Feeling extremely humbled and blessed, I landed an amazing offer.
My interview preparation started way back in Dec last year.
I want to give back to society, happy to help or discuss.

5 years of grind, and finally made it to Google L5! 💼

Offer details :
Base - 60L
Target bonus - 15%
JB - 10L
Stocks - 220k$

Total TC for first year -> 1.5cr

For anyone out there prepping for Google or an L5 role, don’t give up.

I’d love to give back to the community, please drop your questions in the comment section and I’ll try to answer them as much as possible.

PS : Please do not DM me, as many might have similar questions, and the answers could help others as well!

Today, I feel sad. We truly lost somebody who exemplified doing 'good' along with doing 'business'.

I'd recently read the book ‘The Story of Tata’ and had learnt the good they have done, which is always difficult when you're a capitalist. But Tata truly is built different, and Ratan Tata took the torch so far ahead.

I started out career at TCS like many here, so that’s the most obvious way I was benefitted from what they have made. It was a start, and a start is what one often needs.

But beyond it: there are many things

1. He took Tata from $6Bn in revenue to $100Bn in revenue under his reign

2. ⁠Acquired brands like Tetley, JLR which are honestly a big deal for an Indian company

3. ⁠Nano, which failed, was one of his noble pet projects. It showed his thought process.

4. ⁠Support to startups: literally every founder is putting up stories of their interactions with him, how ever present was he

All while donating 60% of profits to social causes via Tata Trusts (that’s a function of his ancestors and how they set the company)

We’ve lost a legend. We’ve lost an example in positive business building.

I hope we remember and learn from Ratan Tata for long. ♥️

Apparently the company is trying really hard to do damage control but the cat is out of the bag. They’ve been abhorrent in the way they conduct their company.

This is a tight slap to anyone who expects unreasonable working hours without fair compensation.

**Story**

On October 7th, their reporting manager set some alarming expectations right off the bat. The manager demanded unpaid overtime and excessive work hours beyond what's typically considered reasonable.

When the employee tried to establish healthy boundaries and bring up work-life balance, the manager's response was dismissive and mocking. He belittled these concepts as "fancy terms" and "Western developed nation behavior," implying they had no place in this work environment. The manager even ridiculed the employee's desire for personal time to read and exercise, treating these basic needs as mere excuses.

There's a significant difference between voluntarily putting in extra effort for your own passionate project versus being coerced into overwork by an established, profitable company.

What do you think about this?

Why do people think that work from home means we can work from anywhere, in a car, bus, crowd, I personally feel like it's a disrespect to IT employees when someone tells me, come to a function and work from there, I mean it's a real work which needs its own environment to work with, anyone feel the same?

In a reading phase currently, and finished a couple back to back. Want the streak to continue.
Looking to get suggestions.

My favourites:
- Steve Jobs' Biography
- The Kite Runner
- Grit by Angela Duckworth

Please add :)

Hi all,

Hi all,

I just want to share my journey from SDE-1 to Sr. SDE in Amazon in 4.5 years.

I joined Amazon in Q1 2020, days before the COVID as an SDE-1. I was working in a company before which is known to have a very chill work environment. I got bored there, and wanted to join Amazon specifically because it had a reputation of having too much work. I just wanted to work my ass off.

I had imposter syndromes when I joined. So many smart people and engineers all around me. I doubted if I'll survive there.
All I could think was how to do my job in a better way. Luckily, I got a good manager who trusted me and gave chances to perform. I worked hard, and got promoted to SDE-2 in 1.5 years.

After that, I took a break for 6 months (worked very little, focused on some personal stuff). Again, luck played a major part and my manager understood this and didn't give me a lot of pressure during that time.

