Working with Indian startups like Zero respect Two much work with less time Horrible management You can be fired within minutes

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Working with Indian startups like
Zero respect
Two much work with less time
Horrible management
You can be fired within minutes

What are the down sides working for MNC's

Team Lead

What are the down sides working for MNC's- Grapevine

I recently got an offer from a seed stage startup for a SDE2 role. They shared the offer in a 2 liner mail. Weirdly enough they have a probation period of 3 months which could also be extended to 6 months during which there'll be no paid leaves, nothing, and you cannot be late to the office any day.
I asked them to share the detailed offer letter with all these verbal probation clauses penned down and they've not replied for a week.
After getting the offer, they asked me to submit my adhar card, pan card, 10th, 12th marksheet, graduation certificate, passport, birth certificate, payslips, previous offer letter, resignation mail, proof of bonuses and all sorts of documents. 

It's funny how they think trust only works one way. I've withdrawn the application as there were too many red flags during the entire process. I really wish the Indian corporate system had an open culture where trust is bidirectional and not act like we're at the mercy of their job.

Funny interview at a startup

Software Engineer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

What made it worst? The pay, the culture, or your manager?

What's the worst company you have worked for?

ICICI Bank, they had a strict sign in timing policy where if you are late to corporate office, half day salary would be cut, It would be reversed only when manager approves. The sign out time used to be 5.15pm, but you would be made to sit till 8 pm by most of the managers even if your job is done for the day. A sign out at 6 pm used to be called as half day by most of the managers. 
 I heard now they donot have this dictatorial policy.

Data Analyst

Product Manager

Welcome to Company Reviews's Private Community

Hey guys.
What are the worst companies to work for and why?

Worst companies to work for in India?

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

I'm based out of the USA and keen to move back to India. Everyday I get 2-3 reach outs for jobs based out of the USA but hardly any for jobs based out of India. I have set my preferred location as India, but no luck.

Is the Indian job scene this bad?

Machine Learning Engineer

Welcome to Fintech India's Private Community

Basis recent news article and interview of the founder, the company is in talks for external funding. Has the founder money run out, he is also talking about ipo in 2 years.

Navi looking at external funding?

Operations Manager

Welcome to Ask Grapeviners's Private Community

I was checking Harkirat Singh's content and loved the idea of working remotely from India for foreign companies. Variety of reasons - good pay, chill culture and wlb to name a few. 

What are some raw truths from those who are currently working remotely? Would be really helpful to make an informed decision.

Unfiltered truths about working remotely from India for a foreign company

Frontend Engineer

Dear Fellas,

I hope who so ever is reading this post is doing great.

I need a personal advice from all of you who have started 30's journey with a wife and newly born kid ( 2-3 months old).

I am working with analytics role with a Edtech renowned company for 2 years now. Due to following reason I feel like I to switch :

1. Job insecurity ( lay offs) - (however they don't have any replacement to my role.)
2. Very short sighted leaders.
3. Very low increments even with maximum ratings.
4. Sir & Ma'am like culture.
5. They poke for working from home even with genuine reasons.
6. Strictly time bounded culture. 
7. Less chances for promotion as sometimes I give priority to my personal life.


So I want a suggestion that does it sound good to rejoin to  the analytics consulting roles. Will that make my life easy or this is not the right time looking at the market situation.

Managing a 2 months old baby with work

Business Analyst

For context: Weekends are off. So just fri WFH. This is a Series B startup. I am not even asking for a leave but WFH for just 1 day. I joined recently. The only thing I did wrong was possibly informing a little too late.

Want to get opinion if I am overthinking or this classifies as toxic culture in startups where you are expected to push limits above and beyond regularly and sometimes weekends.

---

Is this toxic work culture or I am overthinking

Not a great culture, also you don’t have to give the actual reason, instead say due to some unavoidable work or family health reason you will need to wfh. Its a good way of seeing what kind of employer one is, when they also treat urgencies like that. Indians feel they need to give a detailed explanation as to why they deserve wfh or leave, whereas in international companies, you just have to inform the manager.

