will take the offer

Good experience is hard to come by, especially from Japanese MNC. You will learn alot there. the Experience and exposure will be part of the remuneration..

If you join the public sector as fresh grad, most likely you will be doing alot of admin work and become a paper engineer. Like some of my colleagues who joined as a fresh grad, even if you able able to speak confidently the things you say are rubbish and do not make sense in engineering/private sector terms.

If you join private sector first, later on you can join public sector.If you join public sector for many years, it is hard to join the private as the experience you gain during your job is worth much less outside.

I worked with some engineers working under a Japanese contractor. They have to learn design calculations, procurement, site planning/coordination, project management, safety,etc. They have to take exams by their Japanese HQ later on to recognize their knowledge. They are hands on technical.

Some of the public sector engineers(joined straight from uni)i worked with are not equipped with the above skills. The things they do are writing minutes of meeting, speech and approval paper for management,organizing meetings& events liaise with industry ppl, attend courses,presentation slides, look at the metrics of the industry and the engineering process.

Both paths are okay depending on what you want. But i prefer to get some knowledge& experience when i am fresh grad. My Senior told me this" when you make mistakes when you are young, you can still tell ppl you are learning. But you make mistakes when you are mid career, people will laugh at why you do not know fundamental engineering knowledge '

I have 25 years of commercial/dispute management experience in construction. I am not an engineer, but work with MNC/LTA Engineers and project managers on a regular basis.

I totally agree with the previous poster. Japanese planning and project management techniques in transport projects are second to none (although their commercial management is absolute shite). You will learn the right way. You will probably want to reassess whether you want to go into civil service after 5 years.

Do not touch the Chinese MNCs.

That being said, LTA experience is valuable and opens opportunities to work overseas as well as specialist careers.

For example LTA's delay analysts in the cost control division are all Engineers by training. It's gold dust experience because they deal with massive/complex delay claims from Contractors. Many go on to the private sector as construction claims consultants. Some have even set up their own consultancies. Pay in that private sector specialisation can start well above 10k (after about 7 years of main stream planning experience), but your written and spoke English must be good.

Interesting topic, allow me to share a bit of my expeirence working with Japanese companies.

I graduated 14 years ago from NTU and spent about 12 years in 2 Japanese construction engineering companies and 1 heavy machinery company which is a JV between Japanese and a European MNC.

I would say there is no dispute that Japanese engineering and project management competencies are pretty much world class. There are many interesting projects and you get deployed to many countries overseas and get to learn a lot in terms of exposure. They have a good reputation in the market and IMO deserve that as well.

However it is very important to know that there are also some very unique cons working for Japanese companies. They are generally good companies from the technological and market branding perspective, but very bad employers from a staff perspective. This is especially more so for foreigners as you get stuck with all the cons without getting the pros (i.e. lifelong job security and a lot of benefits to look after your family as well).

Firstly their starting basic salaries and annual increments are really bad. Pay freeze is very common the moment the company hits a rough patch and even if the going is good, you get like a 3% increase. Bonus is also very little at 0.5-2 months provided the company is profitable.

The other thing is promotions are very few and far between as the concept of loyalty and length of service is very ingrained in their mindset. It took me 4 years to get my first promotion and even then the promotion increase is paltry compared to other companies in Singapore. So If you want to work for them, be prepared to grind through the long years. Glass ceiling for foreigners is there – the highest one can go is probably principal engineer or project manager.

The culture is extremely rigid, from punctuality in turning up for work to length of meal times. Very process driven, big on documentation and hierarchical follow orders from the boss type of management style, so if you are the kind who likes to be creative, flexible, debate with colleagues and boss and engage in innovation then it is not for you. Having said that, they are very into CIP so little tweaks and improvements are highly encouraged. Most of them have no concept of work life balance, so you must also be prepared to grind the hours.

