Extremely disappointing - Cybersecurity DBS Bank Employee Review

The tasks assigned were mostly unrelated to cybersecurity, typically involving infrastructure maintenance, IT support, project management, and liaising with vendors and stakeholders. It's more like project management, but the theme of the project just so happens to be cybersecurity. Most of the time we did admin duties such as drafting chaser emails, creating spreadsheets, presentations, creating change requests, and reports. You won't do technical things like malware analysis, incident response, etc. You will become very good at using Microsoft Office applications rather than cybersecurity tools. Workload is burdened by manual processes and a lot of red tape, which was made worse by all the regulatory freeze. Obtaining approvals for even minor tasks that take 10 minutes can take several days, leading to significant delays. Sometimes there can even be a lot of back and forth, like your wording is a bit off, then need to delay again and explain to management about the delays. The nature of infrastructure work requires frequent late-night OT. These OT sessions can extend into the early hours of the morning or even the next day/night, sometimes even requiring you to go down to the office or data centers. Is not shift work btw, you are working 9-6:30, but you still do these night OTs also. If you have a meeting the next day, means you still need to come to work. For example you finish work at 6am, but you come for the meeting at 11am. No day no night no weekend. The "skills" acquired here are usually not transferable to other cybersecurity positions outside as they are all processes specific to the bank. Internal mobility is also extremely discouraged by management. As a result, people find themselves stuck in their roles. There are also no learning resources here, people tell you to go YouTube to learn while you wait for OT. Very little people get sent for certifications also unlike other places. It's very bad for your career and growth. Workforce is very lean here, so expect to put on a lot of hats. For some reason management is very reluctant or unable to hire full time staff, so we are very understaffed. Turnover rate is also very high, with most people lasting about 1-2 years. In the past few months alone there was a record high number of people leaving. Not safe to fail here. Mistakes are treated very harshly. Very poor documentation and sometimes colleagues are not willing to teach or are too busy to teach, so you fend for yourself. Sometimes you muster the courage to ask question you get scolded or humiliated with bosses in the vicinity. The management hierarchy is extremely top-down, with little support offered to employees in the event of mistakes. Management will only find you when you make mistakes, and then disappear when you need help. Public scolding during meetings without constructive feedback were common. There is no transparency and no direct communication, to the point that many times you find out important things regarding your own work via gossip. Likewise, management also finds out things about you via gossip, instead of asking you directly. Major decisions involving your future trajectory are done without your knowledge or input. Nepotism and bias are very common, with some colleagues receiving preferential treatment due to personal connections, taking way less work, going home early, fast promotions, able to work hybrid while everyone else forced to WFO everyday. Speaking of hybrid, HR policy says by right we are supposed to work hybrid, but some managers here override it for no reason and make us all WFO everyday as the default. So if interview HR say is hybrid please double check. Or better yet don't interview here at all. Some colleagues are extremely unprofessional, disrespectful, crass, miserable, and immature. A lot of gossip, and inappropriate humor. Jokes are always at the expense of someone else. The social climate here is very cliquey, exclusive, and toxic. People here love to gossip so much, to the point that you can know everything about a person before you even see their face, provided the gossip is even correct. Sometimes the gossip is wrong, but it spreads far and wide anyway. They pretend they are one big happy family, but it's extremely dysfunctional on the inside with all the bias, bullying, and gossip. There is a character limit here, full review somewhere on NUS Whispers.