I write this article when I am in airport leaving Malaysia after 5 years working as water engineer in Malaysia.
For the last 5 years I worked with 2 consultancy firms. Here what I learned and experineced during my stay.
1. Style
Different company has different style of working. In general, the team has been squezzed from time to time. In some projects, I worked as one-man-show person. The system is not strong. It depends on person-in-charge and the boss who are handling it. It is good and bad actually. The young engineers can learn a lot from many fields and prespectives. But it could give more burden to senior engineers.
2. Salary
This is sensitive but most of people may aware that engineers not paid well. Malaysia has a program called Protegé to hire fresh graduates with low paid to expose with engineering field. My first impression is that the young engineers won't work hard due less paid.
Whatever the condition, give a proper salary to the young engineers will motivate them to working hard. It will benefit companies and fasten the transfer of knowledge. In general the salary for fresh graduates is about RM3,000 but I think it must be noted clearly that it is take home pay. It means the costs related to work requirements must be covered by the companies.
For senior levels, it is between RM 5,000 to 10,000. The program to retain thr senior levels must be clear. However, I see in some companies were not well defined. When you are in senior levels, usually you don't want to jump to other companies unless it is really necessary. The flow chart for senior levels must be clear. 5-yrs experience will be endorsed as senior engineers. 8-yrs experience will become accociate. 10-yrs experience will become director. Or it could be other ideas like share holding persentages. This kind of thing must be stated clearly.
3. Working time
It is a standard that the working hour is 8 hrs a day. However, as engineers there are a lot of thing to do that make you overtime. Some companies, they compensate with cash and other with leave. I don't think it is not a wise decision to give leave for overtime. Because the other day, you have to do other works. The best option is still with cash.
