Chinese tech giants on talent poaching spree in Singapore

The Business Times (Garage)

December 29, 2021

Original Source

THE hunt for tech talent in Singapore has Chinese tech companies flashing serious cash in order to bulk up their presence here in South-east Asia, with even interns benefiting from their efforts.

Fighting in a limited talent pool, the usual big-name companies are seeing their talent poached by Chinese tech companies that make better offers, sparking a cycle of poaching from others to replace lost talent. This has resulted in higher salaries and perks to attract and retain talent.

For instance, salaries at ByteDance can range from S$6,000 to S$7,000 on average for fresh graduates in junior tech roles, according to tech career site NodeFlair. Salaries for junior tech roles across the board were ranging between as low as S$3,000 and S$7,250 for Q3 2021.

Average salaries for mid to senior-level hires at ByteDance can range from S$9,000 to S$11,000. In Q3 2021, mid to senior roles across the board saw their median salaries hit S$6,500 and S$7,750 respectively, according to Nodeflair.

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Fresh graduates can command S$5,500 to S$6,000 monthly on average for tech roles at Ant, while seniors command S$9,000 to S$11,000, said Ethan Ang, co-founder of NodeFlair.

"To our knowledge, Ant is slightly on the lower end of the spectrum for fresh grads in the market, but on par from the mid-level onward," he said.

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There is also stiff competition even at the intern level. NodeFlair has seen interns having competing offers and being paid over S$5,000 in total for a 3-month internship.

"It is causing quite a bit of difficulty for smaller companies to hire, as they are right now fighting for both full-timers and interns," said Ang, noting that startups attempt to match the pay, but struggle against tech giants' deeper pockets.