Singapore’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) has hired about 60 former employees of Indeed, the internet job portal, after the company downsized its operations in Singapore earlier this year.
GovTech said it took a more agile hiring approach to balance speed with responsible hiring, and that every candidate was interviewed and placed at comparable grades in GovTech by taking into consideration their equivalent grades within Indeed and remunerated accordingly.
The ex-Indeed staff who were hired include software and quality engineers, product managers, UX designers and data scientists. They are currently working in cross-functional teams across the organisation, and collaborating with various agencies on projects to benefit the “whole of government”.
GovTech said the hiring was part of its ongoing efforts to attract the best tech talent to contribute to Singapore’s digital government services. It also pointed to the Tech for Public Good initiative, which was launched in 2022 to offer job opportunities in government in the wake of mass layoffs.
The Tech for Public Good initiative allows people to contribute to accelerating the digital transformation of government agencies and elevating GovTech’s capability centres. GovTech has five of these centres in areas like application development, cybersecurity, and data science and artificial intelligence.
“With Indeed’s closure of one of their Singapore offices, we saw a unique opportunity to hire some of their intact and functioning engineering teams to work on the two priorities,” said GovTech.
This move is seen as a positive development for GovTech, as it will help to bolster its tech talent and accelerate the digital transformation of government services. It is also a welcome move for the former Indeed employees, who have been able to find new jobs in a competitive market.
