Adulting is making money and then buying things with that money to fill empty holes like above.

I think fight club quoted it very well.... Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.

Software Developer

I am sure you'll find something that matters to you. It can be anything literally, friends, family, hobby, travelling etc etc. Keep looking! 
   Career success may not necessarily be lonely / over glorified.  People actually are interested in making something of themselves and their careers are a way to do it

Intern

Consultant

Yup. But whats the choice living in India with such high population and competition

Or even living anywhere; like you become a VP of some function and get based out of US but who cares, it’s so glorified in our heads the career journey yet are we really making much impact in life?

IB Associate

Senior Designer

Software Engineer

Data Analyst

Career success or credentialism is often lonely and overglorified Thoughts?

Career success or credentialism is often lonely and over-glorified
Thoughts?

Nothing really matters to me!!! Yet

Nothing really matters to me!!! Yet- Grapevine

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Hi all, I have noticed that the experienced senior people around me [ ICs, EMs, etc ] have too much work and they are always in a work mode. 

Seeing them makes me wonder whether I would want to be like them in the future.

All the senior experienced people here, how stressful / hectic / difficult is your work life as you move up the corporate ladder? 

Is it even worth it to chase meaningless numbers, and promotions, and grow up the career ladder?

Work life at senior positions

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Hi Grapeviners,

**Question for those at higher level (SM+)**

How do you perceive your job?
Isn't that too demanding, boring and depressing (corporate politics) at the same time considering you're stuck doing it for years/decades on end(that too will intensify more you climb up)?

Essentially, I want to know what motivates you apart from you big checks?
Is it about the power that you enjoy over people? (i mean, does it really make you feel powerful?)
Or is it you can't go reverse because of the status and other factors that are attached with you?

Cuz my underlying assumption is that if you're doing a job and earning quite well then it's unlikely that you would get significant time to enjoy that money with your family/ friends or even alone. (pls correct me if I am wrong)

Like yesterday I was talking to a client AVP  who's been toiling day n night over the weekends from last 2 month just like an unpaid intern.

If that's the path to carrer growth, then man, I am already done!😂

--------
Your answers/ perspective would help me understand the point of chasing carrer growth from your lens and decide for myself!!

Thanks 🙏

Is it even worth climbing up?

Product Owner

Hi everyone,

I am an employee at a Big Tech Firm, and doing quite well at my job. I have few friends of mine, who are active on LinkedIn and Twitter, and use the company's name extensively and make posts and gain followers. I sometimes feel jealous of these colleagues and feel worthless due to them. Even though I am doing well than them in the job, sometimes I just can't stop feeling jealous. Any suggestions on what I can do?

Feeling worthless

Disclaimer: I have nothing against high earners in this group who are doing exceptionally well and earning big bucks at young age. You have my admiration. 

Target audience of this post: Everyone else who is doing okay in their job, earning an average salary for their age. 

Why have I posted it?: To not feel I am the only one who is a normal regular person doing just average in his life in this hyper competitive rat race. 

My thoughts: I clearly remember the moment, it was April 2007, I had barely completed the board exams of class 10th and joined class 11th. It was my first week into class 11th when a fine looking gentleman walked into our class to make us think of our future career path. He was from a coaching institute for IIT JEE and AIEEE. He told us about all the high salary packages at these premier institutes. I excitedly told my parents about it. 

Like any middle class parents, they dreamt of their son cracking the exam and securing good placements from IITs/NITs. They enrolled me in coaching. I worked hard for those 2 years, 11th and 12th. But what was harder was the constant stress and pressure I was put in, both intentionally and unintentionally. These ideas that 'I must crack JEE to have a good future', 'if you don't get through JEE then you are a waste' etc, were hammered into my mind day in and day out. 

I didn't crack JEE but got into a well reputed private engineering college of India.. Fast forward 4 years, did my MBA from  tier 2 college only to join a service company at salary that would be considered too low for most of the folks here who compare salary like a plague. Recently joined a product company with good jump. Realised all that pressure I was put under in high school wasn't necessary. I am doing ok in life. 

 I think it's okay to be earning an average salary, everyone of us is on his own journey of growth and comparing ourselves on basis of packages seems myopic

Too much gyaan? Getting a perspective on late Saturday night!!!

It's okay to be normal and ordinary

Product Manager

I don't know if this post would make sense, but does anyone ever wish they were less? Less competent, less "bright", less "smart"? I'm not being braggy but I am pretty smart (not book smart but smart smart) and while objectively I am doing pretty good, I just constantly feel like I'm not living up to my fullest potential!