After this break, I focused on work again, watched some videos in YouTube around what's the expectations from a senior engineer in any team (link in comments). These videos helped me understand the expectations from a senior engineer in the team. I started to focus on finding systematic problems in the team, and worked with my manager to solve some of them. Wrote a lot of documents, pushed through to get some of that implemented, or implemented some of them myself. In parallel, I was also expected to perform well as an SDE-2, so I did that as well. HLDs, LLDs, reviews I did it all. Noticed other senior engineers in my team on how to design, write better code, how to do better reviews etc. Kept watching content around system design, having good mindset etc. I believe luck played a major part again most of the things I started worked out in favor of our team. Few things didn't (designs rejected, projects shelved).

Anyhow, after some hesitation and after 2 years (around Q3, 2023), approached my manager to ask about gaps for a SDE 3 promo. He informed I was meeting most of the requirements and a few which needed some work. We started working on those alongside the promotion document. With some effort and hiccups, my promotion was approved in Q2, 2024. I was so happy and relieved.

What's next, well taking some time to relax, feeling imposter syndrome again, starting to learn some new stuff. Hope to be a better engineer with time.


As I've mentioned, I feel luck played a major part, having a good manager is not easy, and things usually don't work out as well as they did for me. Grateful for these.

Feel free me ask any questions you have.

Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.

Hi Grapevine,

I'm [Amit](https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-malik-64690a25), currently building [Amaha](https://www.amahahealth.com/), India’s largest mental health platform.

I'd love to chat with you all about my journey in building Amaha, my thoughts on how we can make mental health support more accessible and effective for everyone, and entrepreneurship amongst other things.

Ask me anything, I'll be back at 5 PM and begin answering! :)

Thousands laid off from India and US teams. The problem is, it came like death. The message of lay off came suddenly.

I want to know if companies want us to serve the notice period before leaving, then why don't they even give notice to find a new job?

I was the only breadwinner of my family and I am nowhere now. How should we go ahead with this? Do we have any legal options? Can we sue #pocketfm . What they did was absolutely unethical and 100% wrong.

To the most of us, they used to pay peanuts. But still we want to know our legal stand here.

For me, it's the unexpected connections and experiences that bring the most joy.

I'm from Satara, Maharashtra, and work at a small startup in Bengaluru. Back in 2022, during a solo trip to Madurai, I met a Japanese traveler in a restaurant. We only had 15 minutes to chat—mostly about food, as we both love exploring different cuisines. I casually invited her to visit my hometown.

Fast forward two years, we stayed in touch, discussing food over WhatsApp. She even opened an Indian restaurant in Japan last year! In September, she and her husband visited Satara during Ganesh festival, and I got the chance to show them the 'untold India'—our culture, traditions, people, and of course, food.

On the first day, my family was a bit hesitant to interact with them. But by the second day, thanks to Google Translate, my mom and they started connecting. My mom even taught her some authentic Maharashtrian dishes, and now she’s planning to add them to her restaurant's menu in Japan!

It was truly one of the happiest experiences of my life.

What’s your happiest memory?

\[You've probably come across this and Im SORRY for posting across various subs but doing it for wider reach as few redditors asked me to :)\]

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my experience of quitting my job on the very first day (7th October 2024) & standing up to a toxic boss.

**A bit of background for context**

My dormmates & I co-founded a startup right out of college in September 2022. Our goal was to level the playing field for retail investors by addressing 3 core problems:

1. Lack of time
2. Limited expertise
3. The grunt boring work

We aimed to solve these issues with AI & algorithms that could automate data gathering, analysis, and simplify complex financial information. Think of it as an "Auto/Co-Pilot" for portfolio management, not buy/sell trading tool. This was before AI became the buzzword it is today.

As a part of our B.Tech CSE program, we were also introduced to finance, & markets through structured courses. In the midst of lockdown having extra time on our hands, our finance professors encouraged us to invest to learn in the markets & so we did. It was tough for us (CS Background), as learning about the basics of market fundamentals and tracking them was not easy.

We realized that many existing tools speak a financial language that's not familiar to most people, & we felt the need for something simpler.

By the time we graduated, we often wondered how we could manage a full-time job while keeping up with the markets. We couldn’t find a tool that really saved time & simplified things. That’s when we saw an opportunity to create one ourselves.

I worked full-time on product design & operations for our startup while my co-founder balanced a day job to support us financially.