Senior Designer

Growth Manager

I have been talking to a few companies, across different size bands.
Only Indian startups seem to obsessed with full week WFO/Micromanagement.

A few years back, startups were known for being more flexible, now it just seems to be the reverse.

Why are Indian startups so obsessed with Micromanagement? i.e. WFO

I know a lot of folks will not agree, but when it comes to accountability (+ some integrity), the vast majority are really really behind. Those who show some are stomped up on as well.  
  
 The only way to get over this might be to micromanage. I'm not in support of it, but I myself have been seeing a change around me because of some people, a few others will also have to suffer from micro-management. Yes, it's not easy on me/my mind, but the work is moving a bit more.  
  
 I've seen this at a lot of places. I usually trust others with things, but the results have more often disappointed me. Now, I just delegate only of it's really required.

Founder

Majority of Indian startups has toxic work culture and the same is not true for any US or Europe based startup. Indian startups just copy paste ideas from the west and apply it to Indian context. We don't have original product barring few such as Postman and all. Why is it so and how we can improve the situation?

Majority of Indian startups are shit.

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Hi there, as i am a fresher and currently doing my PM internship with a startup, so for full time should I look for MNC's or stick to here only.

Because here i think we can learn too many things as i am learning.

But in terms of problem solving i think MNC'S are great because there we will solve one bigger problem. And here we solve too many small problems.

What's your take on that?

Startup Vs MNC's In Terms of Learning.

I have done a 6M internship at Amazon but Amazon didn't convert any single 6M intern to full time employee even got a hire call from the manager. But Amazon has given the ppo to 2024 grad. Now Companies has started hiring only 2024 grad.

No one giving the shit about my internship. Companies/startups are not considering that as experience, then why they are hiring intern?

I applied to many companies even with referrals but  none of them sent me a single test link. Big tech giants are done hiring with 2023 grads. Some are hiring but only to female candidates.

Indian startups are the worst. they just wanted a guy who has all the knowledge according to their business model, doesn't matter how skilled you are.
Anyone can learn new things in small period of time but Indian startups... I don't know what they are thinking. In such things mnc is good atleast they are not doing such shitty things to fresher.

If I have done 6M internship at Amazon and got the hiring decision from manager, this doesn't imply that I have capabilities to work as a Developer? If anyone is able to deliver tasks in a company like Amazon where almost everything is new on which an intern is about to work then I don't think he will not be able to work in any other organisation.

Is there any hope for 2023 fresher

Program Manager

Last month I interviewed with NoBroker for a Demand Servicing Head position. The process went like this:

2 rounds of screening with HR/TA - was okay, good conversations. After which they scheduled an interview with the Business Head for the particular team. This interview went well too. 

After this they sent me an assignment - the longest assignment I've ever worked on as a part of the recruitment process. It asked me to write multiple detailed SOPs for the sales team, build a demand forecast model, and a complete demand generation plan for an oddly specific scenario. They gave me 5 days for it. 

I worked my a** off, desperate to get the job as I've been unemployed for some time. I did the assignment close to perfection - spoke to so many industry folks in real estate and made realistic assumptions, covering all possibilities. 

All in all I've not been so confident about my work ever like I was in this case. I submit and they acknowledge. 

Few days go by, I follow up, only to be given generic delay reasons by HR. Eventually, after more than a week they rejected me. When I requested for feedback on the assignment they completely ghosted me. 

I don't know why I'm sharing this here, but it's been hard. I've been jobless for > 5 months and every such experience completely shatters my already low self esteem further.

Disappointing Interview @ Nobroker

Hang in there, the efforts you made for assignment will help you somewhere in future. Good luck!

