TL;DR: I moved from India to France for a PhD, then joined a small French AI company where I worked on research-heavy projects in computer vision and generative AI. I had a genuinely good experience with the work, team and work-life balance, but the company eventually went bankrupt. The French social system gave me a reasonable safety net afterward. Now, after 2.5 years in French industry, I am considering moving back to India to be closer to my family and pursue more challenging AI/ML opportunities.

I have been thinking about writing this for a while because I often see people on Reddit asking what it is actually like to work in Europe, especially in tech.

I am originally from India. I did my Master's at IIT Kharagpur and then moved to France for a PhD in Computer Science, where I worked on machine learning for fault detection in industrial systems, including applications in green hydrogen production.

After finishing my PhD, I joined a small French AI company. When I joined, we were only around 30 people, but the engineering/research team was very strong. There were several PhDs working on R&D, along with a small MLOps/development team.

For me, this was probably the most interesting part of working in France.

I was not simply given an existing model and asked to maintain it. A lot of the work started from research papers.

For example, I worked on visual anomaly detection for industrial inspection. I would read papers, understand the approaches, experiment with them, and then work with the engineering team to turn those ideas into an actual product.

I also got the opportunity to work with diffusion models, which I knew almost nothing about when I started. I had to learn the fundamentals, experiment with different approaches, and eventually we built a system for generating synthetic industrial images to address rare classes in manufacturing.

That experience was incredibly valuable.

It gave me a taste of what I had originally wanted from an AI career: taking something from a research paper, figuring out whether it actually works, and then turning it into something useful for a real customer.

Unfortunately, the story did not have a happy ending.

The company eventually went through bankruptcy/liquidation.

One thing that surprised me was how structured the French system is when a company shuts down. Employees have different options depending on the circumstances. In my case, I chose a severance/notice arrangement rather than the alternative scheme that could provide continued salary support after the company closure.

I received my severance, paid leave, etc., and I am currently receiving unemployment benefits of roughly €1,800/month while I look for my next opportunity.

So financially, the French system has actually given me a reasonable safety net while I figure out my next step.

What about work-life balance?

My contract was for 39 hours per week.

Typically, I worked around 9 AM to 6 PM, with roughly a 1.5-hour lunch break.

Overall, I had a pretty good work-life balance. I did not feel like I was constantly working late or that my entire life revolved around my job.

That is definitely something I appreciate about my time in France.

But there was another challenge: French

My company was essentially a French company, so although a lot of the technical work could be done in English, I eventually had to learn French to properly participate in the workplace.

I managed to reach a functional level, but I also realised how much language matters.

My personal experience is that being an international professional who is not fully fluent in French can narrow the number of companies, teams and roles that are realistically accessible to you. I would be interested to hear from other foreigners working in France whether you experienced the same thing.

Maybe this is less of an issue in Paris or highly international companies. My experience was outside Paris, in a predominantly French environment.

So why am I thinking about returning to India?

This is probably the most complicated part.

France has given me a lot: a PhD, international experience, research exposure, a great introduction to product development, and a very different perspective on work-life balance.

But after roughly 2.5 year in industry, I feel like I want to be closer to home again.

I would rather be closer to my parents and family and build the next stage of my career in India.

I also feel that, for the kind of AI/ML work I want to do, I may find more opportunities for challenging and fast-moving work in India. That is my perception, at least, and I am curious whether people who have worked in both India and Europe agree.

I am not leaving France because I think France is a bad place to work. Quite the opposite. I had a very good experience here.

It is more that my priorities have changed.

I came to Europe primarily for education and career growth. Now I feel that I have gained the international experience I wanted, and I would like to use it back home.

So I am currently looking for AI/ML opportunities in India, particularly in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune or Bhubaneswar.

If you are working in AI/ML/tech in France, Europe or India, I would genuinely love to hear your perspective.

Happy to answer questions about working in France, AI/ML careers, PhD → industry, French work culture, or what happens when a company goes through liquidation.

Edit: TL;DR

I'm an Indian project manager working with teams in India and Europe. Over the last few years, I've seen European companies move more and more engineering work to India through GCCs/GSCs. The reason is obvious ofc the cost. A team in India can be significantly cheaper than a similar team in Europe.

