In the past 6 months, we started noticing the rise of businesses in Singapore exploring in areas such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Automation and IoT.  As these businesses grow, it’s led into higher demand of local Singaporean talents, as well as increased interest in developers who can be hands-on.  Companies are now offering higher salary compensation as a way to attract talent.  It’s a competitive market as many companies recognize the incredible importance of a skilled developers in their business.

Singaporean based hiring managers are increasingly looking for full stack developers, rather than recruiting someone who is dedicated to either frontend or backend development. Some may argue that this might not achieve the best results Vs specialists, but this is not entirely true for developers with a hunger for knowledge and the right attitude; their results can be equally good compared to a specialist.  Soft skills are playing a bigger role in candidate selection generally and interview formats are evolving as a results.

The Top 5 in-demand traits that employers are looking for (besides hard skill sets):

1. Communication
2. Adaptability
3. Passionate and eager to learn new skills
4. Critical thinking
5. Team work spirit

On the candidate side, developers are no longer restricting their job hunt to the highest pay, there are other factors that they consider.  We’ve been observing a trend of developers who have been working in large organizations looking to explore smaller size environments.  In a lean team, processes can be simplified and there is often a higher chance of dabbing into the latest technologies.

Top 5 priorities from a developer in assessing a prospective job:

• Technologies: Languages and frameworks. Other potential technologies that he/she can work with in the future
• Environment/culture: This includes the management style of the reporting manager and the team he/she will be part of.
• Flexible working arrangement: Work from home/remotely. This flexibility is more than just a benefits, but it reflects the level of trust from the company to their employees.
• The impact of the product/service being build: Passionate developers usually would not want to just build a product, but they would too evaluate how the product(s) that they will be building is going to impact or benefit others.
• Future: Long gone are the days where a developer will just accept a job because of the right salary offered, but developers are keen to know what are the long term plans and financial status of a company. Developers would not hesitate to turn down an attractive offer if the company’s vision does not seems to be align in what he/she is looking for.

Salary benchmarks as of May 2018

It’s a really existing time in the Singapore tech scene right now!  If you are looking to hire more developers or are exploring new Singapore based job opportunities, then feel free to reach out to contact@cogsagency.com

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• Thinking of moving towards freelance?
• Digital transformation in Singapore
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