Witnessed history - a milestone in my engineering journey!

Posting here not for bragging but to just let people like me know who look at extraordinary salaries and feel sad - it is possible just believe in yourself. I never thought I’d reach even this. 4.5 years of workex in a non-tech role, started with 35,000 monthly salary. I know this number might not mean anything to the FAANG tech bros out there but for the rest here is a bit of context - - I come from a middle class background - Not from Tier 1 college - Not a software developer - No MBA as of now - This doesn’t contain any inheritance - Send some money home every month for parents Dont get overwhelmed, just keep your head down and don’t compare to anyone. I try to keep a strict budget, track every transactions, limit my needs but once a while splurge slightly when I feel like. See you all at the next milestone! 🍻

I work at a startup and have been here for more than 7 years. I joined right after graduating from a tier 1 engineering college (one of the old IITs). I was the first team member after the founders and now hold the position of non tech CXO in the company. The startup has grown significantly, not in traditional funding terms but in actual business. I have dedicated countless days and nights to growing this company, hardly taking a single day off in the initial 4 years, and often working more than 10 hours daily. My salary has increased proportionately to what I should be paid (>65 LPA), and I also have decent ESOPs in the company, which could be worth anywhere between 2 to 4 crores depending on the valuation at which we raise funds. However, I don’t count ESOPs as real money. In the next 10 years, it's going to be a very big thing, and I am glad to be part of it. Many of my friends, who have done MBA from IIMs and worked at BCG or Bain, are craving for the position I am in. But I feel FOMO about not trying anything else in life. It's like achieving decent success on the first try. I use the word "decent" and not "crazy" because it's not crazy success. What do I want ideally? I'd like to take a 6-month break and then figure out my next steps. Maybe start something new or join another company at a leadership level. But I am too afraid of not getting the same opportunities and ending up struggling. Thus the question: Is there any agency that works specifically to help you get a job at a CXO position? How does it work? Can a non-MBA with 8 years of work experience get a CXO position at a decently big company (>300-500 crores in revenue)?

Overview: Everyone around me, be it old school friends to the people in the bangalore startup ecosystem are planning to or already in the process of doing an MBA. What is happening: Most of the people I know, either are going for a tier 1 MBA in India or colleges like “Carnegie Mellon”/ “INSEAD”/ “NUS” these are really good places. Why am I concerned: I dont have great acade, GEM candidate so I have decided to not pursue CAT at all, and MBA outside India is too expensive. I feel like my job and career are going fine with 4 years of professional experience I am making 25LPA in marketing. I am not keen on doing an MBA but I dont want to regret later. I consider myself to be fairly smart but what happens when I am competing with people who have great brand names on their resume and are actually smart. People on GV with more experience, have you gone through this struggle? Sidenote: I also have friends who have cleared IIM ABC, ISB and not gone, because they just wanted the admit letter. Which is brave lol!

Total YoE - 5+ Current Company - US based startup Role - SDE 2 Remote Current CTC: 45 Base + 5L Variable bonus + Esops I started my carrer in service based company at 4.5LPA, after that worked for two indian unicorn startups. Now working in US based startup from almost an year. PS: Wanted to brag from so long, didn't had the courage to do so till now

Question came up because it’s Independence Day 🇮🇳 A lot of us have had the privilege to be able to go abroad, but ended up choosing not to. For me, it was just believing there’s enough growth here in the coming few decades + friends/family Looking to hear if the reduced brain drain is actually true, and what makes people stay.

How is the work culture at Medibuddy? Asking specifically on the tech and product side of things People who are there or have worked do share your thoughts

Hi Grapevine, I'm [Saurabh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/saurabhjain1099/), currently building [Stable Money](https://stablemoney.in/), India’s largest platform for fixed return investments. I'd love to chat with you folks about my journey in building Stable Money, my thoughts on fintech and financial services, organization building, amongst other things. Ask me anything, I'll be back at 7 PM and begin answering! :)

After the recent post of mine related to entrepreneurship that picked up on grapevine, and also after using it for a long time, I realised this is a potential community to find gems. Looking out for a passionate SDE, who wants to dive into entrepreneurship and for a long ride and can own up the entire tech stack (pure ESOP oriented) We are moving in a solid direction as per the vision in our Ed-tech startup all driven by AI. Solving a massive global problem (validated!) comment if you are open for such opportunities and will take it forward from there.