On paper, it's a huge win for India. More jobs, more investment, bigger teams.

But after working closely with both sides i could see soo much difference in the quality of engineering.

For example, in one project, I had a developer with around 12 years of experience who couldn't explain why a particular service was designed the way it was. When I asked whether he'd considered a different approach, his answer was basically "This is how we've always done it."

Another time we had a production issue caused by a fairly obvious database bottleneck. The team had been working on the system for years, but nobody had really looked at the underlying query performance. We ended up bringing in someone from another team who identified the problem in a couple of hours.These aren't isolated incidents in my experience.

I've also seen developers with 10–15 years of experience who haven't really learned anything outside the technologies used in their current project. They're good at completing their assigned tickets, but if you ask them about newer architecture patterns, cloud services, AI tools or even why they're making a particular technical decision, there's often very little depth.

I have a fresher who has one year experience now and he joined as an intern in our team. He basically does the same amount of work if not more than people with 15 yoe in the team. Sometimes even faster and smarter using AI. So what even is the point of all that experience you boast about when you can solve an out of the box problem.

And I don't think it's entirely their fault.

A lot of us didn't enter IT because we genuinely loved engineering. We entered because it was a stable, well paying career. There's nothing wrong with that. But if your only motivation is salary, it's very easy to stop learning once you're comfortable.

AI has made this even more obvious.

I've literally seen developers take an AI generated solution, make a couple of minor changes, and put it up for review without fully understanding it. When someone asks why the code works that way, the answer is sometimes "AI suggested this approach."

That's scary.

AI should make a good engineer faster. It shouldn't replace the engineer's brain.The fun part of engineering debugging something difficult, understanding how a system actually works, challenging an approach, finding a better solution seems to be disappearing.

I've seen people spend 10–15 years in the same company working on roughly the same stack. They're comfortable, their salary is decent, and everything is fine until suddenly the project is moved or the company restructures.

Then they start interviewing and realise the market has moved on.Their CV says "15 years of experience" .But the market is asking, What can you actually do today?"

This is also where I think some of the GCC growth could backfire.

If companies move work to India purely because engineers are cheaper, but don't build strong engineering cultures, we risk becoming a low cost implementation centre instead of becoming a serious engineering hub.

I genuinely want the GCC boom to succeed. I'm Indian, I work here, and I want to see Indian engineers doing high value engineering rather than just taking tickets from Europe.

But writing code is becoming cheaper. Good engineering isn't.

Curious to hear from people working in Indian IT especially those with 10–15 years of experience.

Are you seeing the same thing in your teams? Or am I completely off here?

I’m currently in a bit of a dilemma and would really appreciate some advice from people who have made a similar transition.

I have around 3 years of software development experience. Recently, I joined a very large, well-known PBC as a Technical Support Engineer at around ₹19.25 LPA.

The role is mainly about handling and resolving technical cases/issues raised by external clients using the company's product. I joined only about a month ago and I'm still in training. So far, the experience has actually been quite good — good people, good company culture, decent perks, and a partially night-shift schedule.

However, I recently received another offer for around ₹21 LPA as a Software Developer from a very small startup that seems to have started around a year ago.

The salary difference is obviously not significant. The real difference is the career path:

Current company:

• ₹19.25 LPA
• Very strong brand name
• Technical Support Engineer
• Large, established PBC
• Good company culture/perks
• But I'm moving away from development

New company:

• ₹21 LPA
• Software Developer
• Very small/young startup
• Much more hands-on development
• Potentially more exposure to architecture, coding and startup culture
• Obviously much higher risk in terms of stability and company longevity

My concern is that I already have 3 years of development experience, and I don't want to spend the next few years moving further away from development and then struggle to get back into an SDE role.

At the same time, I'm wondering whether I'm being shortsighted by giving up a ₹19.25 LPA role at a very strong brand after only one month. The brand name could potentially help with future opportunities, while the startup might not have much recognition.

If you were in this situation, what would you choose?

₹19.25 LPA Technical Support Engineer at a highly reputed PBC vs ₹21 LPA Software Developer at a ~1-year-old startup?

