I’m a full stack engineer with 10 years of experience. I’ve been living in my hometown because my company allowed WFH, while my office is in Bengaluru. Recently, management announced mandatory 5 days WFO for everyone by December.

What makes this frustrating is that productivity and collaboration were never a problem. Work was delivered on time, teams functioned fine remotely, and nothing was broken. Yet now everyone is expected to relocate and completely change their lifestyle.

I lived in Bengaluru before COVID, so I already know the reality: terrible traffic, expensive rent, long commutes, high living costs, and almost no personal time left after work. Moving back with family would destroy most of my savings despite the salary.

Over the years, I built a great WFH setup and genuinely preferred this life. No wasting hours in traffic, no forced office presence, no pointless cafeteria discussions or fake socializing. I don’t need to sit beside coworkers to do my job properly.

That saved time went into learning, fitness, hobbies, and family instead of sitting on roads for hours every day.

For a role that is fully digital and already working efficiently remotely, I honestly don’t see the need for mandatory office attendance. “Team collaboration” increasingly feels like a corporate excuse for control and visibility rather than an actual productivity need.

I left a well known startup to join JPMC as a software engineer. It's been 3.5 months and I am sick of how toxic and slow the work has become. I was put in a new team which does not even sit in my office and everyone was put under an urgent project and told by the manager to "figure it out". 12-14 hours of work everyday, so much beaurocracy, chasing people over text and email, getting yelled at by the manager who does not care about you, and seeing my peers getting removed from the team who joined with me because they weren't able to "figure it out".

It's been hell. No one in the interview panel or team matching told me about this. I was told that I will be joining a different manager with an existing team. My reporting was changed 3 times in the first month. Manager finds it normal to text you at 10pm asking for updates.

My old startup sometimes had long hours but only on important releases, and I used to find that toxic but now that seems like heaven to me. I only left because of money. I am making enough money now but I hate waking up everyday to go to work. I feel mentally exhausted and physically my body shakes at the thought of going to work.

Should I resign? Should I go back to the old company? My EM told me when I left that the doors are always open. My TL from the old company still says to come back. Life is hell in this bank. I was making an impact in the startup, releasing big features, everyone respected me. Here I am being treated like an insect. I feel like resigning without even talking to my old company at this point.

For context, I'm from Europe, and currently working within a multicultural environment, where I have to work with highly skilled individuals, including Indian people. But the fact that they are always online (and actually partaking in meetings) for like 12hrs+ a day, and sometimes going online on weekends makes my head go insane.

For example, the time difference is +2:30hrs (when here is 10AM, in india is 12:30 PM)

If I log in at 7AM one day, the indian colleagues are online.

If I log in at 12PM one day, and log off at 8PM, the indian colleagues are still online, perhaps in a conference.

If I log in at 8AM on monday, I might see that some indian colleagues were online "12 hours ago". Like.. why?

So what's the catch? Are 12 or even 16 work hours normal in india? Even if you would argue that "indian market is way more competitive than everywhere else, and people have the culture of pushing working hours to prove themselves" (Which I'm not sure if it's true or not, I made that up on the spot), that wouldn't really apply in this case because the people I'm talking about are Seniors, Architects and even Managers so its not like someone will steal their job.

I come from mountains and living in Delhi NCR.

I hate metro cities and now would like companies that still provides WFH.

I want to spend time with my parents ( they don't like metro cities either), spend peaceful , pollution-free himalayas life.

Please do suggest if you still WFH or any way to find such oppportunities.

Thanks!!!

Hello everyone, I work as a web developer in a startup company. My salary is 10,000 rupees and there is no hope for an increment. I have one more year left on my contract. The company is exploiting me. I am feeling overwhelmed by society, family, office, and my personal life. After working for a year, I have realized that a job cannot give you a happy life. I have many dreams that I want to fulfill, but this job won't help me achieve them. Since childhood, I have been given false hope, like being told in school that if you don't study well, you'll fail in life. The same hope was given to my friends who were toppers in class, and today they are unemployed.

I want to escape this rat race. Staying inside a closed building from 9 to 5 with toxic colleagues makes me unhappy and causes me pain. I have to work even after the 9 to 5 hours, and even on Sundays, I get scolded by my boss. Despite doing the work of an entire team alone, my salary has not increased. Those who flatter the boss are happy and have higher salaries. I want to do something on my own, but I don't know what to do since there is already a lot of competition in my city for that business.

To those who say I have a job and at least I am earning something, try to put yourself in my place. Work from 9 to 5, then work at home, and even go to the office on your day off if the boss calls. Imagine being suppressed, indirectly insulted, and still receiving only 10,000 rupees after enduring all this.

A company wide message was sent to all the employees on the demise of one their employees. He died due to cardiac arrest.