Project Manager

So, I am an analytics guy with almost 5.5 YoE under my belt. My latest transition was to Phonepe that I made this year (feeling shitty here already, given the kind of work creating almost no impact)
I saw a post on LinkedIn where the CEO of this startup recently raised some pre-seed funding (~1.5mn). Since I was following them for almost 6-7 months before this, I reached out to the founder on LinkedIn. 
We first had a virtual call where we got to know each other and after that discussion, he called me over to his place where we further talked about the idea, the scope and the future while also discussing what I could bring to the table. Post that, we met again, and this time with the other co-founder who deep-dived a slight bit into the tech stack that I had worked on.
It seems that all is going well, but the founder, in the first face to face meeting told me that for the time being (for almost the next 3-4 months), he'll be able to pay me a monthly amount which is less than half of my current in hand pay, post which it'll be reviewed and adjusted accordingly. How do I negotiate this now? Also, since the team size is super small (only 5 full time folks and one customer support part timer), how do I negotiate on what equity I take (looking for a benchmark number here)?

Joining an early stage startup - Need guidance

Analyst

What is your take on Software engineering learning in a startup than in a Big tech ? Like how does it impact one's career growth ? 


P.S. Please consider Zomato etc. to be big tech and not startups. Thank you

Startups vs Big Tech

Generalist

I worked in an Indian startup closely with CXO for last few years. 

They are pathetic in any way possible. Tech is limited to crud, that too doesn't work. The pay amongst their inner circle is in no way justifiable. For reference, I know people getting US pay remotely and that too doesn't come close to some of them.

They hired a guy from a service based company with completely different tech stack and no product experience for 60lpa+ (I know this number because he drunk boasted about this once) as VP just because he was acquaintance. Now, this guy lacked basic human decency and tech skills. He didn't know things as basic as how to use git cli or how to talk to people. Every non-tech person that ever had to work with him called it quit. Even 4-5 year old employees (juniors being exploited mostly) that were there from inspection. He would ruthlessly "harass" them for his own shortcomings.

The head of sales gets paid more than what their profit after margin is.

They just keep on raising based on their IIT/IIM creds and connections and there's no business or problem that they are solving. Even the contracts they seem to winning is rather by pulling the strings, because the product or tech doesn't solve or do anything. Yet they're able to raise more again and again.

It kinda kills me and fills me with so much rage that there are so many of them similar ones out there. I could go on and on about all the things that I had to see working here for years.

My pathetic experience working for years closely with CXO in a startup

I am not able to decide which one to choose. The Groww internship is guaranteed that if I perform well I will get PPO(15 LPA) and swiggy one is dicy if even it does have PPO. Since only one more month is left for my graduation, taking any of these internships will require me to leave the FTE offer. Any suggestions fellow developers??

I am fresher graduating in 2024. Having a Full time offer (8lpa) and intern offers from Groww & Swiggy.

I am working at an European company. Previously my manager was non Indian. Some re org happened, and I got an Indian manager.

Man, I cannot tell you how many times I thought of resigning in the last 3 months. I think it’s in the genes.

For instance, I informed that I would be on leave on 26th dec, given that 23, 24 are sat and sun and 25 is Christmas.

They asked me if I can be on on call till 25th, as I’m only on leave on 26th

Like wtf, who thinks this way!!

If you can, skip working for an Indian manager

The company did around 10-15% silent layoffs in the last cycle by putting people in PIP. 
My Manager told me that he has pressure on him to put at least 1 or 2 people in PIP, make them leave the company and reduce costs.

Later, the company did as low an appraisal as 2%.

Senior folks are leaving specifically Frontend Developers.

Salaries of a lot of SDE-2 are below 30 LPA.

They have started new positions called Product Developers which will do the same work as SDEs but with a lesser package. PD-1 salary is around 10-12 lakhs and of Lead PD is 20-22 lakhs.

The company is putting itself in a position where it wants people to leave on their own.

There are almost zero perks in the company. 
The team outing budget is a joke which is 2k INR per person per year. That is 500 rupees per person per quarter. 

Also making office mandatory from November.

Razorpay is too smart!

Good thing. Anyways their frontend devs and PMs were doing everything on Twitter except tech.

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