I was for the last coupla months on an assignment with a European bank on their IT projects. Needless to say the person I was reporting to (an Indian btw) was a lousy manager. Took more off days to attend to his wife/son/himself for all sorts of excuses - wife sick/son sick/him sick/wife in india son alone at home, etc. Made more mistakes on the job that I really wondered how he'd ever became a manager. At one point had the nerve to blatantly deny his mistake without as much as blinking an eye! Could not manage a team without the usual (Indian) politics involved - if you know what Indian politics is about. 'Gossiped' more during team meetings than actually plan for team work. Hardly works - 90% of the time, he's on the phone, for meetings apparently. In short, I wonder how the hell he got into Singapore to work in the first place.
He's not the only one. The guy who was given the development manager role was equally mediocre. Read on his linkedin profile, he never lasted more than a year in his previous roles. Not surprisingly being a development manager he never really bothered about the quality of the software. Heard he got into this role by way of nepotism.
BillyB wrote:Banking IT at present in Singapore is looking grim. Sentiment is negative in the global banks and they are shedding staff, canning projects and reducing contractor day rates. IT are usually the first to feel the pinch - consultants, contractors and then permies.
Singapore is on slow-down mode for the next 6-12 months in the banking sector. They'll be a shed load of contractors from Singapore who won't be getting their contracts renewed as Asia will suffer as part of global cost cutting, and we'll see inflows of contractors / IT staff from the US all looking to come to Asia with the recent / pending Dodd-Frank regulatory changes that has effectively changed the investment banking world forever.
Why do you want to work for a bank? Let me guess, the money? It's not glamorous and with exception to some of the global banks, IT are usually run by socially and financially inept muppets who manage to botch everything they get their hands on. They couldn't manage a hot dinner, and take 4 times as long as a project should do to guarantee themselves a job, and they suck on everyone elses budget to do it.
You rarely work on bleeding edge projects, and will most likely be some sort of donkey boy automating spreadsheets or running reconcilliation batches to bring the banking systems into the 20th Century. The lack of technology at institutions that manage billions or trade trillions of dollars is mindblowingly jurrasic by nature.
If you can get a decent role at a reputable software vendor - go for that. shorter hours, more interesting work, likely to be managed by people who know what they are doing or are passionate about what they do, and a sharper learning curve - r&d work on developing the next version of the product as opposed to making something work in a bank.