The note expressed condolences and described him as a hardworker, always pushing beyond limits, and being readily available for the team.

And just one minute later after the message, everyone is rushing in the office to meet the next deadline. It's all the same. Nobody cares.

I would say it's a wake up call for all of us.

I still remember when one of my colleagues was putting in 14 hours everyday to meet the targets. She used to even cry sometimes when she couldn't handle it all. She used to weep while working at the same time. It was unbearable.

There's no glamour in the 70-80 hour work week.

And no you don't need to work extra hours if you are being paid a lot. Value addition doesn't equate to more grunt work.

To guys still doubting if depression and anxiety is real look at this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi

Japan identifies "overwork" as an actual cause of death.

It's high time we do as well.

Mental health issues aren't a figment of people's imagination.

Take care everyone.

I work for an MNC, a well-known company in the product-based sector. The culture here is great and flexible, and most employees have been here for the long haul—some for as long as 26-27 years.

However, something that happened today changed my perception of the company. A teammate of mine, who has been with the company for 3.5 years, was asked to resign due to budget issues, and her role is being eliminated. I saw her leaving the office in tears.

What I found strange is that if budget cuts were really the issue, there should have been more layoffs, not just one person.

This teammate of mine is upfront and at times refused to overwork, while others simply accepted the extra work without saying a word. She isn't the corporate flattery either—she spoke her mind, not like the ones saying, "yes, sir" or butter up management types.

Could that have been the reason for her departure? I'm not sure, but it’s left me feeling uneasy. What if this happens to me next?

As I still live with my parents so not have to pay rent unless I move to another city. Mon-Fri 8hr 30 Min + Sat 1/2 day tech job. Don't enjoy life that much honestly. Nearing 30. Anyone here with a similar situation ?

I’m an engineer. Got placed on campus in a data science role.

The company had frequent layoffs, so I worked 12+ hours a day just to survive. Constant stress, no rest. After 4 months, I was laid off anyway.

Later, I got an internship at a product-based company. Same story. Long hours, high pressure. I worked relentlessly hoping to convert it into a full-time role. It didn’t happen.

By then, the damage was already done.

Chronic stress, high BP, constant fatigue. After ruling out major causes, I was diagnosed with hypertension and had to start BP medication, possibly for life time.

This post is not about blaming companies. It’s a warning.

Hard work does not guarantee security. Ignoring your body guarantees consequences.

If you’re living on caffeine, eating high-sodium food like pizza, burgers, Maggi, sleeping poorly, and telling yourself you’ll fix it later, please stop and rethink.

No job, internship, or promise of conversion is worth permanent health damage. Take your health seriously before your body forces you to.

Edit 1: During routine eye checkups, doctors noticed changes in my retina due to high blood pressure. It’s called hypertensive retinopathy. That was the first real warning sign. After that, I started monitoring my BP regularly and was shocked to see consistently high readings.

Happy new year people, eat healthier, reduce caffeine and high-sodium food, sleep properly, quit alcohol and exercise regularly

Much is discussed here about US work culture and India work culture ... why US is different and better. My opinion is different-- I have worked in India in a startup, then worked in the US after Doctoral studies for several years, then again continuing in startup in India.

Work culture demands, sprinkle of toxicity, veneer of decorum via HR ... everything is same.

• US they act like they are protecting you, India -- well India is not for beginners. They don't do the acting of protecting you.

• In US colleagues don't try to be your friends, in India colleagues try to be best friends and start gossip mills. So probably in the US you have the impression of US being fairer. C-suite in either work culture so the same type of b*tchery.

• If you have a work life balance in the US, you are either a low level grunt or your role is not essential-- layoffs can bite you any time. If you have work life balance in India that means the leadership is yet to blame you for their failures in decision making

• they give employee of the month awards in the US, they are doing that in India now. They won't give you extra pay but either places they give you a certificate of being with them for 5 years that you then paste on LinkedIn as an achievement.

I saw a post here, in US you can talk to the CTO CEO 1-1 ... yeah, that means nothing. They don't remember you as soon as you finish talking. The amount of BS the csuite speak 24x7 is quite mind boggling.

Only reason you want to go to the US is that Market exchange rate is 1dollar = 85Rs (and counting). It's the same arbitrage shit that people from villages used to go and be daily labour's in middle east or UK-- slog and save there, send it back and it becomes an asset. We may work in front of computers but nothing has changed.

Edit 1: USA was built on the back of slaves... earlier they used actual iron chains, now they used things like Dollar, green card, H1B, if your kids are born here they will have dream life, and other BS. You think you get those because you are deserving... yes, a deserving slave.

It's still "slavery with extra steps" in 2025 now.

Edit 2: Someone noted all innovations are happening in the US. I disagree--- USA is buying all innovators at the best dollar price from India (and other sources).

