GovTech Reviews

Pros

Less bureaucracy compared to other places in government. Very helpful colleagues and bosses. Opportunities to learn and grow.

Cons

Nothing much! Overall pretty good. Scholars are sometimes prioritised but that's to be expected.

Pros

- Family oriented. Everyone has been extremely supportive to those on maternity and parental leave and new parents. - Senior management does their best to shield middle and juniors from politics. - Compensation is higher than most companies

Cons

Upon joining GovTech (GDS), I was informed that it operates with a startup mindset. I did not expect it to be taken to the extreme of being as dysfunctional as a startup as well. Despite emphasizing "Agile" as a core value, there is a blatant disrespect for agile development practices: - Product owners who don't spend any time on the product and are clueless about the product's direction. - Delivery managers who are not even aware of what features are supposed to be delivered. - Engineering Managers and Technical Leads often urge their teams to forgo unit tests and resort to hard coding, all in an attempt to "save time." - The standard solution to challenges is to add more people and work longer hours, instead of finding innovative and efficient ways to resolve the underlying issues. In this organization, the focus leans towards meeting immediate goals rather than delivering high-quality software. Short-term gains are prioritized over the product's long-term health. Additionally, there is a concerning tendency to apply temporary fixes to issues and pass them on to successors, rather than addressing problems head-on and finding sustainable solutions.

Pros

GovTech provides somewhat competitive salary, with good benefits and training programmes. People genuinely cares about each others' well being.

Cons

A great senior management team let down by the middle managers (i.e. GovTech CIOs seconded to agencies or ministries). Usually prefering the easier way out at the detriment to the organisations instead of escalating to relevant decision makers. In short, sweep stuff under rugs. Very demoralising to working levels.

Pros

Work-life balance and flexible working arrangement. Good pay package compared to outside. Great learning opportunities as no limitation on how many courses you can go. Basically management just want all the staff just go for the product courses and certification even though not much relevancy to our job role. Great place for retirement though.

Cons

Disappointing team leaders just follow what the management asked them to do without giving much technical direction and support to the staff. Most of them like the DD/AD, Principle/Lead architects/engineers in operations and TAF do not have much technical know-how but very old school mindset and experience (theory-based). Not sure why TAF and Goverance teams are there as they don't seem to create much value at all. Depends a lot on outsourced vendors and those technically strong engineers like third party contract staff for development tasks. Some directors and very senior staffs seem to be there just to pass time or waiting for retirement.

Pros

General staff benefits are good, and work-life balance is better than most of the other government agencies.

Cons

The senior management appear to lack concern for the well-being of their staff, particularly those in GDS central. The senior management team in GDS central may come across as kind and friendly, but they true character is far from it. They are solely concerned with impressing their superiors and showcasing the software's capabilities, without regard for the challenges faced by software developers in implementing such features. Despite the impracticality of these demands, they puts immense pressure on the team to deliver, often requiring excessive overtime. Their only concern is saving face, with little regard for anything else. Another issue is the company's salary policies. When employees have raised concerns about their salaries not being competitive, the senior management dismissed them, citing their salaries as already being too high. It is apparent that this statement only applies to the senior management, who take credit for the work of the software engineers and reap the rewards, such as good grades and high bonuses. Meanwhile, the developers themselves receive mediocre grades and low bonuses, despite their hard work. It is advised to approach joining Govtech, particularly GDS central, with caution. The senior management team put little regard for their well-being.

Pros

big organisation base and good for high level/application level techncial learning

Cons

lack of communications, and brute force in execution of policy and franework by the medium level middle managements or some division needs to bring outcomes upwards and achieve individual division KPI, and often result in lack of communication to others and strictly follow of framework >leads to show of lacking of empathy by blind following

Pros

A fast pace environment which allows you to stretch yourself to your max and learn a lot of things. Motivated, smart and hardworking colleagues who rubs positivity onto you. Management also works hard to lead by example. A lot of good usable systems delivered to the public and not just white elephant systems for show.

Cons

Other than the very heavy workload in some departments, all is good and happy for me.

Pros

Interesting work and opportunities to engage public sector

Cons

Bureaucratic and can be faster paced

Pros

Wfh, good colleagues. Easy project but might drag for years.

Cons

Bad managers. Less progression. Routine works.

Pros

Them trying to be innovative, trying to be like Google. There are places in the office where you can play pool, resting rooms with lounge chairs to rest, vending machines for employees to get free snacks etc.

Cons

The keyword is, they are TRYING to be like Google by giving this impression that they are "open" and "transparent" but end of the day, they are still a stat board belonging to the Prime Minister's Office. whatever problems found in government sectors is also found here, such the obscene amount of red tapes, politics and power tripping from higher ups from different government agencies, directors who parachute in from elsewhere and not knowing a single thing about IT, huge pay gap between degree and diploma holders, and elitism. Bad Leaders: Bosses here are not open, with double standards to boot. Its only on the surface that they say "understand" your family issues or courses you need to take etc, but the moment you ask to WFH due to emergencies, they will mark you and say your work performance has issues, without being able to justify which part of your work has issues, but they themselves MIA from office and only turn up to work for 1 day. Just classic power tripping. And they love to hire and promote people who are good in tech but lack in EQ or leadership skills, resulting in things like compilations of team members' work mistakes into a PowerPoint slide to be shared across the entire department. Other teams will then join in by betting on who will get the most work mistakes. When this matter is raised to higher up, other team leads who joined the bet asked "why cannot?" and the director's reply was "Oh we don't endorse this but we believe this was a genuine mistake on her part." So either this lead is REALLY lack of EQ (in which why choose this person as lead then?) or just higher-ups covering for each other. You can decide which sounds more reasonable to you. On elitism: Problem with Govtech is that they are trying to attract talent in the competitive IT sector, so there's a lot of scholars here, and elites of the society (i mean rich kids or kids whose parents have high appointments in government who ventures into IT because they are very smart about branding on their resume). And they are oblivious to current situation of the country (terrible for public servants), which means average Singaporeans in this organization will hear comments such as "COVID really got people lose job meh?" or "Wow you see he donated all his bonus to charity we should all do the same!" or making comments like "OMG my pay is so low!" when as compared to many people outside or to diploma holders, their pay is already fantastic especially during the COVID era (5k to 6k starting pay for degree holders, 3k starting pay for diploma holders) There are other better places to work. Every yearly meeting there will be many people voting in the survey that they plan to leave GT. It says a lot when many stay here for only 1 to 2 years and then move on to private sectors, because career progression is only limited to scholars and high-flyers. Please think twice if having Govtech on your resume is worth this kind of treatment from the organisation.