Pros: Some beautiful parks and nature spots. Very walkable (and cyclable, with a couple of omnipresent bike share systems and an extensive running / cycle path network). English is the defacto language spoken by everybody. Virtually no crime or homelessness. Infrastructure is top notch. The government are competent, pro-active, and non-corrupt. Condos all have great facilities – multiple swimming pools, barbecue pits, and a gym are the norm, tennis courts and steam rooms are common. Diverse culture that’s a combination of Malay, Chinese, and Western, with major holidays celebrated throughout the year. Amazing, cheap food from many different cultures. Loads of fantastic travel destinations on the doorstep. Excellent education and support for families. Very low taxes.
Double-edged sword: A humid 30°C year-round with no winter – some people love it, some people hate it. Draconian drug laws – people are executed for bringing drugs into the country, even weed, but Singapore is clearly avoiding a lot of drug deaths and related crime and social issues.
Cons: High cost of living. Long-term visas can be tricky; permanent residence and citizenship are getting very difficult these days. A lot of economic inequality, with an extremely low-paid immigrant workforce. The government is socially conservative but pulled a little further that way by the pioneer generation, so illiberal laws when it comes to freedom of expression, gay rights, etc. It’s a small place, so if you are always looking for new things to do, you’ll have to travel.
I am in Singapore too — I saw you're doing an early stage startup here and wonder how you find the scene/ecosystem here?
My sense is:
- Engineers, while cheaper than the US, are still fairly expensive and are typically quite risk-averse
- The investors-to-builders ratio is very high; while it might be good for fundraising, I wonder if having a critical mass of builders is no less important
It’s pretty easy to meet other founders and investors here. If you’re a founder then it’s a pretty good place to be as far as the entrepreneurial ecosystem is concerned. Antler started here and is very active in the community.
In terms of hiring talent, I’ve only tried hiring software and platform engineers here, without much luck. Despite the cost of living, the salaries aren’t too high compared with, say, Europe. But it’s a small market and all the megacorps like Facebook / Google / Apple have their regional headquarters here so you are competing with them. I think for developers the market is pretty bimodal – the good ones go to the megacorps and are super expensive, and everybody else works for local firms and are affordable but not great.
I tried putting a few job ads on MyCareersFuture for an average salary for Singapore, and only got a handful of responses, most of whom were entirely unqualified. Our circumstances changed, so I didn’t keep trying to hire here, but I get the impression MyCareersFuture is only really used to prove to MOM that you tried to hire a local so you can justify a visa to bring somebody into the country. I think most proper hiring is done via word of mouth or LinkedIn here.
I think a lot of people here hire developer teams in Vietnam and nearby areas. Which is certainly cheaper and opens up much bigger markets, but also introduces a language barrier. Also, if you aren’t Singaporean / PR, then your visa will probably require you to spend a significant amount of money and hire locals here sooner or later.
If you’re keen on living in the region as a founder, then I’d say Singapore is the best place to be by far. But you probably aren’t going to build a dev team here.
> I tried putting a few job ads on MyCareersFuture for an average salary for Singapore, and only got a handful of responses, most of whom were entirely unqualified. Our circumstances changed, so I didn’t keep trying to hire here, but I get the impression MyCareersFuture is only really used to prove to MOM that you tried to hire a local so you can justify a visa to bring somebody into the country. I think most proper hiring is done via word of mouth or LinkedIn here.
> I think a lot of people here hire developer teams in Vietnam and nearby areas. Which is certainly cheaper and opens up much bigger markets, but also introduces a language barrier.
Yes I think you're right about that. Am I right to understand that you ended up hiring elsewhere as a result? How was your experience in that regard? Yes, I know couple of founders who hire developer teams in Vietnam specifically. What they said is, for the equivalent of a fresh grad's salary (assuming you're getting the good end of that bimodal distribution), you can get a senior engineer in Vietnam. Oh, and I know someone who has dev team in India but I think he's originally from India and was able to tap into local connections to pull this off.
> If you’re keen on living in the region as a founder, then I’d say Singapore is the best place to be by far. But you probably aren’t going to build a dev team here.
So your advice would be to live in Singapore, but build a dev team somewhere else in Southeast Asia?
> It’s pretty easy to meet other founders and investors here. If you’re a founder then it’s a pretty good place to be as far as the entrepreneurial ecosystem is concerned. Antler started here and is very active in the community.
> Am I right to understand that you ended up hiring elsewhere as a result?
We ended up pausing hiring and I left that business a few months back.
> So your advice would be to live in Singapore, but build a dev team somewhere else in Southeast Asia?
Generally speaking, yes, with the caveat that how much funding you have and your visa may stack the deck in the other direction.
> Any specific events you'd recommend?
I don’t have any specific recurring events in mind, things mostly happen ad hoc, but just start talking to people and see what one-off events are happening. There’s normally things happening at the Google offices, the incubators normally run events, etc.
I love visiting Singapore and I have friends who live there and love it. I wish I'd tried harder to get a job there when I was younger for a few years. At the moment we have young children who have just started school and we're quite settled in our town in the UK, but I do still daydream about moving to Singapore.
One of the things I love about where I live in the UK is the beautiful English landscapes. We're in the SE of England, commutable to London and we're surrounded by forests and countryside. We cycle a lot into those forests.
A question if you don't mind, do you have children and how would you rate their quality of life in Singapore? I know there are a lot of parks but it does also have a sense of very built up and so kids grown up quite urbanised right?
I don’t have kids, but my niece and nephew visited a while back and loved it. It’s definitely urban. There’s often playgrounds and kids’ swimming pools in condos, parks are mostly urban with playgrounds, there’s loads of places for them to ride bikes safely, skate, etc. If anything, people complain about it being a little too sanitised. Unless you are loaded, you’ll be living in a small apartment rather than a house with a garden, but the condo facilities and parks make up for it.
It’s Singapore, so it’ small and you won’t get vast forests, but there’s enough nature spots to keep kids happy. You can always go cycling around Pulau Ubin at the weekend to soak up the jungle atmosphere or hike along the Southern Ridges or up Bukit Timah, and I often see smaller kids wandering around the mangrove boardwalks with their parents trying to spot lizards and otters.
It is expensive if you have kids though. You’ll pay a lot in school fees, and if public transport isn’t enough for you, cars are very expensive as well. Having said that, the schools and public transport are both top notch.
Pros: Some beautiful parks and nature spots. Very walkable (and cyclable, with a couple of omnipresent bike share systems and an extensive running / cycle path network). English is the defacto language spoken by everybody. Virtually no crime or homelessness. Infrastructure is top notch. The government are competent, pro-active, and non-corrupt. Condos all have great facilities – multiple swimming pools, barbecue pits, and a gym are the norm, tennis courts and steam rooms are common. Diverse culture that’s a combination of Malay, Chinese, and Western, with major holidays celebrated throughout the year. Amazing, cheap food from many different cultures. Loads of fantastic travel destinations on the doorstep. Excellent education and support for families. Very low taxes.
Double-edged sword: A humid 30°C year-round with no winter – some people love it, some people hate it. Draconian drug laws – people are executed for bringing drugs into the country, even weed, but Singapore is clearly avoiding a lot of drug deaths and related crime and social issues.
Cons: High cost of living. Long-term visas can be tricky; permanent residence and citizenship are getting very difficult these days. A lot of economic inequality, with an extremely low-paid immigrant workforce. The government is socially conservative but pulled a little further that way by the pioneer generation, so illiberal laws when it comes to freedom of expression, gay rights, etc. It’s a small place, so if you are always looking for new things to do, you’ll have to travel.