Should I be on the lookout for a better job (the present one is fine) or preparing to study more or, I don't know, to scale and scale? It feels like everyone has such high expectations of me and I hate making mistakes, even if it is a typo in a document

The anxiety that I'll never live up to my potential becomes so crippling, it becomes counter productive and like Dr. Strange, I forseen like a 100 different possible outcomes of every decision because I can't seem to turn my brain off! Ignorance is bliss and I so wish I could be ignorant

Does anyone ever wish they were... Less?

Lawyer

At what point does college name stops mattering? Is there a way to speed up career advancement if you're not from a tier 1 college?

Experience vs college brand name

Design Verification

Bharatpe saga continues

So on the first allegation here about the HR agency, have heard from a friend who worked there that it’s 100% true  
  
 There are paper records of new hires being rerouted through the relative’s HR firm

Analyst

Growth Manager

Was going through Salary breakdown for Product Managers at various YoE of multiple companies at Grapevine’s own salary database, and also at 6figr. And OMFG the disparity between compensation for same band varies so much, even if the YoE for 2 employees are same. I also saw multiple instances where a person with lower YoE was commanding a significantly higher salary for someone in the same role and band with higher YoE. 

I can’t understand, but why is this the case?? Even the govt has defined pay structure and compensation basis YoE for their employees. Then why can’t the same be followed here in private companies in India. One might argue that YoE might not be the best way to get parity, but how come there is so much gap between wades of 2 PMs in the same company.

Rant : Salary parity in India is such a shitshow!

Not sure if anyone is successful enough to answer this  question but still would really like to know what you folks think about it. 

I know Success is a relative term. Here I am talking about that success when you are the absolute best in your field! Whatever you do, you are firmly sitting at the top. Do you think this level of success makes a person humble? It comes with endless supply of money and fame. One which you can only imagine in dreams and is achieved by a handful. What more is left once you achieve that? What are the challenges? What are the priorities now? How do they change given the fact that you don’t have to worry about the money factor at all. The only priority which I have seen is family! 

Isn’t it surprising how everything eventually boils down to us and our loved ones? Is there something which is more important than our family?

Does Success Make You Humble?

You are 35. What have you stopped believing in that you totally believed in when you were 25?

Life lessons

Business Analyst

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Shall earn half money, work from home, be near family, see my parents getting old and take care of them. And not subscribe to this Bangalore hustle anymore. I am done with this!

Thinking to leave Bangalore and go back to my hometown - Tier 3 city

Welcome to IT Company Discussion's Private Community

Side projects and hobbies that once brought joy now seem like monumental tasks. The energy to code for fun is gone, replaced by a numbness that Instagram barely alleviates. 

I was drawn to it to be doing something that’s helpful for others, something fun, a hard challenge or impactful.

But the best opportunities have landed me in soul-less projects. No impact, no appreciation, no engaging challenge. Just a cog in the machine. 

Life goes by in the 1030 - 8. Barely making the money to give back to my family and save up to get married. I can’t afford posh restaurants, have no time for hobbies or sports.

Feels like I am getting nothing in life. No money, no meaning, no fun, no passion, no societal status.

Lost interest in coding & tech after joining Infosys

Systems Engineer

I started my Career in June 2018 and have switched 2 companies as of now. It's been 5 years but I haven't seen a single promotion so far.

But when I look at people on LinkedIn they are team leaders now.

And this is impacting my mental health as well. When I am back at home i still can get this fact out of my head.

Getting tensed looking at my career graph.

Research Specialist

What are your learning from this layoffs wave?

Learnings from layoffs

- Don’t buy useless EMI for expensive cars or gadgets. If you cannot afford it, buy one within your budget, there are all ranges available.  
 - A job is a contract thats it. They don’t care if you have lakhs in loan or dependent families. Treat it like a task which gets over after working hours. 
 - This is esp for those egoistic and sadist managers and bosses who derive their sense of worth from humiliating their reportees, making then work on sick and emergency leaves, and creating an atmosphere of bullying. 
 - No one cares about your job or career progression outside your office. Don’t make it important than your family and health and give the same treatment to all your team members.

I was interning at Microsoft and got the PPO as well. But I chose to join a remote startup and resigned from Microsoft, for various reasons including Pay, Learning, Product, Tech stack, etc.

And everyone I talked with since then has asked the same thing, "bro why did you leave Microsoft?",  "bro Microsoft is such a big brand", blah blah.

When are we going to realize that working for a FAANG /MAANG /FAANGMULA /LODALASAN company is not the ultimate goal of everyone's life ?

