Autodesk

Thanks to Singapore EDB, our jobs in Singapore are relatively intact, despite global retrenchment exercises.

Relatively decent salary compared to SMEs in Singapore.

Relatively fast career advancement for junior engineers. For example, 4-7 years to reach Senior Engineer Grade 11 from Grade 8 or 9, meaning promotion every 2-3 years.

Work-life balance. Unfortunately, nowadays, some people abuse the system.

14 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year. On top of that, a Christmas week shutdown from December 24th to January 1st, which is not deducted from annual leave.

Monthly birthday parties for each floor (approximately 100 employees), thanks to the hard work from office support roles like admins and cleaners.

Fun games and activities organized by the Ministry of Fun (MOF).

Gain from ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan) over the past two years is roughly equivalent to a 4-month bonus annually, if you keep the stock at $40+ and sell at $120.

Interesting products or projects to work on. Chance to switch teams and projects if opportunities arise.

The role of a people manager in Singapore is ambiguous. They appraise performance but are not directly involved in product development or decision-making. Most of the time, they only have a superficial impression rather than actual insight, so they are easily influenced by all kinds of perceptions. The only benefit I see from this role is probably their representative bargaining power. However, having such a manager for every team is considered expensive and ineffective if the company tries to adopt agile and empower every employee. Having a traditional people manager is like adding extra wheels to a bicycle for stability, or trying to make all vehicles look alike.

Career advancement for software engineers stops at grade 12 (senior engineer) or grade 13 (principal engineer), while managers (grade 13) continue to get promoted to senior manager (grade 14) and director (grade 15). Heavy lifting is done by people at the bottom, while management reaps all the credit.

Despite all the pros mentioned above, most engineers leave within their first 3 years due to frequent reorgs, frequent changes in product direction, bad people management, and lack of advancement.

Sometimes you would have to trust what employees say rather than blindly listen to what your managers say. If you trust no one, please see facts and statistics.