From a marketability point of view, I would say although other international MNCs acknowledge Japanese competency in the field of engineering, they are very reluctant to hire people who have stayed in the system too long due to cultural incompatibilities. I started looking out for opportunities with other western MNCs during my 10th year and although I pride myself as being very qualified and experienced, the job search was really challenging with either radio silence or interviews that lead to nothing. Those were depressing days as I thought I would be stuck around in this sort of environment until 65.

Many of my peers also advise me to take the government route as the culture compatibility is better and they tend to be more open to accepting people from Japanese companies, but at my age I really wanted a change in environment and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life trap in this sort of bureaucratic follow orders from the top environment. Took me 2 years to get into my current job with a British engineering consultancy and this is in large part because of recommendation from someone I know from our JV partner. So far I found their way of working to be very refreshing and really enjoy working, pay and working hours is also much much better.

In summary, I would say if you really have the passion for transport engineering and want to learn, go for the Japanese offer. But if you want quick progression, material needs like salary and bonus, work life balance or freedom to work in your own style, then Japanese companies are really not a good idea. Go in with your eyes wide open.

Thank you very much for the replies! The opinions, both negative and positive, were very refreshing and I really appreciated it. I don't mind getting more opinions as well.

Regarding some of the statements put forward in the few recent posts though, I would like to inquire more about them.

For example, why should I reassess if I would want to enter civil service after 5 years? Is it because I would be at a disadvantage in terms of pay compared to my peers, or that the pay will not match my experience, or because I will turn into a paper engineer due to skills mismatch as another post mentioned?

Regarding the above post, I really appreciate the long and detailed explanation. I found out about their work culture leading up to this past few months and I have no problems in trying it out as I dont really intend to stay forever. My current plan and idea is to gather valuable experience from working there for a few years, maybe 3-5, as I have mentioned and to return to Singapore to get a job here (after comparing the 2 countries, no one can deny Singapore is still a much better place for living in terms of alot of stuff)

And that is where my question before comes in: I do not mind earning lesser at the start to gain the valuable experience but I wonder if that amount of experience is worth it and can translate to a better prospect in future after returning, be it in public sector or private sector.

In short, I was hoping that my time in Japan, working under that kind of environment and earning that kind of pay can be worth it in future, and hence I initiated this opinion gathering question because some say yes, some say no you are better off staying here and changing jobs here(that the experience in Japan makes no difference), and in your case you seemed to have been overqualified in your 10th year, that's why you had trouble finding another job.

Thank you guys once again for your honest replies! Really appreciate it

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thank you very much for the replies! The opinions, both negative and positive, were very refreshing and I really appreciated it. I don't mind getting more opinions as well.

Regarding some of the statements put forward in the few recent posts though, I would like to inquire more about them.

For example, why should I reassess if I would want to enter civil service after 5 years? Is it because I would be at a disadvantage in terms of pay compared to my peers, or that the pay will not match my experience, or because I will turn into a paper engineer due to skills mismatch as another post mentioned?

Regarding the above post, I really appreciate the long and detailed explanation. I found out about their work culture leading up to this past few months and I have no problems in trying it out as I dont really intend to stay forever. My current plan and idea is to gather valuable experience from working there for a few years, maybe 3-5, as I have mentioned and to return to Singapore to get a job here (after comparing the 2 countries, no one can deny Singapore is still a much better place for living in terms of alot of stuff)

And that is where my question before comes in: I do not mind earning lesser at the start to gain the valuable experience but I wonder if that amount of experience is worth it and can translate to a better prospect in future after returning, be it in public sector or private sector.

In short, I was hoping that my time in Japan, working under that kind of environment and earning that kind of pay can be worth it in future, and hence I initiated this opinion gathering question because some say yes, some say no you are better off staying here and changing jobs here(that the experience in Japan makes no difference), and in your case you seemed to have been overqualified in your 10th year, that's why you had trouble finding another job.

Thank you guys once again for your honest replies! Really appreciate it

Hey there, I am the above poster with 12 years in a Japanese environment.

I'm actually sort of struggling to understand where you are getting at. From what I gather, you already know certain aspects of working with a Japanese company and actually don't mind as you never have the intention to stay long.

