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DBS to fill tech roles at women-focused careers fair

DBS Bank is looking for more women to fill over 140 openings in engineering roles in a bid to improve gender diversity among its ranks

Singapore’s DBS Bank is looking for more women to join its ranks with over 140 openings at its Women in Tech virtual careers fair for female technologists this year.

This is triple the number of opportunities available at last year’s inaugural fair, which saw more than 500 applicants vie for 50 jobs.

The new recruits will fill positions in five engineering roles, including engineering leads, solution architects, ReactJS developers, full stack developers and software development engineers in test.

Soh Siew Choo, DBS’s group head of big data, artificial intelligence and consumer banking technology, said the bank was making a concerted push to improve female representation in engineering roles, an area which continues to see a dearth of women across the industry.

“We believe that by driving diversity in our engineering roles we will be able to incorporate a multiplicity of views and perspectives upstream so as to deliver outstanding digital experiences for our customers,” she added.

Soh said the overwhelming response to DBS’s first women-focused careers fair last year had shattered the myth that there was a limited pipeline of women for technology roles.

“The key to success lies in applying an unbiased lens and targeted effort in our outreach. At DBS, we run curated hackathons and hiring events to reach out to top female technology talent. We are deeply encouraged by the positive outcomes of our efforts,” she said.

Lo Man Ling, vice-president of consumer banking digital platform at DBS, joined the bank through last year’s run of DBS Women in Tech after more than nine years in the public sector.

“I was sold on DBS’s unique and sincere effort to connect with female technologists such as myself. Not only did I meet with many talented ladies in the bank’s technology and engineering teams, I also saw a community that truly believes in the importance and strength of diversity,” said Lo.

This year’s applicants will go through an 80-minute online assessment tailored to the roles they are applying for to gauge their technical and planning capabilities. These online assessments must be submitted by 8 June 2021.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an online hiring day on 12 June 2021, when they will learn more about the bank’s approach to fostering diversity and inclusion in its workforce, as well as the career development pathways available, before attending a virtual interview.

DBS has also organised other events to bring more women technologists into its ranks. In 2019, the bank launched Hack2Hire-Her, an outreach programme targeting female technology talent to complement the bank’s annual Hack2Hire hackathon.

As a result, the proportion of applications from women rose to over 30%, as compared with 5% in previous years, and the number of offers made to women also increased by about five times.

DBS’s efforts to drive gender equality has been recognised for four consecutive years in Bloomberg’s Gender-Equality Index. This year, DBS was the only company from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to be listed in the index’s top global quartile.

Read more about women in tech in Asia-Pacific

  • Nearly 60% of APAC organisations are addressing gender equality and about 42% are addressing age-related hiring issues, according to the 2021 Computer Weekly/TechTarget IT salary.
  • Australia’s government is spending A$42.4m to enable women to pursue STEM qualifications and is expanding a grants programme to provide more career opportunities for women.
  • Women IT leaders who have proved their mettle in Singapore say they have been given the same opportunities as their male counterparts.
  • There is no limit to what women can achieve in Malaysia’s IT industry, as a small but growing group of prominent women IT leaders in the country has found.

Read more on Diversity in IT