TL;DR: I joined a startup as a frontend intern, took on many responsibilities, but was continuously delayed on payment. After months of empty promises and low salary offers, I decided to leave. The CTO suggested if I quit, I wouldn't be a priority for getting my unpaid dues but I’d "learn a lot" if I stayed. I eventually resigned after one last month, but they delayed my salary again, and after calling them out, I was removed from company systems. A fellow developer faced similar issues and was threatened with legal action.
In December 2023, I joined a startup as a frontend developer intern. The core team had only three people. Even though I was an intern, I was their first frontend hire and took full control of their Next.js frontend. I also managed their Azure infrastructure, built an Android app with Expo React Native, handled deployments on virtual machines, and did some backend work.
The agreement was that I would be paid $12 per hour, but I was receiving monthly invoices, and payments were delayed by months. After four months, in April, I asked the founder about my pay, and he said they had a seed but were facing issues with converting it. He promised my dues would be cleared soon. Two more months passed, and I got the same reasons, plus delays due to the elections.
By mid-July, things took a turn for the worse. They admitted they don't have the money and couldn’t clear my dues for an unknown period of time. Instead, they offered me a full-time job with a salary of only $400 a month, which was way too low. At the end of July, I told them I wanted to leave. The CTO then said that if I left, I wouldn’t be on their priority list for getting my unpaid dues, but I’d "learn a lot" if I stayed. That was a big red flag for me.
Since I needed money, I decided to stay for another month to get that month's salary and then resign. I still wasn’t officially made full-time because they hadn’t finalized the paperwork, and my full-time role was supposed to start in September. After working for another month, I informed them that I would resign at the end of it.
When it came time to handover/knowledge transfer, I told them I wouldn’t start until I received my salary. The founder and CTO said it would take 30-45 days because of the full-and-final (FnF) process, even though I wasn’t a full-time employee—just a contractor—and the team only had three people. This was the breaking point for me. I confronted them, pointing out that they expected my work on time, but my pay was always delayed.
For that disagreement, they kicked me out of the company’s GitHub and Azure within hours. I then ranted about their dishonest behavior in the general Slack channel, left the workspace, and blocked the core team members.
Later, I stayed in touch with a backend developer friend who was also struggling. He hadn’t been paid that month's salary, despite it being well into September. He decided to pause his work and resign. The founder threatened him with legal action for "fraud" if he didn’t finish the handover. My friend knew it was an empty threat, so he found contract loopholes, replied to the founder, and was ghosted—no salary, no response.
Now it was my foolery too that I trusted someone's sweet words for so long and did unpaid work for so long. I shouldn't have trusted people blindly. And I have had my lesson, learnt a lot in tech
And I really wanted to share this, get different opinions and suggestions that can I do something about it. Like I cannot do something legally on them right now and I do want to name and shame them but there is a signed contract, and I guess I don't want legal trouble right now because I am too exhausted from all this
Mention name of company for blacklisting
Name and shame Be done with that shit hole
Give it 15 days. Then, reach out to the founder and negotiate. Say you get a salary, and a letter confirming you worked here for 9 months and built everything on UI (This is more important than salary even in short term), then you will do a proper handover with whoever they bring in next,
Founders would have brought in someone else. They need the handover in that time. Play your cards wisely.
If they wanted to pay, they would have done it by now. They wanted to get the job done for free, and they got what they wanted. many employees give too much weight for the KT and handover. Those serve only one purpose, - delay the exit. If a person suddenly dies, there would be no handover, so will the company close for the next 10 days untill someone joins and gets upto speed? Every employee is replaceable in 30 mins. 30 Mins. flat. Business will not even suffer a day.
File a labour law complain
Name the company bro, it may save other life as well
Name the company ...they should be outed publicly for doing this to u
Name & shame
You can do few things if you want-
Contact all your fellow friends who is still working and tell them to leave and file a legal complaint throught lawyer and provide him all the proofs, Court will settle your dues as soon as possible if group of people reported the same
If you want you can post all their commitment on Linkedin so that their investors and new Joinies will be away from that F**** but after that company will be affected badly so do it carefully - If they will settle your dues so you can forgive them but other aspirints who wanted to work with them will be affected
Just text one of the founder and tell them about your situation and ask if they will settle your dues or not if they get back with some commitment wait for the day and that is also most recent proof of yours
All the Best Bro - Good that you moved away and all the best for next opportunity
Thanks
About the 1st point, we were 4 employees, when it happened with me I told everyone, and the other two folks left within 10 days. For the one guy, I am not sure, he was more them then team employees from day one. About filing a legal complaint, I want to but currently I don't have access to such resource.
About the 2nd and 3rd point, so me and one other guy, we plan to email the founder telling him to clear our dues, give us our experience letter that we worked for x months and then you get the handover, if they don't we would have to resort to some legal action.
And since they don't have the money they won't clear it most probably and then we plan to name and shame them on every platform.
Just wanted to clear more stuff about contract that since the company is registered in Delaware (the founders are Indian and operate from here only), it says it's applicable there, now since there are some clauses on confidentiality, I am trying to confirm whether they are valid in India. If I name and shame, would there be legal consequences, I am just trying to confirm yes or no, most folks are saying no only but still.
Yes Bro I like the calmness you are bringing with the financial crisis you are facing - All the best
OP I faced this exact issue in my last startup. In my case they denied my salary, relieving letter, experience letter. And threatened me that I deleted company resources like VM, backups, source code etc. Using these false accusations they denied my salary and documents.
Unfortunately labour laws in India sucks. It doesn't protect employees from situations like this. Since I didn't get anything from them, I had no option but to go through a legal method.
I sent a legal notice with all the details through my lawyer and gave them 15 days of time to reply. Usually companies will respond because they don't want another headache. But in my case, they didn't reply. The case was filed in a civil court. But before the case gets admitted they call you and the other party for negotiation. After all this drama they agreed to pay 70% of the pending amount and provide all the necessary documents. Because legal fees for corporates are much higher regardless of the size of the company. Most of the time it doesn't make sense for them to fight for small amounts of money.
With that being said, please keep in mind that this will eat up your time and you won't have peace of mind. My legal fees came to be around 18k it would've been much higher depending on where you are and the lawyer. And if the company decides to fight you in court the legal fees will grow exponentially as you pay per hearing for the lawyer. And it takes a loooong time.
And the company will probably screw you in background verification also. In my case, the previous company was a small startup with less than 20 people so it didn't matter if they provided excellent or bad feedback during BGV.
There are a lot of factors involved here so decide carefully. All the best!
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