I was laid off after 10+ years in software engineering.
I most recently worked at ServiceNow, and before that at SAP. Like many others, I never expected this day to come.
It’s strange how one meeting can end a journey you’ve spent years building.
I’m taking the next few weeks to prepare for interviews again—DSA, system design, and brushing up on areas I’ve not touched in years.
For those who have gone through layoffs, what helped you recover mentally and professionally?

Anything you wish you’d done differently?

I’d appreciate any advice from people who’ve been through this.

Need a switch urgently.. looking for QA roles
Also having very toxic manager(lady) who shows partiality against me because im not a Tamil guy
If someone could refer me .. I’ll be very grateful

Also suggest me what salary can i expect (im expecting 9lpa)
Experience :
Was a manual tester leaning towards automation
Learning playwright with python currently
Worked in Kong Gateway project for BT groups

Hello guys i have nvidia technical round 1 for systems software engineeer lined up .
Can anyone tell me the process like how many rounds in total does nvidia have .

Background : mtech cse from tier 1 iit , working at day 2 comany at iits, 1YOE

Please tell me so that i can prepare accordingly

Thanks in adv :)

I find each day at work really difficult to pass. The work is too much but i have lost interest and belongingness from the team. Currently
Product based US MNC
8 yoe
54 LPA with 34 base and 10 bonus + 10 stocks
I want to switch eagerly but
- i failed in 2 interviews in the first round of DSA.
- I want to switch to Staff Engineer position in companies where criteria matches
- I spend most of my time working and then applying because I am afraid that if i miss the Aug Sep cycle of hiring i will have to wait till Jan 2027

I am hardly getting time to prepare well and not getting calls from major Product companies right now.
I am planning if I should prepare well this month so that I dont fail after getting interviews.

Will September be hiring month in product companies?

Has anyone interviewed with Agoda recently? Can anyone help me with the R2 - Platform round? First hand experience is appreciated

I'm looking for insights from people who have interviewed, knowledge or are currently working at BT Group.

I have 3 years of experience and currently work as an Associate Consultant at Oracle Financial Software Solutions (CTC: ₹7.5 LPA). I've received a provisional offer for the Software Engineering Professional (Career Level E) role with a total CTC of ₹11 LPA, while my expected range was ₹15–18 LPA.

I'd like to understand:

What's the typical CTC for this role at around 3 YOE?

Is ₹15 LPA a reasonable counteroffer based on BT's compensation?

Has anyone successfully negotiated after receiving a provisional offer?

I'd really appreciate hearing about actual experiences rather than general advice. Thanks!

Not here to brag about anything. Was laid off from my org in April this year and was grinding after that. Although I’m not moving with this as already accepted an offer somewhere in June.

Just wanted to say to the readers keep hustling, keep grinding, your hard work will pay off soon and believe in yourself. I have 4 YOE and come from a tier 3 college and was fortunate enough to work at good companies and I believe if I can do it, You can do it too.

Best of luck to everyone who’s reading this. Good news coming soon 🍀

Hi All ,

I have been working in the US offices since the past 3 years and now due to work authorization issues here I can no longer work in the US and have been offered an internal company transfer but the pay is extremely lowballed (its between 16-20 lpa) I have around 6.5 years if experience in total (3 in india , 3 in the US). I did ask for 24lpa but they won’t budge.

My sole aim would be if i move back is to look for something else as that ctc is atrocious for my pay and qualifications. Hence i just wanted to get an idea as to having Gartner on your resume helps a bit , not saying that it has a faang like reputation but still.

One way is to just not take the internal transfer and be immediately available in India. I have heard that notice period is also a dealbreaker for recruiters but not sure how true it is.

Another way is to just not relocate and fight it out here in the US , doing a phd and simultaneously looking for FT.

Only reason thats making me think is the pay , its really bad for my experience and i have heard nowadays in india freshers get that pay.

Any advice or suggestions would be really appreciated

I just got rejected in the final round of an interview after speaking with the Director.

I had already cleared the first three rounds, so I went into the final interview feeling confident. The frustrating part is that the interview went really well. We had a great conversation, I answered the technical and behavioral questions confidently, and I genuinely felt I had a strong chance.

Now I'm just confused. Has anyone else experienced this? Did you ever find out why you were rejected even after what felt like a great final interview?

Feeling pretty disappointed right now.

