PayPal

I started working as a contractor until I got converted to a full-time employee. I've had experience working for several companies in SG, so I know which companies treat their employees badly and which companies take care of their employees. Suffice to say, in my opinion, PayPal is one of the best employers in SG.

There are several reviews here on Glassdoor that talk about office politics and all. I can only say that office politics are everywhere, regardless of the company; we just need to know how to handle it (read a lot of career/professional websites if you are clueless).

• Excellent work-life balance (working from home, etc.), if not one of the best in SG that promotes this.
• Great salary and benefits.
• Exposure to the latest technology and fintech industry leader.

• At times, overengineering design and solution. It's better to think of a design and solution that are simple yet extensible rather than thinking on how to come up with a silver bullet solution. That silver bullet might be useless when facing changes in requirements.
• It's a big and distributed company, so expect overhead in their process.
• Legacy code is terrible (because of the way previous engineers wrote it, not because of the language), which causes misconceptions and arguments on C++ vs. Java. Both languages are good if used properly, and both can be terrible if they aren't written properly.
• It can be harsh at times during restructuring periods.
• Blaming culture is everywhere (especially across departments), you must know how to cover your back. Issues or failures will always be there. Rather than pointing fingers at someone, it's better to deal with the issues and learn from them. After all, you are trying to achieve the same goal.

It's better to hire or promote based on experience. It's not necessary to promote recent graduates who joined as Junior Software Engineer to Senior Software Engineer. It's okay just to promote them to mid-level Software Engineer. Otherwise, there will be too many Senior Software Engineers, and as a result, the hierarchy will become too flat.