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Ask HN: I'm interested in moving to Singapore as a dev, I have some questions

3 points by fragola ↗ HN
I'm super interested in relocating to Singapore sometime in the next 1-2 years and I have a few questions:

1. I see a lot of salary info, but could you give me a good idea of the salary I could expected as an early career (2-3 experience) developer?

2.I'm a graduate of a top-tier American CS program and currently working for a Big 5 company -- do these things mean anything there?

3. What would you say is the ROI (both socially and professionally) of learning Mandarin?

4. Are women software developers respected equally there/will I run into any issues?

5. (Expats with kids) -- have your kids had any trouble making friends?

6. What is the work culture like?

Looking for answers from both Singaporeans and current/former expats (except for #5).

Thank you!

5 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 18.4 ms ] thread
benologist
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/singa...

I'd be wary about taking my child to live in countries where she will enjoy substantially fewer freedoms - especially when the government hates dissent and solves lots of problems by savagely caning people. Even if you're not the dissenting type it has already poisoned every relationship you and your child could have there.

    They are trained to use their entire body weight as the 
    power behind every stroke instead of using only the 
    strength from their arms,[20] as well as to induce as 
    much pain as possible. They can swing the cane at a 
    speed of up to 160 kilometres per hour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
fragola
First of all, my child is only 8 months old, so I don't think he will be getting caned.

Secondly, the reason I am interested in Singapore is that it is a very diverse country, with a lot of different ethnicities and religions living tolerantly side by side. It also has wonderful social programs, friendly people. It's incredibly safe.

Let me put it this way: where I live now in the US, people are protesting because of police brutality, especially against black people. The parks are full of discarded hypodermic needles so I will be scared to let me baby play in them. The streets are full of homeless people, included mentally ill war veterans, who are just left outside to die.

Sure, Singapore canes people. And I love America, but it is not exactly Disneyland. I would like for myself and my family to experience a different place, warts and all.

benologist
The whole world is diverse and almost everyone on the planet is friendly, happy etc, humanity is collectively trending towards harmony and happiness by abandoning institutional violence and employing more appropriate solutions for social issues.

The reason you won't see those needles, addicts, mentally ill homeless etc is they get executed.

If you anticipate your son going to school there he will probably be caned.

https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore might be a good resource to explore. Note the hilarious post about the impact on eg, Pokemon Go.

fragola
>"He will probably be caned"

[citation needed] because it looks like they only cane about 2500 people a year, and can't cane people under 16 unless they get tried as adults.

I feel like you are exaggerating -- like saying that because the US has capital punishment, and sometimes people get convicted wrongly, moving here will mean that you will get executed.

benologist
That's the prison system. Caning is also a heavily supported and pervasive component of their education system.

http://www.corpun.com/counsgs.htm

I get the disbelief - I can't imagine anyone caning my daughter either. Here in Costa Rica nobody is legally allowed to hit her. As a child in Australia lots of teachers and principals were legally enabled to hurt me. Some parts of the world lag way behind in basic human decency and rights and cling to violent solutions even when today we know they're ineffective - my state ditched such punishment before I was a teenager. If you moved to parts of the Middle East you could take your boy to public beheadings ... by governments, not just ISIS.