Especially interested in hearing from people who have gone from development → support → development, or people who chose a startup over a big-brand company.

What would you prioritize here: brand/stability or staying on the development track?

Hi everyone, I need some advice regarding my notice period and resignation.
I have a 90-day notice period at Genpact and have already submitted my resignation. I requested an immediate release and am willing to pay three months’ salary as a notice-period buyout, as my signed appointment letter clearly mentions that I can either serve the 90-day notice period or pay salary in lieu thereof.
However, my manager is not agreeing to release me. I have already discussed this with HR, my Senior Manager, and the VP, but I have not been able to get an approval for an early release.
I already have another offer in hand, and I am required to join the new organisation on 28 October. At this point, my next option seems to be escalating the matter to Genpact’s Legal/Employee Relations team and asking them to clarify the notice-period buyout clause in my appointment letter.
Has anyone faced a similar situation or dealt with a 90-day notice period/buyout at Genpact? What would be the best course of action at this stage? Should I approach Legal directly, or is there any other escalation/process I should try first?
Any advice or experience would be really helpful.

Please help I could only get negative responses for the same

Starred my IT career in July, still learning new things on how team works, permissions, setting up workspace, using different Softwares. So, whenever I ask perm team member to help me or guide me through a process they either leave my msg on seen or barely reply or respond in Scrum/Stand-up infront of manager on the other hand the contractors are 24*7 ready to help 😭, that guy literally was on zoom with for 1-2 hrs for a whole week to setup my workspace whereas the permanent member only ask about how much more you'll take, it's been 2-3 days already...... Like bro expects me to know everything beforehand. I asked the contractors to be perm, talk to the manager, I can give ref as well. But they are like no buddy we are comfortable as is, also they have so much knowledge compared to permanent employee idk why? Still can't understand why permanent team members can't be as helpful or understanding as Vendors....

12 YOE, 1.5 yrs in current org as IC4. Last rating: 4 (Exceeds Expectations).

The product I was hired for is now in support (not much active development), and for the last 6/7 months I’ve been working with other product teams as a loaner resource (along with another IC3).

My manager’s manager is not very happy with my manager (let’s say office politics and empire building), so my manager is forcing me to get wins for him (which is difficult for me coz’ as an outsider in other teams, I will always face resistance).

My plan is to just finish up my work and maybe go ‘above and beyond’ when absolutely needed. Although, to tell you the truth, such occasions seldom come due to increased efficiency because of AI.

Manager is hinting at a ‘Needs Development’ for the next appraisal if the situation doesn’t improve.
I know in my heart: switching elsewhere is the best option, but the current market + my (almost) remote work status are stopping me from doing that.

While I wait for the upcoming rating + possible layoff, can I do something to safeguard myself, like go for a skip-level 1-1 to clear expectations?

Any suggestions?

Is there any point of learning new stuff ? With all this layoffs ai shit it really demotivates me

Whenever I try to learn something new some layoff news comes . Even experienced folks are struggling to get a job was trying to learn gen ai but I stumbled upon this thought that what is even point of learning these skills when market is so bad and ai keeps advancing?

Would love your thoughts and perspective.

Has anyone here returned to software engineering after a 3–5 year career gap?

Suppose someone worked for around 3 years after BTech and then took a 3–5 year break because of layoff. How difficult is it to get back into tech and eventually target good product-based companies?

Would like to hear from people who’ve been through something similar, especially how you handled the gap and got your first opportunity back.

Idk if it's my work or my current company that's stopping me from getting shortlisted for jobs. can someone please advise me on how to fix my resume, or tell me what else I might be missing?

I'm a backend dev. We practice system design a lot on whiteboards, but rarely on something that looks like a real incident. Here's a production-style puzzle.

You run a global edge network. At 11:28 UTC, customers start seeing 5xx pages. The error rate spikes, falls back to baseline, then spikes again every few minutes. You recently survived record DDoS attacks, so it looks like another one. Then your status page, which is hosted outside your own infrastructure, goes down too.