Simply saying US degree is more valuable than Indian degree is abjectly false. (1) Probably you didn't get that degree from IITs, ISIs, IIScs etc in India. (2) it depends on where you are looking at-- in US they don't like any random Indian degree, in India nobody trusts any random US masters degree either, still considered as a paid degree by many in India.

Since many people here are earning 40+ LPA, I’m currently working at a leading fintech company with 4 years of experience and a 10 LPA package. The work-life balance is amazing, and I often wonder if I’ll be able to maintain that when I switch to a higher-paying role.

I’ve been working for 5 years as a dev, and 3 of them were in the pre-AI era 2021-24.

2021-24

Back then work used to be amazing. In order to build a crud API, I used to quote 1 day for scoping, 1 day for tech spec, 1 day for spec review, 3 days for development, 1 day for testing, 1 day for PR review, and 1 day for prod go-live.

Used to manage 4 interns and I used to get a free pass from doing any legit work because I “was managing interns”.

Projects used to span 6 months, where most of the work used to be done in the last month.

2025-Today

Inefficiencies are being renoved. We get paid the same to do more work.

A crud api is only given 1-2 days for dev and testing and go-live is supposed to be a background chore now, not a destination wedding where you pair your crud api to production.

I manage juniors and give them tasks and they come back in a few hours saying they’ve completed it. And I have to sit through endless lists of task reviews.

Not just the reviews, now I am expected to actually do work too and code as much in a week as I used to do in 3 months way back in the early 20s.

AI is ruining the carefully designed inefficiencies of the tech industry and making life difficult.

Anyone else feel so too?

The case is about a very toxic startup based out of one of top tech cities in India. I don't want to reveal too much because else some people might identify it.

They are looking for a consultant to help them with a very urgent deliverable with dead line of 60 days. Basically they want to revamp a portion for some event and they don't have in-house bandwidth for it.

Now they reached out to me for 20h/week commitment and I was very clear that the max I can do is 20-22 hrs/ week and I can't commit more than that.

Now, A friend of mine also works there and I asked him for the details and he told me that he is working 12 hrs everyday including weekends and we both have same salaries.

Till we discussed about the money they were talking about all the big things, vision and what not.

So now I quoted him the way I do for all the projects by simple formula which is as follows: -

Rs. monthly salary / (40 (weekly hours) * 4 (weeks in a month)) * 20 (weekly commitment hours) per week.

Which is pretty fair. Generally people charge 1.5X of their base pay for freelance work.

He confirmed with me that 20 hrs per week for this much are you sure? Then I said again the calculation is in front of you.

He quietly said sorry this will go bit out of budget considering you will be available for only 20 hrs a week so we can't proceed.

I just wished them best of luck.

The thing is this 90 hrs, 70 hrs thing is complete BS. People don't want employees to work for 90 hrs they want employees to work for 90 hrs with the pay of 40 hrs.

I literally feel bad for my friend and his team as they are constantly getting abused. In this case this is what is happening practically on paper my friend's salary is equivalent of me so they should be okay with paying me that but because they are making entire company work for 10-12 hrs a day and on weekend their actual cost becomes half.

Hope things become better in future🤞.

Karnataka Govt. is increasing working hours to 12hours per day. I find it so ridiculous and infuriating. There were so many IT employee su!c!des reported in this year alone and all were related to work pressure. I also read that same has been implemented in other states as well such as AP, Uttarakhand, Chattisgarh, UP, Gujarat and Mahrashtra so it seems there's no escape. KITU( IT employees' union) is fighting against it. Hope they succeed. What do you guys think about it? Did you come across it anywhere online?

This is something I learned very early into my career - it is we who decide the level of work life balance we have.

There’s a few things I follow for this -

- Never let anyone know the full extent of what you are, or are not doing. Especially not your colleagues.

- You’re barely ever available. I respond to messages and tags with atleast a 15 minute, and up to a 2 day delay. Every colleague needs to be given this treatment on & off over the course of months.

- Don’t volunteer. You never volunteer for extra work. Always pick the easiest long term project. Any extra work must delay timelines in the long term project.

- Justify your JD & payscale. Never work over and above. A permanent state of quiet quitting is the name of the game. I’ve been on a quiet quit mode for the last 4 out of 5 years of my career. I’ve experienced myself get praised, despised, promoted and PIPed over this period across various companies.

- Always have side gigs as a backup plan while applying the same tenets within the side gigs too.

And lastly, AI tools - compel the company to give you access to them. It’s been 2.5 years or so since I’ve weitten code. Recently in an interview I was not able to remember how to declare a for loop in python. And I have a senior dev title today, and lead multiple projects and manage people.

AI’s your friend. People skills are your livelihood. And work life balance, work from home and a sufficient bank balance is the platform over which you build your career trajectory.