We reached the finals of the Elevate Karnataka Startup Funding Competition, competing against over **800 startups**. Although we didn’t secure funding, we understood the government panelists' priority to support ventures in green/clean technologies & those from rural areas, even if they aren't always financially viable and they believed we could raise funds externally, because of a good decent college.

Our team included interns, & we shared equity among everyone involved. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints & the departure of key team members for higher studies, the project is currently paused. However, we haven’t given up; we just need more time & financial stability to get things moving again.

With that in mind, I began looking for a job. The interview for this position happened back in August. After completing two lengthy assignments (80+ hours of work, one of which I later found out was directly related to their product), they finally got back to me at the end of September. The offered salary was well below average, but I accepted it because it was a remote position that would allow me to focus on my startup after hours and on weekends.

However, things quickly took a turn for the worse on my first day.

**The Incident**

At the end of my first day (October 7th), my reporting manager (Cofounder/CEO) , made it clear that he expected unreasonable commitments—work beyond normal hours (expecting 12-14 hours) without any compensation. When I tried to establish boundaries, he mocked me for talking about "work-life balance," calling it a "fancy term" and "western developed nation behavior." He also ridiculed my desire for time to read & exercise, dismissing it as an excuse.

I understand that startups sometimes require ext ra hours—We've done that ourselves as co-founders at our startup. But there’s a difference between going the extra mile for your own project out of passion on your own & being coerced into it in a professional setting with an established, profitable company.

**Why I Shared This**

Toxic work culture isn’t worth compromising your health and self-respect.

**Would be Grateful for Leads** on my profile:

If anyone here can help me by recommending to UI/UX roles (Ill share profiles in the DMs & since this is a new account, I request you to DM first :) ), I’d be grateful & deeply appreciate it. I’m open to working in office/hybrid/remote environments.

I promise to deliver high-quality work to anyone who gives me the opportunity. Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Stay strong & remember—your well-being matters.

**Just For clarity & clear any air,** it's not that I’m unwilling to work after hours. It’s the personal attacks, belittling, & ridicule for mentioning I have a life outside work that are hard to handle. I’m fully committed to working when necessary, even on weekends if required. But not every day for 12-14 hours, as the previous founder CEO manager expected & demanded me to forfeit my entire life outside of work, & certainly not with the personal threats & insults he made.

CTC was 7LPA. Tried negotiating but they refused to even negotiate and talk. I Accepted it only because of fully remote setup flexibility even though it is below fair median pay with 2 YOE.

- Noel Tata has been appointed as the chairman of Tata Trusts, succeeding his half-brother, the late Ratan Tata.
- The decision was unanimous and in line with Ratan Tata's approach of 'moving on'.
- Noel Tata has been the chairman of Trent Ltd since 2014, with the company's shares surging over 6,000% in the past decade.
- He also led Tata International Ltd from 2010 to 2021, during which the firm's revenue jumped from $500 million to over $3 billion.
- Noel Tata's appointment is expected to bring 'total continuity and harmony' to the Tata Group.

Source: [Moneycontrol](https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/noel-tata-appointed-chairman-of-tata-trusts-cnbc-tv18-12840197.html)

Let's face it. Indian tech ecosystem is living in a bubble. A big overinflated bubble of ridiculous salaries and perks. And it's about time someone popped it.

Here's the cold, hard truth: the vast majority of you are not nearly as valuable or irreplaceable as you think you are. You're not solving world hunger or curing cancer. You're mostly just gluing libraries together and calling yourself an "engineer."

Here's what my friend in the US was telling me:

1. Your skills are becoming commoditized. With the rise of no-code/low-code platforms and AI code generation, the bar for entry is getting lower every day. Soon, a trained monkey could do what most of us do.

2. You're not special. Sorry to burst your bubble, but knowing how to center a div or implement a binary search doesn't make you a genius. It just means you paid attention in your CS classes or watched Abdul Bari YouTube tutorials.