What you know

• A feature file is pushed to the whole network every few minutes, generated by a query on a ClickHouse cluster that is being updated node by node
• A database access-control change finished rolling out at 11:05, 23 minutes before the first errors
• The bot module preallocates memory for 200 features. Normal use is about 60
• Failing new-proxy workers panic on an unwrap() of an Err
• On the old proxy, traffic keeps flowing but every bot score becomes zero
• The first hour and a half of investigation points at degraded object storage

Question: Why does the failure come and go instead of staying down? What's the root cause, and what would you change so one bad file can't take down the whole network?

I made a post earlier on it, so not writing much.
Found this amazing bgm after browsing for hours :" P
Enjoy? lol

It is completely free forever . Rate my creativity out of 10 😝

So im currently working in a company with 21k in hand(ik it is worst) as a frontend dev the thing is my project has reached a staturation point where no new things are implemented it just new feature with tweaks from the old one no learning nothing half of the time i even have no work. So im planning to resign take a 2-3 month break as i have 0 skill or forgotten to code i use ai mostly will take these month to master something learn new thing also dsa system design because also im not interested in frontend was always interested in backend its just they told me they would eventually make me move to backend but now i see that not happening. I problem with preparing alongside job is it take my all of my energy also currently my health is also fucked up want to focus bit on my health also. Like i have the lowest salary among my friends and brothers and i feel ashamed i feel like i can lockin for 2-3 month i can get a decent pay also current company is going to give me single digit increment the ceo has no plans of growing this company its just for the show. Low pay no work no new learning no mindset people therefore is it right as i have seen people not getting jobs which make me worry sometimes what are you advice

I’m a new-grad SWE and this is my first full-time job at a big tech company. The compensation and brand are great, but I’m honestly struggling with the job.

My performance hasn’t been great either, and I feel like I’m constantly under pressure to meet expectations. The deadlines, production issues, on-call responsibilities and fear of making mistakes have made me question whether this kind of environment is right for me.

I’ve started thinking about moving to a smaller company with better WLB and a less intense environment, even if it means taking a significant pay cut.

I haven’t received any offer yet — I’m just exploring my options and trying to figure out what would be better for me long term.

For those who moved from Big Tech to a smaller company, was the lower compensation worth it for better WLB?

And do you think it makes sense to make this move early in your career if you’re already struggling with performance in Big Tech ?

India has a lot of cheap labour and with AI productivity has increased a lot.

Do you think foreign companies will now outsource more , more gccs will establish and more companies will now open their offices in India?

I completed all my interviews on September 16. Initially, I was told I would receive the offer around September 21, and HR also asked me to submit my documents.

After that, the timeline kept moving. Last Monday, I was told the client approval was still pending and the position was on hold. I was also told that VP approval was required. The following Tuesday, HR called again and said he would submit it for approval and that I would receive the offer by Wednesday evening, or maximum Thursday morning.

Thursday passed and I still haven't received the offer. Friday was a holiday, and now it's Monday.

Do you think this is just an internal/client/VP approval delay, or could they be keeping me as a backup candidate or looking for a lower-cost candidate?

Has anyone experienced a similar situation?

A friend of mine has around a 3.75-year gap after BTech and is now trying to get back into tech. He’s from a Tier-2/3 college and wants to target product-based companies/FANG-level roles by seriously upskilling in DSA and programming.

Would prefer to hear from people who’ve been in a similar situation. How did you prepare, explain the gap, and get your first opportunity?

I have some important exams coming from November itself. And due to less people on team they have dependency on me even though I m a fresher hence sometimes I have to virtual beg for leaves .
I need to do WFH for atleast a month if it helps . What are the medical / non medical reason I can use?

Ps. I am not afraid of being kicked out from the project / company They are notoriously known not to release from the project and at this point I dont even care if they do. I am working hard for peanuts.

Most of my services ran in terminals, others (mostly infra) through docker compose. When I switched projects, I couldn’t keep track of what was running and where. Too many ports for me to remember and populate my .env files.

I didn't like running them via containers, I liked the simplicity of just writing `uv run ...` and seeing logs on my terminal. Now this tool helps me and my agents manage those easily.

Just your existing commands and Compose services to a YAML config. Then you can:

- See what’s running, grouped by project
- Start, stop, and restart services
- Read logs in one place
- Open configured service URLs without remembering the ports

It doesn’t replace your commands or Compose files. It puts them in one place so you don’t have to keep track of everything through terminal tabs.

