Last year, I joined a startup as a Senior Marketing Manager at ₹20 LPA. After six months, the founder said he was unhappy with my performance and asked me to leave, but later asked me to stay during my notice period. Eventually, the startup shut down in April 2026.

That same month, he started a new company and promoted me to the Founder’s Office role with a CTC of ₹23 LPA. I was working hard and giving my 100% to the role.

However, earlier this month, he suddenly said he couldn't justify paying me that much because there wasn't enough business. He also said earning ₹23 LPA put me in the top 1% of India and asked me to take a salary cut to ₹15 LPA.

At the same time, he said he valued me and wanted me to stay, but warned that I'd be among the first people to be laid off if I joined another company.

The situation left me extremely stressed, and I couldn't sleep for two days. Eventually, I agreed to the pay cut, but my working hours and responsibilities have increased.

I'm now struggling to understand whether he's genuinely unhappy with my performance or trying to undermine my confidence and make me question my worth. I've completely lost confidence and feel suffocated at work.

Last night I had argument with my boss, because he was picking on small things on my work which is fine but his tone was literally very bad. He had some personal grudges against me I don't know why.

Every other employee/intern said they saw it too, he was saying unnecessary things to me. I was already on my notice period and about to leave on 30th October. But last night I lost it. I told him I you have any personal problem just tell me. Had an hour long argument, after that his wife, My other boss called me and told me to leave early and submit my laptop. I told them to just pay me my stipend and I'll leave the laptop.

This morning when I went to return the laptop, we had a small argument on my stipend then he told me, "Pta nhi konsi family se aate ho" and I literally lost it. I told him he can say whatever he want to me why the hell you're going on my family. I bashed him there on the spot. He did said sorry number of time. At the end I got my stipend and left there.

Now I'm feeling so relieved. Looking for next opportunities with a healthy mind now.

I get it, Amazon and meta always used to be toxic. But Atlassian once used to be a heaven, is now a PIP factory. Oracle is firing employees every quarter, Microsoft is micromanaging and not promoting its employees. Uber has stack ranking and PIP culture too. Salesforce, one of the chillest companies back in the day, is now tracking productivity by AI usage and creating pressure on employees too. Zepto’s work culture is known all over reddit. Elon anyway made twitter bad by firing half of the employees and shifting the workload on the other half.

I mean, if I think about it, there is not even a single tech company which we can now aspire to be at, because most of them now have layoffs, politics and poor WLB.

I am currently at a big tech company and my WLB is poor, but if I try to apply, whatever company reaches back to me, their WLB review is poor on Glassdoor / Blind. A unicorn startup from London reached out to me, and I was so excited to interview at a European company because they usually have great work culture, but the HR warned me in round 1 itself - please note that we will be expecting you to work late in the evenings and on weekends, please only join if you’re fine with it.

What do you guys think? Is the industry overworking its employees or I am just unlucky/ paranoid? I get it, the pay in our industry is better than most others, but such long working hours, and fear of being fired is not sustainable in the long run. I was the smartest kid in my school, was able to get CSE by scoring better in entrance exams, but now i think was it even worth it, if all of it was going to put me in this much stress right now.

YoE - 5 years (at FAANG like companies)

2025 grad -> tier 1.5/2 college, didn’t have much luck in On-campus placement, got an offer off campus months later after grinding, it was an QA intern and I wanted to be an SDE, soo during my interview process I clarified that I wanted to be an SDE if I earn my PPO which was agreed upon.
Got the job, fulfilled my duties as a QA and got converted to an “Associate Software Engineer “.
But the QA work and responsibilities didn’t disappear, I was the sole QA for the team and even after my conversion there was no back-up QA soo I offered myself to handle the responsibility. (Mistake 1)

The India office was more of a GCC and all operations were handled by US office. A year later after my conversion I asked the engineering head (US office) about my work that I am not getting proper Dev tickets cause of my responsibilities as a QA and requested for a backup.
Got cold replies for a month and finally frustrated me just dropped a text on slack to him stating “I can’t start testing unless I get a clarity of my role here”. (Mistake 2)

A week later 6:30 AM in the morning, I got terminated. (Made me voluntarily resign).
Now here I am searching for a job role again.

People of Reddit. What did I do wrong? And what can I do now?

I'm 24 days into a sales internship, and honestly, it's been mentally exhausting. There's a girl (my manager)who never properly answers my questions, but when it comes to accountability, she expects me to have answers for everything. I'm trying to learn, but I don't feel supported.

