Navigating the Singapore Tech Scene: A Who’s Who of Which Tech Companies Are Hiring
If you want to understand the current Singapore tech landscape — the stages and specific companies hiring and growing here — read on.
I’ve specialized in leadership and technical recruiting for VC-backed startups and founders (Uber, Houzz, Github, Instacart, Strava, Clever, Groupon etc) over the last twelve years. Relocating from San Francisco to Singapore in 2019 meant researching and interviewing for jobs remotely, and landing at regional super-app Grab to get steeped back into Southeast Asia. My current role as Head of Talent at Monk’s Hill Ventures means further immersion in the increasingly vibrant local tech startup scene.
I break down the main categories of tech companies into: 1) Early stage startups; 2) Homegrown Asian unicorns; and 3) Well known tech brands beyond the FAANG group. The list is meant as a starting point, and by no means comprehensive or exhaustive. I’ll update it over time, and hope it can serve as a useful guide to anyone interested in tech roles on the little red dot.
Option 1: Early Stage Startups
There are now an estimated 4,000 tech-enabled startups in Singapore (source: PwC), and an estimated 18,000 jobs created by them in 2019 (source: Worldbank). Over US$4 billion of funding flowed into Singapore startups in 2020 despite Covid-19 challenges — 3x that of 2015.
This is the higher risk and (potentially) higher reward set of companies: Seed stage (ideation to first steps), Series A (clear business plan/minimum viable product built) or Series B+ (clear product market fit, expansion mode).
This can be a tough segment to navigate as there is no single source of truth that centralizes these job opportunities. So it does require more research and thought to figure out which ones to look at. There are job boards on AngelList, Glints and Tech in Asia and many lists on Google to get you started, highlighting interesting companies. At Monk’s Hill Ventures, we have a centralized Jobs Board that allows you to easily search open roles at our 20+ portfolio companies, spanning edtech/healthtech/fintech/logistics/AI — with many open to hiring remotely.
A few general tips if this is your jam:
- What resonates with you?: Research and narrow down the domains you are personally most interested: what problems do you want to help solve? (fintech and logistics are currently the most active verticals) > overlay this with stage of company > deep dive to identify 10–20 relevant companies and see which ones resonate. There are many useful reports out there on specific sectors, eg: Fintech News Singapore and Oliver Wyman on the Singapore Fintech landscape, Nic Milanovic’s fintech newsletter. (I’ll write a longer piece on the art of applying to startup jobs).
- Follow the Money: Look up the investors funding your target companies, reach out to the Talent folks at the relevant VC firms, and pitch them your skillset, as they know what their portfolio companies are looking for.
- Network: Get out of your comfort zone to request intros and referrals to companies and individuals. Talking to people in the industries and companies that intrigue you is an excellent way to figure out what you really want. For introverts, a very effective way of networking and branding yourself is to put pen to paper and write some thought pieces you can share with the community.
2. Home-grown Unicorns (& Unicorns-in-waiting)
- Of the companies in Southeast Asia that have reached billion dollar+ valuations, 4 are currently Singapore-based and headquartered (Grab, Sea, Razer, Lazada). According to a report by Temasek, Google and Bain, there are nearly 70 companies valued between US$100 million and US$1 billion in SEA. Many more will join their ranks in coming years. The vast majority are still private, so plenty of upside in an exit event.
- Grab: All over the news recently with its upcoming $40Bn SPAC deal. The time I spent at Grab was great exposure to a wide range of leadership styles, products, and countries given its super-app reach. Still hiring, though not at the levels seen in 2018.
- Sea: Currently the most valuable tech company in the region, a public company with a market valuation of US$130Bn, and lately the best performing stock in the world. The group has three core outfits: Video games (Garena), e-commerce (Shopee) and fintech (SeaMoney). Aggressively hiring.
- Lazada: E-commerce platform acquired by Alibaba in 2016, and the company has since gone through a number of leadership changes, and acquired a more Chinese character.
- Razer: public company with significant market share of global gaming business. Razer was founded way back in 1998 and now has dual HQs in Singapore and USA.
- Trax: Founded and incorporated in Singapore, this retail analytics and execution company recently raised $640mn in Series E funding, but most of its R&D is done out of Israel.
- Patsnap: short for “patents in a snap”. A newly minted unicorn providing data and analytics on IP. Though founded in Singapore, their expansion is now focused entirely on China and USA, so remote work is the only option if you’re in Singapore.
