I'm the son of a Singaporean immigrant and have been to Singapore several times, including a 5-6 month period of actually living there: I must say that I can't

I'm the son of a Singaporean immigrant and have been to Singapore several times, including a 5-6 month period of actually living there: I must say that I can't agree more with your assessment. From ministers declaring programming to be (paraphrasing) a "tradeable" skill, to Universities placing Computer Science as just a part of Computer Engineering (i.e. the hardware is more important the software), I'd say that Software Engineers are very much looked down upon. Another problem with Singaporean Tech is that, besides the low wages and the unsupportive culture, is that Singapore is too small a market for any startup there to achieve local success. The kind of scale companies can reach in the US alone is impossible on the island: 100% penetration of Singapore is equivalent to 2% in the US.