Salary for java professional in singapore

[Nischal Tanna]

Hi Guys
I am a 8yr exp java/j2ee professional(tech lead) already in singapore on EP.
Wanted to know how much should i expect from a Bank, Financial and IT firm for my level of experience in Singapore itself?

[Sai Surya]

Hi Nischal,

Here are my views after doing some research on Singapore job market. I am PR in Singapore having 8 yrs experience similar to your profile.

Banking: 5k - 6.5k if you have experience in messaging, storage may be more.
Financial: 4.5k - 5.5k
IT: 3.5k - 4.5k maximum.

Anybody, please correct if I am wrong

[Manikandan Swaminathan]

Hi Sai,

The salary seems to be less in Singapore in IT for someone with 8 years of exp

Banking: 5k - 6.5k if you have experience in messaging, storage may be more.
Financial: 4.5k - 5.5k
IT: 3.5k - 4.5k maximum.

Considering the cost of living in Singapore, i can say for sure that 4K is really very less.
Guess, even for a bachelor the monthly living costs may come to around 2K as of now.
I was planning to try for a job in Singapore,but considering the above figures, i would better stay here in India itself
As people can earn anyway between 9 to 12 la lakhs pa for that exp.

[Manikandan Swaminathan]

Hi Sai,

The salary seems to be very less in Singapore in IT for someone with 8 years of exp

Banking: 5k - 6.5k if you have experience in messaging, storage may be more.
Financial: 4.5k - 5.5k
IT: 3.5k - 4.5k maximum.

Considering the cost of living in Singapore, i can say for sure that 4K is really very less.
Guess, even for a bachelor the monthly living costs may come to around 2K as of now.
I was planning to try for a job in Singapore,but considering the above figures, i would better stay here in India itself
As people can earn anyway between 9 to 12 la lakhs pa for that exp.

[Jimmy Clark]

Do you make more if you have 8+ years of failed projects and buggy code? I would think so. If your code does not have bugs and issues, then you should make less because you did not do a good job.

[Sai Surya]

After working in Singapore for almost 4 years, now I am seriously thinking of going back to India, here are my view points. These are purely my personnel observations and I did not mean to offend any community or individual.

1. The fundamental question, why any company needs to recruit a foreigner? There are so many factors involved i.e., cost, availability of skill set, social and political.
Recruiting a foreigner involves cost to the company and time. Time and effort required to bring individual from their country to Singapore. Their EP needs to be processed etc. So they prefer to recruit a local.

2. The problem with recruiting local (Singaporean / PR) is CPF contribution from employer. This is signifcant cost to the company assuming contribution is at graduated rate! Moreover, PRs are the people who have migrated few years back on high salaries (like me ). They obviously demand more salary.

3. Another reason recruiting PR is social and political reasons. If company's development centre is located in China, they need people who speak Mandarin or Cantonese. Surely, Indian people cannot communicate in Chinese Lots of jobs in Singapore requires Mandarin speaking in additional to coding skills

4. Recruiting Singaporean is beneficial to companies. Firstly, the salary expectation is lower for them because they are native people in Singapore land. The basic needs like housing, car (which are most expensive) are inherited from their parents. So they are comfortable with 3k to 3.5k. In addtion to that, preparing Indian food is expensive not like local food. For $2 you can have good local food. If you want to have south indian or north indian meal it costs at least $8.

5. If company really want to recruit foreigners (few in number) because of rare skill set (like Storage tech, MQ-Series, Tibco, Documentam or whatever), they recruit from top indian consultancy companies for short term. These consultancy companies will take care of transport, accommodation etc so client Singapore company need not to worry about these things.

6. If company really want to recruit foreigners in bulk (say, 100-200 people for big projects) indian consultancy companies comes into picture again. Either they outsource to India, or do bulk import.

7. Locals especially Singaporeans REALLY UNHAPPY about foreign talent here in Singapore. So government and local companies prefer recruiting locals and providing training to them. There are lots of Singapore forums shouting on foreigners to go away

8. Companies and teams prefer locals because local people can mingle them socially.

9. My observation is, there is no value for certifications, even with experience + certification. The criteria for recruiting is cost, social, language and political reasons.

10. On top of all these things, our Indian guys needs only those people who can 'remember syntax'. I attended few interviews here in Singapore and only Indian guys took my interviews. I lost job offers because I cannot remember syntax and API. Unfortunate

If any one who is working in Singapore thinks any of the above points are wrong, please correct me.

[Liu Xing]

Sai Surya wrote:After working in Singapore for almost 4 years, now I am seriously thinking of going back to India, here are my view points. These are purely my personnel observations and I did not mean to offend any community or individual.

1. The fundamental question, why any company needs to recruit a foreigner? There are so many factors involved i.e., cost, availability of skill set, social and political.
Recruiting a foreigner involves cost to the company and time. Time and effort required to bring individual from their country to Singapore. Their EP needs to be processed etc. So they prefer to recruit a local.

2. The problem with recruiting local (Singaporean / PR) is CPF contribution from employer. This is signifcant cost to the company assuming contribution is at graduated rate! Moreover, PRs are the people who have migrated few years back on high salaries (like me ). They obviously demand more salary.

3. Another reason recruiting PR is social and political reasons. If company's development centre is located in China, they need people who speak Mandarin or Cantonese. Surely, Indian people cannot communicate in Chinese Lots of jobs in Singapore requires Mandarin speaking in additional to coding skills

4. Recruiting Singaporean is beneficial to companies. Firstly, the salary expectation is lower for them because they are native people in Singapore land. The basic needs like housing, car (which are most expensive) are inherited from their parents. So they are comfortable with 3k to 3.5k. In addtion to that, preparing Indian food is expensive not like local food. For $2 you can have good local food. If you want to have south indian or north indian meal it costs at least $8.

5. If company really want to recruit foreigners (few in number) because of rare skill set (like Storage tech, MQ-Series, Tibco, Documentam or whatever), they recruit from top indian consultancy companies for short term. These consultancy companies will take care of transport, accommodation etc so client Singapore company need not to worry about these things.

6. If company really want to recruit foreigners in bulk (say, 100-200 people for big projects) indian consultancy companies comes into picture again. Either they outsource to India, or do bulk import.

7. Locals especially Singaporeans REALLY UNHAPPY about foreign talent here in Singapore. So government and local companies prefer recruiting locals and providing training to them. There are lots of Singapore forums shouting on foreigners to go away

8. Companies and teams prefer locals because local people can mingle them socially.

9. My observation is, there is no value for certifications, even with experience + certification. The criteria for recruiting is cost, social, language and political reasons.

10. On top of all these things, our Indian guys needs only those people who can 'remember syntax'. I attended few interviews here in Singapore and only Indian guys took my interviews. I lost job offers because I cannot remember syntax and API. Unfortunate

If any one who is working in Singapore thinks any of the above points are wrong, please correct me.

What you say is quite right.

[T. Huy Nguyen]

Jimmy Clark wrote:Do you make more if you have 8+ years of failed projects and buggy code? I would think so. If your code does not have bugs and issues, then you should make less because you did not do a good job.

I don't really get what you said. Can you please elaborate more on this?

I'm having lots of trouble with one of my project, but if what you said is true, then I shouldn't be worried any more

[jack Krish]

Hi, Could anyone send me the contact information for searching J2EE Technical Lead / Architect / Asst. PM in SINGAPORE. I have 8+ yrs exp in J2EE, Tibco, Middleware with M.S Education Background.Appreciate your inputs on current job statistics[Positions/Salary] etc.