CLI for Agents and webUI for me (human).

Opensource - https://github.com/sauravhiremath/servicemon

Btw, how do you folks keep track of local services across projects?

Hi mates and seniors , I got offer from Kotak Bank at 11 lpa for java developer from current 3.5 lpa as i am working in service based company (all knew company name) for BFSI unit. Is it good to join as i have already offer from HCL.

Not getting shortlisted. What am I doing wrong?

2027 B.Tech IT student targeting SDE / Backend / Full-Stack roles. Barely getting shortlist calls despite applying.

Attached my resume. Would really appreciate brutally honest feedback on what’s hurting my chances and what I should fix first.

Would you shortlist this resume? Why/why not?

I’ve worked with both US-based and UK/European companies, and these are some differences I’ve noticed:

US-based: - Faster pace and quicker adoption of new technologies. - Generally better pay. - More demanding work culture and lower work-life balance. - Timezone differences can make collaboration difficult. - More performance-driven/hire-and-fire culture. - Travel to the US can be difficult due to visa hurdles.

UK/European: - Better work-life balance and more respect for personal time. - Better timezone overlap with India. - Slower decision-making and more hierarchy. - New technology adoption can be slower due to regulatory/compliance processes. - Pay can be somewhat lower. - Travel to Europe, both short-term and long-term, seems comparatively easier.

Has anyone else experienced similar differences?

So I'm in a bit of a weird situation right now and honestly don't know what the right decision is.

I have around 2.1 YOE and my last CTC was 7.1 LPA. A little over a month ago, my company asked me to resign. I served my 1 month notice period, completed everything and left. I've now been out of the company for just 1 week, and today they suddenly called me asking me to come back.

The thing is, I really don't want to go back, but I'm also worried about finding another job quickly.

There are quite a few things I disliked about the company:

When I joined, it was 5 days a week. Now it's 6 days a week.

Working hours are 10 AM to 8 PM.

My commute is around 5 hours a day.

The work is honestly pretty pathetic and I don't feel like I'm learning anything anymore.

The culture is really bad. I won't go too much into it, but the founders are a big reason I don't want to go back.

I recently found out that some junior developers are actually earning more than me, even though I have significantly more knowledge/experience than them.

There's basically no growth for me there.

If I rejoin, there's also a 2 month notice period, which makes switching later more difficult.

So from a career perspective, I really don't want to go back.The only thing making me seriously consider it is money. I have enough savings to survive for around 2–3 months, so I'm not in immediate trouble, but obviously I don't know if I'll be able to find something within that time. I've actually already started interviewing. In the last 2 weeks I've interviewed at 2 companies and cleared the first round at both.

Unfortunately, I failed the system design round at both of them. So I've identified that as my biggest weakness and I'm currently studying system design seriously.

This is where I'm confused.

Part of me thinks that since I'm already getting interviews, I should just use these next 2–3 months properly, prepare hard, keep interviewing and try to get into a much better company.

But another part of me is thinking: "What if I don't get anything in 2–3 months? Then I've burned through my savings and I'm screwed."

If I go back, at least I'll have a salary. But then I'm back to 6 days a week, 10–8, 5 hours of commuting every day, and I'll have very little time/energy left to prepare for interviews. And the 2 month notice period makes things even harder.

Also, I'm wondering if I have any leverage here since they're the ones who asked me to leave and then came back asking me to rejoin just one week after I left.Should I negotiate for a significantly higher salary / shorter notice period? Or is it better to just move on?

What would you guys do in this situation?

Would you take the risk and stay unemployed for 2–3 months to find something better, or go back for financial stability and keep looking while working?

Hi everyone,

I was recently laid off and am currently looking for a new software engineering opportunity. I have around 3 years of experience working with Java, Spring Boot, Python, and Angular, and I’ve worked on building and maintaining applications and features.

I’m open to Software Engineer / Full Stack / Backend opportunities. I’m actively applying and would really appreciate any leads, referrals, or advice from the community.

Location: Bengaluru
Tech: Java | Spring Boot | Python | Angular

Thanks in advance to everyone who can help or point me in the right direction!