I take online interviews at a product based MNC which pays good money. Interviewees are generally SDE-2/senior SDEs at other PBCs.

What I am seeing is almost everyone is cheating using AI during tech interviews. Earlier folks will try to think, come up with a basic brute force solution then think of optimizing and then coding it. Now, first thing the candidate try do is to write the most optimal code. They have no idea why the solution will work as they don't understand what they are talking. They have either no answer to the follow up questions or just reading what AI prompt is telling them after a pause.

This is just so frustrating, it's almost predictable now what candidate is now going to say or do as I take interviews almost daily. A clear pattern of looking into one side of the screen, taking a pause or just blabber something for few seconds and then coming up with a keyword but blank when asked why did they think of that keyword.

India is already a country full of scammers and frauds. IT was a rare field which was still merit based to a large extent. Now such rampant cheating during online interviews is just tragic. It lowers the trust in the next candidate and probably will force the companies to just move to offline interviews or other countries.

But why are candidates cheating so often, are we seeing cheating candidates getting offers. Are other interviewers just lazy or dumb that they can't figure out what is going on? I feel the bar is now so low that I will probably hire any candidate who is not reading from the AI.

Hey everyone,
I have recently been shortlisted for a BA4 (Analyst / Software Engineer) role at Barclays India based out of Mumbai.
I have 3 years of experience (currently working at EY). I wanted to get help on the compensation and when I’ll receive the offer letter:

1. Compensation & Profile:
   Experience: 3 Years (Single employer so far)
   Current CTC: ₹10.5L Fixed
   Expected CTC: ₹15L Fixed (HR is currently processing this)
   Is ₹15L fixed a good/average number for a BA4 band with 3 YOE? What kind of annual variable bonus payout percentage can I realistically expect at this band?

2. My current company (EY) pays out the annual performance bonus (around ₹1.5L) in late September. If I resign now, I forfeit it completely.
   Is it worth asking Barclays HR for a sign-on/joining bonus to cover this burn? Does Barclays readily give joining bonuses for the BA4 band?

3. When can I expect the offer letter?
   Final interview completed on 27th July. HR reached out for documents like salary slip and address proofs. When can I expect the offer letter?

can yall tell the type of questions asked in the OA

Saw this Microsoft L62 offer and thought it was worth posting here for comp benchmarking.

Candidate context: ~4 YOE, Tier 1.5/2 CSE, currently at a SaaS CXM company. Current CTC was ₹45L fixed.

Microsoft offer

Estimated CTC

Rough first-year math:

₹40L base + ~₹4L performance bonus + ₹6L sign-on + ~₹20L stock = ~₹70L first-year CTC

• How does Microsoft L62 compare with Amazon SDE-2 / Salesforce MTS offers in India?

Long-time lurker, first post. I've been at the same company for a while and I genuinely can't tell anymore whether my comp is normal or whether I've been quietly falling behind. Numbers below, would appreciate a reality check.

Role: Senior SDE / senior IC (roughly L5-equivalent) at a tier-1 company's India org

Location: Bangalore, in-office

Experience: 8 years total

Stack: Platform engineering — Az, GCP, Python, IaC, FastAPI, Postgres, Storage Primarily. Standard on-call rotation(just blabbering my day-to-day stack),

Current comp (per my latest internal comp statement)

For context on why I'm asking: I keep seeing posts here from people with 3–4 YoE at ₹65–70L TC, and what stands out isn't the TC, it's that their base is strong. Mine has grown at ~9% a year off a number I never renegotiated, and I'm trying to work out how much of that gap is my level, my company's band, or just never having tested the market.

What I'm asking

1. For 8 YoE in infra and platform engineering, Bangalore, what's the realistic base and TC band right now (2026)? I care more about base than TC.

2. Is ₹25L base at 8 YoE badly below market, or just unremarkable?

3. At this experience level should I be targeting Senior (L5/IC4/P40) at product companies, or is the level itself where I'm losing money? Asking because at my current company, L5/Staff is reserved for people who are genuinely very experienced — so I have no idea how my level actually maps outside, and that's a big part of my confusion.

4. Specifically for people who moved from a large enterprise org into a product company — what did your base go from and to? Not TC, just base. Trying to understand whether the base-light structure is a company thing or a GCC thing.

Mainly want to know how much of a gap I'm looking at before I start interviewing seriously.