What is drawing young talent to DSO National Laboratories

Read more about Singapore’s Best Employers 2026 here.

Nothing calms a new hire’s nerves more than knowing that someone more experienced has their back.

In her first week at DSO National Laboratories, Ms Jolene Kwek had exactly that. Paired with a work buddy, she was never left to figure things out alone.

She remembers one early session – she sat with her notebook open as her colleague patiently took her through the key aerodynamics fundamentals and the laboratory’s simulation tool she would rely on as an aerodynamics engineer. For three hours, she scribbled down everything she could.

“Aerodynamic design and testing is the bread and butter of aerodynamics work. It’s very important to get the basics right,” says Ms Kwek, 24.

“Even now, if I don’t know something, I’ll go back to that notebook.”

Her assigned buddy was senior aerodynamics engineer Jonathan Lim – and, as it turned out, a familiar face.

The two had already worked together in 2023 during Ms Kwek’s three-month summer internship before her final year of studies at the National University of Singapore. She was offered the DSO Merit Scholarship after the internship and joined DSO a year later upon graduation.

At DSO, employees are given not only close guidance from day one, but also the latitude to question, test and build on their ideas, no matter how inexperienced they are.

They can also seek mentors from other departments, widening their exposure to different domains.

During Ms Kwek’s internship, Mr Lim, 31, mentored her on a project that drew on her background in aerodynamics.

It focused on using machine learning to analyse images of different airfoils and predict their performance. These insights could one day accelerate the design cycle of DSO’s unmanned aerial vehicles.

Ms Kwek recalls how she was only in her first month as an intern when she spotted an opportunity – how different methods of pre-processing the images could improve the models’ outputs. The response from her supervisors was immediate: Go ahead and try.

“There’s always this two-way communication (with my supervisors), to help align our work with our interests, and make sure that we are satisfied and engaged,” she adds.

In 2026, DSO has again been named among Singapore’s 250 best employers in a list compiled by global research firm Statista in collaboration with The Straits Times.

Established in 1972, DSO develops technologies and solutions that strengthen Singapore’s defence. It has evolved from a three-member team to an organisation with more than 1,800 research scientists and engineers working across the domains of land, sea, air, space and cyberspace.

Says Mr Lim: “What we do at DSO directly contributes to Singapore’s national defence capabilities. If you’re interested in science and technology, you can find a significant and real purpose, and meaningful work, at DSO.”

DSO encourages staff to innovate and think ahead through programmes such as the Innovative Project (INP), InnoFest, DSO Big Ideas and DSO Challenge hackathons. These programmes create space for promising concepts to be tested, refined and taken further.

For instance, the project Ms Kwek worked on during her internship did not end there. Mr Lim continued the work as part of the INP, and is now developing it further with a new batch of interns.

He is also given a month off his regular projects – spread across a year – to work on it, and can tap up to $5,000 in funding for materials and experiments, wherever the research leads him to.

“Many of our team members at DSO are at the forefront of our fields,” says Mr Lim. “With the DSO’s state-of-the-art resources, we get to dive deep into research and explore new technologies.”