3. The value you create is questionable. How many of you are working on a payment aggregator, food tech or a slightly different shade of AI wrapper? Are you really making the world a better place, or just boosting the pockets of VCs?

4. You are probably terrible at estimating your own worth. Just because some FAANG companies are willing to throw insane amount of money at you doesn't mean you're actually worth it. It's a game of musical chairs, and the music's about to stop.

5. Your ego is out of control. The "100x developer" mentality has gone to your head. You demand ridiculous perks, flexible hours, and the ability to work in your stupid shorts, all while looking down on other professions.

It's time for a reality check. You need to humble ourselves.

Does it make sense to you? Try not to cry on your mechanical keyboard while typing your response.

My new manager at a new company works on weekends too. Comments in documents, sends mails and a bunch of other stuff. Sends mail at fucking 4 & 5 in the morning.

I feel pressured to work on weekends too because he is working. I'm already clocking 10 hour work days. How to deal with this situation?

About me - PM at startup.

Source - Anmol Garg

Hey all. As the title suggests, whats your go-to hack for regaining control of chaos? For me, it's cleaning 🧹🧼. The process of cleaning & organizing & getting clutter sorted, mentally helps me break down the real clutter & chaos into manageable chunks. Yes I identify as Monica Geller. What are your go to hacks? Share in comments

I don't know but this made me feel proud. We are able to discriminate against westerners now. Mera desh badal raha hai, aage badh raha hai.

I never thought I'd be in this position. Today, I received this email that felt like a punch to the gut. I'm being asked to return all my company IT assets immediately.

I couldn't pay rent for the last 2 months because I got laid off from my last role and I ran out of savings. I was desperate. So I learnt how to do sports betting and made good money. I had made 80k in 2 months which allowed me to put food on the table for my family and pay rent.

I had recently started a new job and one day, I just made some bets on my work laptop. I didn't realize that they had placed spyware on it ffs. But now I've been caught and they are not understanding my situation.

Please help me with any leads. I have been working as a software engineer and have worked on Java. I just got unlucky. Please help me.

- Ride-hailing companies **Ola** and **Uber**, and logistics startup **Porter** scored zero in Fairwork India's ratings for gig worker conditions.
- The 'Fairwork India Ratings 2024' evaluated 11 digital platforms on principles like fair pay and fair contracts.
- **BigBasket, Swiggy, Zomato, and Urban Company** were the top scorers with six points each out of a maximum of 10.
- The report highlighted that none of the platforms pay minimum wages for a decent standard of living.
- This comes amid growing debates about gig worker conditions and efforts by governments to safeguard their interests.

Source: [Inc42](https://inc42.com/buzz/ola-uber-porter-score-zero-points-on-fairworks-rating-for-gig-workers/)

It's time we face an uncomfortable truth: AI is coming for our jobs, and it's coming fast. But it might be the best thing that has happened to ProdMan. Here's why:

1. AI will eliminate mediocrity because significant portion of PMs are just glorified project managers or feature pushers. AI will easily replace these roles.

2. True product thinking will finally be more valued. Those who can strategize, innovate, and truly understand user needs will become indispensable. The era of the "fake it till you make it" PM is over. I am seeing this across my org now.

3. This will finally help us focus on outcomes, not outputs. AI can churn out roadmaps and PRDs faster than any human. This will push PMs to concentrate on the "why" rather than the "what".

4. Finally, WLB will be better for all of us. With AI doing the heavy work, the remaining PMs can focus on high-value activities, potentially reducing burnout.

5. This will lead to democratization of product skills. Basic PM tasks will become automated and more people across organizations will develop product thinking. So you need less PMs as is.

Now, I know this is a hard pill to swallow. Many of you will probably say that the human element in ProdMan can't be replaced. But ask yourself... In a world where AI can analyze user data, predict trends, and even generate creative solutions, what truly sets you apart?

Those who adapt with AI will thrive. Those who don't... well, there's always project management. 🤡
What do you think?

This is your sign to plan your trip to Himachal.

November onwards it'll get pretty cold and icy. Now is the perfect time.