- Ninjavan — leading logistics and courier service provider that’s been a beneficiary of the regional e-commerce boom. The company has raised US$400mn to date (full disclosure: the company I work at, Monk’s Hill Ventures is an early investor in Ninjavan).
- PropertyGuru: A leading property classified business in Southeast Asia which has raised $740mn to date.
- Carousell — a consumer marketplace for buying and selling of secondhand goods. Raised $263mn in total to date.
- Biofourmis — Singapore-born AI powered health analytics. Raised $144mn to date.
- Zilingo — more than just an online shopping site, it positions itself as an end-to-end cloud platform that connects everyone along the supply chain. Raised $308mn to date.
- Stashaway: Series C digital wealth manager that recently crossed having over $1bn in assets under management.
- Indonesian unicorns: limited presence and open roles in Singapore for the likes of Go-Jek, Tokopedia (these two are soon set to merge), Bukalapak, Traveloka etc.
Chinese companies are in a league of their own, as they have been hiring aggressively in Singapore and often paying over market in exchange for a more intense work culture. These include: Bytedance / Tik Tok, Tencent, Alibaba.
Quick mention of SG Govtech, the lead agency driving the Smart Nation initiative and public sector digital transformation, under the Prime Minister’s Office. Yes, you would be working for the government — and get the chance to work on some very large scale projects for public good, I have found some divisions within this eg: Open Government Products to be innovative and progressive — they built the awesome parking.sg app.
Option 3: The International Names
FAANG — The big 5: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google
The tech behemoths continue to hire in sizeable numbers in Singapore. At time of writing, open positions in Singapore at the top 5 performing American public tech companies were: Facebook (180 open roles), Amazon (348), Apple (150), Netflix (28), Google (192).
Great brand names though there are fewer senior leadership positions relative to headquarters, and more limited options for technical roles (engineering and product). Netflix for example, currently has 700 employees in Asia, representing 10% of its global workforce, the majority of which is based in Los Gatos, USA. It currently has no engineering or product teams in Singapore, apart from a few systems engineers.
Other Global Tech companies in Singapore
Microsoft: yes, it’s a huge company. It also remains a major and innovative software player and has invested strategically in the likes of Grab, Bukalapak, etc.
Stripe: Currently the most valuable private startup in the USA. Stripe has steadily built out a presence in Singapore, with about 10% of their global staff based in Asia — there are more technical opportunities here, as they do have an Asia head of engineering and sizeable tech team. 47 open roles as of press time. Big on remote work.
Shopify: Canadian-headquartered, Asia is a major area of growth for them, with an office in Singapore since 2018. They’ve announced plans to double their engineering team in 2021 by hiring 2,021 new roles, and they are fully remote. Started off as a platform for independent merchants to start and manage their online business, now expanding into financing as well.
Wise: Following its rebranding in March (formerly known as Transferwise), this UK-based cross-border payments network announced it will hire over 70 people in Singapore in 2021 for roles including expansion, engineering, product and operations.
Coinbase: Took the public listing route in April, current market cap: US$58Bn. Major cryptoplayer by providing easy way to exchange Bitcoins and other digital currencies. Recently hiring for a country manager in Singapore to expand the team.
Twilio: San Francisco-based cloud communications platform is hiring for a number of technical (largely support and network engineers) and GTM roles in Singapore.
Zoom — announced its intention to build a R&D centre in Singapore to hire hundreds of engineering staff, and double the capacity of its data centre (here since 2019). At time of writing, 14 open roles in Singapore, mostly technical.
Twitter: 15 open roles in Singapore over different functions. It had announced last year setting up an Asia-Pacific engineering center in Singapore; have gone quiet since then.
Spotify: Stockholm-based Spotify recently announced an expansion in international footprint across 85 new markets. (though it’s already present in most of the Southeast Asian countries). A smattering of sales and marketing roles in Singapore for now — but they appear to be big proponents of remote work so it’s worth checking out jobs in other locations.
Indeed: A leading job site (Glassdoor is a sister company) founded out of Austin, acquired in 2012 by Japanese company Recruit.co (so still a private company today). Asia is an area of growth — hiring senior Product/Eng roles for growth and new verticals in Singapore to join their 120-person SG team.
A final note….
We live in an increasingly borderless world, remote work is common now, and even small startups are hiring distributed teams. This trend will continue, so there’s no need to limit yourself to companies with on-the-ground presence.
My next piece will go into the pros and cons of working for each of the above categories of companies.
I welcome comments / feedback / questions which I’ll digest over time…reach me here at LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: Any content provided on this post are views of my own and do not represent the views or opinions of Monk’s Hill Ventures and its affiliates.
