Singaporean asks if fresh tech grads are ‘cooked' in terms of salary expectations
SINGAPORE: A local Reddit user expressed concern over the salary expectations of fresh tech graduates this year, saying that they seem to be somewhat low.
In a post on r/askSingapore over the weekend, u/Grand-Net3191 asked if tech fresh grads are 'cooked,' adding that they've been searching for tech market salary posts but haven't seen any in a while.
'Since the 2025 batch has recently graduated, I was wondering about the job market across the grad cohort. I heard that the tech market has been oversaturated and that companies are not hiring junior roles,' the post author wrote.
They added that the people who've graduated from a computer science course have been getting offers with salaries in the S$4000 to S$4,500 range 'even for cybersec roles @ Big 4 accounting,' which they called 'considerably below median for CS.'
In December 2024, the global job search platform Indeed reported that the average base salary of a computer scientist in Singapore is S $8,786. Meanwhile, the personal finance blog Dollars & Sense reported on Jun 25 that the median starting salary of a computer science graduate from Nanyang Technological University is S$5,500.
Those who graduate from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) may expect to earn S$4,900 a month, while the median starting salary for those from the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) is between S$4,900 and S$5,000.
A number of commenters on u/Grand-Net3191's post wrote that the year that a person graduates can affect their salary.
'Sometimes it just comes down to being born at the right year, graduating at the right time,' was the top comment.
'Those who graduated during 2008 lagged behind their peers who graduated a year before or after them by a significant margin,' chimed in another.
'Yup. People who graduated about five years ago are the sweetest spot around. They started with a high pay, had a good number of jobs available, and could gather enough experience to beat out these huge waves of people now,' wrote one.
Another argued that 2022 was the best year since that was when TikTok took off.
'As much as I would like to say it comes down to one's ability and merit, I'm afraid this is very true, the graduating year absolutely plays a part,' a Reddit user weighed in.
As to whether tech grads are 'cooked,' this is what commenters had to say:
'I work in a local bank here. All of our dev and testing have already been offshored to PH/IND liao… Standard Chartered also recently moved 80 SG jobs to IND. Cooked!'
'VERY cooked. I work in a Fin MNC, and our junior roles are cut to the bone. My peers in other firms see the same issue. Every new opening we have for junior roles is flooded with apps from both freshers and experienced professionals. There are openings, but more towards experienced professionals (staff eng and up). Doesn't help that GENAI and India/China/Vietnam offshoring is removing the need to hire so many junior engineers in SG now,' another wrote.
One gave this bit of advice: 'Pure tech is cooked. Find a role that lies between technology and business. That way, you get exposed to aspects of both ends of the spectrum.' /TISG
Read also: NUS Computer Science grad yet to land job despite sending hundreds of applications
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