So your plan is to go there for a few years and treat it as an overseas military boot camp and use that to get a better career prospect somewhere else? Am I understanding this correctly? Because I must say this is a very strange way of career planning.

I know of fresh grads who started off in my companies and moved on elsewhere after a while. Some are successful, some less so. But that is either because a better offer came along or there were some push factors (usually is low pay & promotion), but never heard of a grad who purposely planned to joined us with the intention of staying a few years and then using that experience to get a better career somewhere else.

In terms of your general question of whether the experience is valuable - it depends. What does valuable mean? Valuable against what?

I would say definitely you will learn something of value for your personal development, like I say the process and documentation of Japanese companies is top notch so being marinated in it day and night you will certainly acquire useful knowledge and discipline as well.

If your definition of valuable is will your experience make you a hot potato in the market with multiple organizations in public/private sector headhunting you with big salaries, then I'm afraid I will have to categorically say no. Of course I am assuming you are a typical average engineer, super smart people have ways to outshine the rest no matter where they are anyway.

Perhaps let me illustrate what usually happens to a typical young engineer who left after a while in a Japanese company. Upon joining, you spend the first few weeks familiarizing on the basics. After that, you go to Japan for a few months of company training (just generalizing, not all companies do that).

You will then be assigned to a specific project and meet your manager and colleagues in that project. For the next 3 years in that project, you will be assigned by your work-stream team supervisor to look after a particular process in his work-stream.

When the project is completed, you will be re-assigned. Sometimes you get to go Japan for additional training again. At this stage, you should be earning about 2.8-3k barring a serious recession. Normally what happens is that they will try to re-assign you in a similar type of work-stream but handling a different sub process. Usually in the 4th or 5th year in your 2nd assignment, you will be promoted 1 level up, for e.g. Engineer I to Engineer II.

Let's assume then after 5 years of service you decide to leave. You should be making 3.4-3.5k at this stage as an Engineer II. You will then have 2 options:

1. Join the government. If your experience is deemed fully relevant, they will either offer you the "correct" offer a 5 year engineer should get (from what I hear in the market it seems to be around 5k+ for a 2nd class honours type) or they mark up from your existing salary maybe offering you ~4k. I'm not very sure how this works in government as I hear conflicting stories from ex-colleagues who went down this path.

Government is naturally more secure and has a closer work culture, but based on a few friends who joined BCA and CPG, the basic idea I got was they didn't really get any chance to put what they learn in the past to use. Having said that, they seemed pretty contented to coast along till retirement.

2. Join the private sector. The private sector usually just add another 15-20% on top your current drawn. So you can expect an offer of around 3.7-4k probably as some sort of experienced engineer or senior technical operations executive.

Whether your experience will be put to good use in this case will really depend on what role you take up and which company it is. So it will be very varied and hard to generalize. For e.g. I went to engineering consultancy as a project manager (albeit at a more senior level then you are planning) and found my experience and skillsets to be very useful. But I have also friends who had private sector disaster stories to share.

So there you have it. Think carefully and no matter what choice, go in with eyes open.

Have my stint in the above companies. The hire and fire culture in American drives result better than Japanese and European. It is outcome based. The Japanese and European are more relationship base which means more on playing who know who and who is your backers.

In term of learning, you should find the best in class companies to join because they have the best in class technology and also learning and development. That's why made t great!

As for local GLCs are made by mostly civil servants. They are most of the time ego and also thought that they are best in class which are not true from my perspective. The lack of private competition and also know how made their horizon short.

Hence if you like a stable life, go for public sectors and don't ask much about performance base because it again more of whether your boss likes you or not. Typical yes man culture. If you like to prove yourself, go for American which now the hire and fire will let you know where you are.

Join a great world number 1 or 2 companies in their market segment. If you are good, proven and outspoken. You can hit 7k within 5 years and 2 promotion. If you can't, you know where you are.

As for Japanese, I believe you may not be promoted after 5 years. As for career planning, you can go and search in LinkedIn of the successful players in the industry they are in. See you they move up their career path. Don't need to re-invent