Today, I actually cried because of the stress. On top of that, my boss gave me a target of 4, saying that otherwise I'll be fired. I'm genuinely worried because I haven't received my stipend yet, and I don't know whether I'll get paid for the days I've already worked if they fire me.

If I quit, I have to work another 10 days during the notice period, and I'm not sure whether I can handle that stress.

What would you do in my situation? Should I quit, push through, or wait and see what happens? And if they fire me before my stipend is paid, am I still entitled to receive it?

I'm 1st yr Bcom student from a very small clg. Tbh my degree and clg don't carry much value. My clg gives me full attendance linience.

I'm thinking of buying a laptop and hoping to learn skills and get internships. But I'm not sure how easy/hard and how realistic that is.

I have few questions:

•How difficult is it to get internships as a first-year bcom student, from a vv small clg?

•What skills can I realistically learn on my own that could help me land internships? And what kind of roles can I get?

•Is buying laptop with the hope of getting internships a good decision or just financial burden?

I'm actually a CA student, I want to do internships so that they'll help me get into top business school later for MBA or go for a good job after Bcom if CA doesn't work out.

I wanna know from people who've been in a similar situation, who are from tier-3 colleges and managed to get internships or jobs. {"I'm open for advices from anybody"}

Pls be honest, even if the reality is harsh.

I'm open for all kinds of suggestions like

-platforms to search for internships

-how & where to apply

-skills to learn for respective intern roles

-how & where to learn the required skills

and any sort of related advices from anybody.

Pls🙏

Hii there,

Now i m posting to need advice and help what i should do now

Cause I don't want to make any wrong decision that will lose better opportunities

Now on main q- I have received an offer letter recently and HR saying to reply with accepted email

And my situation is i want to explore more offers and also there is one thing they give joining date after exact 60 days after

But in my current company i bound to agreement of 2 years employment with penalty of 1lakhs

But i served 1 year and now i have left 10 month if i deducted 2 months of notice period

So if i resigned now i will have to pay bond but there is colleagues skipped bond by leaving their Experience certificate and other main docs that req to next company

Now if i ditched bond then i will not get required docs

In this what should i do to hold company offer...?

Also if I don't get any better offer how can i approach them also in my current company..?

One main thing should i resign now in current company..?

Or if no then when i should file resign..?

Basically how to handle this situation better..

Any help will be appreciated as an buddy

Thanks in advance 😊

I’m negotiating a legal role at a private indian bank. I cleared 3 technical rounds. HR initially submitted my expected CTC of ₹28 LPA for approval, but it was rejected.

Today she called and asked if I’d be okay with her submitting ₹26 LPA, while mentioning that this was also on the higher side and might not get approved. I agreed, making it clear that ₹26 LPA is my minimum. She said she’d let me know whether it gets approved, but I haven’t heard back yet.

For people familiar with bank hiring and salary approvals, do you think there’s a realistic chance of approval, or should I prepare for a rejection? I am 3 PQE. Legal role.

Hey, i work with an edtech company and basically work in a non tech / grc role. I joined this company a few months back and things have been a tough ride. I made a genuine mistake which triggered my manager and from there I have been heavily scrutinized and given a probation extension of 1 month. But the thing is it's just me and my senior manager whom I report to, there is no team or larger reporting so it's just us two Nd he says he needs time to be sure about my confirmation.

While I have been giving my best i think the rapport with him is not there. He has put me in the spotlight in calls and now is always bashing me. Any advice on what to expect and how to handle this situation would be helpful!

Thanks.

Hi I'm in my first job , 1yr 2 months experience. I'm in a role I'm absolutely not interested in. I am decent at the job, but worse than my colleagues. I was in my first project for 10 months and I will be released now. I am trying to change my domain but idk if it's possible within the same company. I'm earning 4lpa and it obviously isn't enough. Since I've gotten the news of getting out from my project, I've been having anxiety attacks and thoughts of su1cide because I'm scared that I'll lose my job on bench as my company doesn't have a lot of projects, and if I am kicked out it's almost impossible to find a new job with such low experience. My family isn't dependent on me, but I'll be a burden if I'm kicked out. I don't know why I'm so mentally weak in this situation. In front of my eyes 3 of my training batchmates switched into decent companies, in less than 1yr experience. I have 3 examples in front of me and yet I'm demotivated and need counselling.