I've lived in Bangalore for five years now, but I've never seen anything like today. The rain has been relentless since morning.

As I left home, the rain was heavy but manageable. By the time I reached the Sony Signal, it started raining very heavily. The roads are extremely bad and the traffic is just not moving.

The worst part is that while I was on 80 Feet Road, my scooter stalled. The water had risen above the exhaust and my scooter got fucked.

So, I locked my scooter and parked it on the side. suddenly I saw an electrical cable fall on the ground and it started sparking just 10 meters away from me. I got really scared and started pushing my scooter to my friends place nearby. Once, I reached there, I ordered an Ola Auto. The worst thing is that it cost me 500 to travel 6kms today.

Once the driver came at my friends place he hiked up the price and said that he will cancel it otherwise. I was already so scared that I left my scooter at my friends place and reached home. I am literally shaking while writing this post.

ADVISORY: PLEASE DO NOT LWEAVE YOUR HOMES UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO.

I am getting information from all over Bangalore that scammers are out there trying to make money from people in desperate need.

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?

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.

I can see myself falling into the trap of scrolling twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram. Attention spans are fucked.


Failure doesn’t prick like before.
I’m 26 and I feel I’m physically 10 years older to my age. I feel I’m losing my prime age away.

ChatGPT and AI tools are slowly killing my coding skills too. I used to create tools and projects for fun. Now I’m unable to stay put to take anything to completion. I take AI’s help to write CSS too.


Thanks to the nature of work I’ve done, I’ve not learnt anything new in the last 2-3 years.

Im not social. I don’t exercise much. I don’t watch movies either.

I don’t have a freaking routine or purpose or goal.

How do I get myself out of this?

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?

Just a month in new organisation and already lost motivation due to the upcoming layoffs. Senior Leadership of Product is laid off due to the company moving towards a different organisational view of being business led.

Started looking for a job already. If this is how private jobs work, then we'll only see people who deliver mediocre work and don't push themselves for the org.

Even the best performers will be reduced to task deliverers, as there is no assurance of anything.

Some lessons :

1. Work on your finances.
2. Learn the craft.
3. Always keep looking out. (Gone are the days about frequent career jumps. Now-a-days you have to do it to survive).
4. Don't be hard on your family. (Goes both ways. Your family member might be anxious because of their unstable job. Understand them. )
5. Be helpful.


Let's hope the world is kind to everyone.

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.

- 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)

Saw this unhinged take by @Gooner7 about How Software Engineers are grossly overpaid.
https://share.gvine.app/LK9MZAmyFcGJeA86A

Bruh, u serious? 😂 This hot take is so off base it's not even funny. Let me break it down for you and let me bury that opinion forever...

Posting after a long time but this got unhinged take got me tweaking. Drop an upvote if you think Software Engineering is underpaid. ⬆️

First off, weare not just "gluing libraries togehter" lmao. That's like saying chefs are just throwing ingredients in a pot. It takes madskills to know which libraries to use, how to integrate them, and how to build somthing that actually works and scales. Unlike a lot of PMs that just run around taking meetings and actually doing no work lol.

And don't even get me started on the "not solving world hunger" bullshit. Most jobs don't directly cure cancer or end world hunger. But guess what? The apps and systems we build make life easier for millions of peeps. Ever used Swiggy? Ordered food online? Watched Disney Hotstar? Yeah, you're welcome.

Also, let's talk about the value we bring to companies. One good dev can literaly make or break a startup. We're the ones turning ideas into reality, scaling systems to handle millions of users, and keeping everything running smooth. That is not just gluing stuff together lol. Seems like an inexperienced take from an Excel junkie [Either a PM or a Data analyst will think Software Engineering is like that.

So nah, we are not overpaid. If anything, considering the value we bring and the crazy demands of the job, most of us are probs underpaid.

But hey, if u think it's so easy, why don't u try it? I'll wait while u learn to code, build a complex system, and deal with production issues at 3am. 😉 I bet your cursor/no code indie project will work at scale hahaha.

Good folks of Grapevine,

I’m actively thinking of things we could do to make the community more helpful.

Being helpful for working professionals (in work & life) is our reason to exist. Want to make sure we stay true to it over the course.

Some things that are top of mind for me basis recent interactions: Better Referral Matching, Better Matching for Questions (ensuring right people view the question and can answer).

Can you folks help with more ideas & suggestions? Something that you would have done if you were running Grapevine?

Thanks in advance, look forward to your thoughts :)

Though we work for less hours as compared to our ancestors, we still spend less time enjoying leisure than them. What has eaten up our time ? Using phone ? Or our unending thrive to productivity where we try to 'maximise' leisure time by learning some skills ?
Leisure isn't a means to some other end, I think it is the end ! We need to start seeing leisure as not a tool to recharge to be able to work better, but to just enjoy.
The old story of a king and cattle farmer about work more so that you earn more so that you relax later, while the farmer is anyway relaxing is more relevant than ever.
Thoughts by the productivity geeks ?

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?

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.

me: 😨🤡

Guys how do u feel when someone scolds you harshly

Here is an incident that happened to me at my old startup. This literally gave me a wake-up call that shattered my "PM is mini-CEO" idea that all my mentors had told me about.

During a heated product roadmap + prio meeting, the actual CEO, berated me a lot and made fun of my "vision" doc. He called my user research "overrated guesswork" and dismissed the Jira workflow as "a waste of time". He then laughed at my definition of product-market fit and all the metrics I had decided. Mind you, I was the first PM hire at this startup at that time and I used to report directly to the CEO.

When I tried to defend myself with data, he accused me of cherry-picking stats and that I manipulated the data. He then demanded that I learn to code and make use of my degree. I studied Computer Science in college btw. When I asked Why? he said that I needed to create a working prototype by next week. This was abviously a joke but he had made a point, he thought that I was not doing real work.

As I left the meeting room, I realised two things: I'm not nearly as important as I thought, and this job isn't about changing the world, it's about surviving the brutal reality of business. It was a harsh reminder that in the end, the CEO and not me, calls the shots.

Multiple roles are open at Highlevel in Design, Engineering, Product Management, Program, QA. Pay is really good and fully remote role with good WFH setup.

Referral link: https://jobs.lever.co/gohighlevel?lever-via=LsvtpsB3-8&lever-social=job_site

Context: Hated my life in my previous job, work wise it was not bad.
Now, I don't hate my life as much, but work wise, it's really not good.
Wayyy too operational, pressuring and salesy. I chose this, but I thought I would've been given some more time to mentally prepare myself, which didn't happen.

Here's the kicker: the company is great, pay is also not bad. Not sure what I'll do if I'm not here and it was tough getting here. Recruiting hell leeches on me.

What can I do now? Any advice?

E+D getting hit heavily time after time. I expect Azure will also get hit this month as well.

I bought it for myself but now there is a change of plans so anyone wants lemme know. And I am not looking for any kind of margin while selling

How did you deal with a breakup when you were working?
I feel like I should take a break from everything but I really can't afford to lose my job.
My mind's become hell.

SpaceX just managed to catch the Starship booster with the “Mechazilla arms” on their first attempt.

A fully reusable Starship is now really close.

I mean they freaking caught it, a 20 storey building falling out of sky

Am I underpaid ?
I have more than 5 years of experience as a Java Fullstack and Backend Developer.
CCTC - 18LPA (Base - 16.2 LPA + Variable - 1.8 LPA)

When asking a referral, do your research.
Don't just ask for openings. Search the careers page and see if any revalant roles are available or not.

We don't know your skillsets, job location preference, shifts preference, etc.

How are we supposed to refer you to random roles.?


This dude has blocked me. F you a**h***.