Why are people so obsessed with FAANG tag ?

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

As long as you're making money, it shouldn't matter, right?

The story: One of my friends was campus-placed last year in MBB. They recently resigned and accepted an offer in a boutique consultancy, with a ~20ish per cent hike. However, they were met with a lot of criticism, from our peers and even professors.

I personally believe that they made the right decision as they disliked the CoE they were allotted to. And they were able to get a hike and do a good job in this market.

Experienced folks, shadow your wisdom upon me. Am I thinking from a very limited perspective?

Does the company tier really matter?

Account Manager

People at A want to move to B, because culture at A is bad and B seems good. 

People at B want to move to C, because culture at B is bad and C seems good. 

People at C want to move to D, because culture at C is bad and D seems good. 

And finally

People at D want to move to A, because culture at D is bad and A seems good. 

Includes everything from Google, Atlassian, PhonePe, Swiggy, Microsoft, Amazon and everyone. 

People leave mainly because of their managers. Or people just want a reason to switch and get a hike. Or just want not to miss out on fomo at other companies.

Culture went bad?

What advice would you give to 20 yr old ppl? Your mistakes, regrets, necessary steps, things to avoid 
How to climb the success ladder fastest?

How to climb the success ladder fastest? Advice for 20 yr olds

Keeping jumping companies in your early career years. Every 1-2 years. Only way to increase your package. Then start looking for stable places in your 30's.

Data engineer

Most of us on Grapevine, working in corporate sector might make decent chunk of money if we keep grinding for a decade or two but very few of us would have the social capital (or as they say “networking” in our corporate jargon).
Increasingly realising that the society respects the business owners or govt officers more than any senior leader in an IT firm. There is no social recognition for corporate folks. It might not be relevant for young folks as they still have some residual social recognition of the family for now, but what would happen after a decade or two. Most of the corporate “friends” are no longer in touch except for very rare ones. How does one build a social circle after 10-20 yrs in corporate? Would like to hear from folks above 40 yrs if they’ve had similar thoughts and how are they managing?
Also, What are some ways one can start building social circle overtime while doing a corporate job?

PS: I am referring social capital as having a certain level of stature in society alongwith deep connections with some people living around you who can help you in need or can expect something from you. This is different from LinkedIn networking where primary expectation is referrals.

Service Class has no social capital

My father is an officer in a PSU. Not sure what "respect" you are talking about because from what I've seen, PSU workers have a social capital only in their colony/settlement. Apart from that it doesn't really matter for outsiders.  
 Business owners are respected only if he/she is really really successful. Otherwise how often we see someone respecting a normal shop owner?? 
  
 To build your own social capital, participate in tech talks/workshops. Spend time mentoring folks. Participate in society functions/apartments as others have mentioned.

Nothing really matters to me!!! Yet

Discover More

Software Engineers on

by Kendall Gabriel

PhonePe

Work life at senior positions

Office Gossip on

by Jordon Carmden

AbInbev

Is it even worth climbing up?

Software Engineers on

by Karilyn Lee

Stealth

Feeling worthless

Office Gossip on

by Karilyn Lee

PayPal

It's okay to be normal and ordinary

Office Gossip on

by Matilda Lee

Independent Law Practice

Does anyone ever wish they were... Less?

Software Engineers on

by Anise Lee

Not available

Experience vs college brand name

Office Gossip on

by Kendall Olive

Linkedin

Bharatpe saga continues

Misc on

by Karilyn Olive

PayU

Rant : Salary parity in India is such a shitshow!

Misc on

by Coy Lee

Swiggy

Does Success Make You Humble?

Misc on

by Jordon Gabriel

SocGen

Life lessons

Indian Startups on

by Kalan Hyrum

Unemployed

Thinking to leave Bangalore and go back to my hometown - Tier 3 city

IT Company Discussion on

by Jordon Taye

Infosys

Lost interest in coding & tech after joining Infosys

Misc on

by Coy Carmden

Gartner

Getting tensed looking at my career graph.

Layoffs on

by Jordon Gabriel

Stealth

Learnings from layoffs

Office Gossip on

by Anise Nadeen

Stealth

Why are people so obsessed with FAANG tag ?

Business Roles on

by Jordon Vernon

FAANG

Does the company tier really matter?

Office Gossip on

by Blair Gabriel

Target

Culture went bad?

Software Engineers on

by Karilyn Dean

Student

How to climb the success ladder fastest? Advice for 20 yr olds

Misc on

by Jordon Carmden

Stealth

Service Class has no social capital