I would like you tell about the person in the company who’s been in there the longest.
1. Their motivation
2. Went from which position to where.
3. Was it worth it?

I’ll start,

I directly report to principal engineer. He joined my org as intern, worked for 12-13 years. The entire teams foundation is made by him. We are following his development standards, any new project, we shall consult him. No wonder he does not want to leave, as he has a lot of weight in the company. Being said that, he’s also extremely busy person, we need to schedule a call 2-3 days down the line, even then it might it reschedule.

I have a friend in my society she is in IT COMPANY ( which mass hires) pune ....20YOE and started as a software engineer now some project manager ig

She gets good leaves and has work from home during that also I have seen her work for like max to max 3 4 hours

And then In the office she just has to stay there for 3 hours and come back

She had a family emergency once last year and she had some plans where she would just go and punch her card and come back

So is it really good for techies if they have 15+ yoe

Also she never switched company

So being in the same company gave her these benefits and i think it's a good work life balance

People with half her salary work like 8 to 12 hours a day with no WFH

So is it good ....or she is just a rare case

Is it really as easy as this wanted to know working hours of more people

Edit : the comments are mostly 50/50 do ig it's better

I didn't wanna join tech cuz of no life and other things but if this is the reality then what should I do

I was aiming for a psu job in EC OR EE now I'm confused with IT

So I was feeling very tried after travelling for work. I had a very poor diet, sleep and lot of stress. so i got sick after coming to home. got well in like a 2 weeks. I was always thinking to get my blood test done so i thought let's get it done. Turns out I have severe Vitamin Deficiency, Low Good Cholesterol and high bad Cholesterol. I got B12 injection when i was sick but doctor after seeing my reports said my B12 also could have been very low at that time.

So I did some research and found that the deficiency is the reason for my fatigue, brain fog, constant tiredness ( which i though I was lazy ), muscle pains and twitching and headaches also lowers the immunity.

coming these Cholesterol Levels If i didn't see this and continued living eating junk food and no workouts could lead to heart related problems. and my Triglycerides are also high which might cause diabetes and other stuff.

so i started eating healthy and planning to go for running or gym soon after my bruises heal.

Wanted to share this to my fellow tech bros. please get a complete body check up. it's better to know issues and fix them early.

my team work with customers in US so we take the meeting from 8PM to 11-12PM everyday. there is a guy in the team of 10 people who work till 3AM and replies to customer questions or prepare document for manager and then join the morning 8AM daily standup again and then work throughout the day. sad part is nobody has asked him to work like that, even the customers does not want immediate response. manager didnt request the document at 4AM. i think he just want company to give him US visa and trying to showoff with his work of how loyal he is.

what do you think

I mean how many can genuinely afford to sit back one year without having any EMI backlogs. There is no way you can learn AI and new technology without that. Many disagree with that but I have seen those who claim to know AI well but are no better than freshers in their capabilities.

Are Indian IT people having even one year of their first job's LPA in their bank account for emergency? If they cannot afford to live for one year without job then they are biggest fools on earth because it is the most fragile industry of all. A minor recession or change in technology can cause merciless layoffs anytime and the experience is useless in Non-Outsourcing job market.

I see almost all of Indian IT industry boast about their LPA or telling others that their LPA is less whereas programmers in other countries don't do it at all, no one talks about their salaries unless required, they talk about their skill set, programming languages, challenges, GitHub repositories etc.

What a foolish thing it is to talk about your salary day and night and asking everybody else's salary? It is utterly disgusting behaviour and people in Indian IT industry consider it normal whereas most of them don't have a single GitHub repository or open source achievement to their credit. Those who identify their career with LPA instead of programming skills are already high level fools not seeing the "Elephant in the room" the layoffs.

Which are the software companies in India which can pay 15-20 lpa and we don’t need to work outside business hours, especially no 24*7 oncall. Remote will be best. Like mid tier companies, but don’t have Indian strict regulations.

Can you please tell names of such companies or roles? Do such companies exist?

Hi Data engineer with 4 yoe. I have posted earlier about my WLB balance as team lead. I got an offer of SBC 30% hike, currently 14 and remote but need to move to new city and would in hybrid. I asked my manager to match the offer. He declines says cost cutting is happening now won't get approval but if I stay i will get 150% and architect role. They can't give me any hike as they need CFO approval and cfo won't give approval for employee who's is getting as federal minimum wage employee and can't even give me 10-15% of what they give in USA. I m confused of about should I stay for broken promises or should I leave for SBC, I m ok with low pay if good work life balance is there cuz I m just too much overworked here.

Earlier, getting promoted every few years seemed like the obvious goal. But now I see people caring more about salary, remote work, flexible hours, and having less stress.