📌 Note: This post is shared via private link only. If you’re reading this, please refrain from indexing, reposting, or sharing the link publicly. It’s a personal story meant for friends, mentors, and people I trust. Thanks for respecting that.

The Setup

Earlier this year—February 26, 2026—I went to an interview with Cognizant. It was my first interview after graduating from IEM Kolkata. But here’s the important context: I’m not some fresh-out-of-college kid anymore. I’m a Senior Computer Vision Engineer with 5 years of professional experience, multiple projects shipped, and a track record at my current startup.

So why was I interviewing? That’s the whole story.

This isn’t really about that interview. It’s about what happened after, and the uncomfortable truth about how companies value their employees—especially when they think you don’t know your own worth.

TL;DR: I walked in with a 14.5 LPA + 2 LPA salary (from my startup) and walked out with a 20 LPA + 2.8 LPA counter-offer (22.8 LPA total). A whopping 38-40% hike. The secret? A legitimate offer letter from Cognizant for a Sr. Associate role showing the market thought I was worth 22 LPA. Sometimes you don’t need to switch jobs—you just need to show your current company what you could earn elsewhere. And more importantly: know your worth and enforce it.

The Interview: A Lesson in Pressure and Preparation

Zero Preparation, Maximum Confidence

Let me set the scene: It was February 25, 2026. The interview was scheduled for the next morning at Cognizant’s Kolkata office for a Sr. Associate - Projects role. I was chilling at home, deliberately avoiding the pressure of last-minute prep. I genuinely believed that a few days of cramming wouldn’t move the needle. Plus, I had taken interviews as the interviewer at my startup for the past few years, so I wasn’t completely green.

But here’s the thing—I was nervous. Not about the interview or my preparation, but about the context. This was my first market test in 5 years. My first real interview since college. The first time I’d be on the candidate side facing a company as big as Cognizant. There’s a difference between interviewing others and being evaluated yourself.

But here’s the kicker—I forgot to bring a pen. Yes, a pen. The fundamental writing instrument.

My mindset was that it would be a digital coding round, maybe they’d give me a laptop. I was wrong. I thought I’d be coding on a laptop, getting that smooth IDE experience. But nope. Instead, I got paper and pen. The worst possible setup. The best code editor is not even Google Docs—and if you haven’t seen the JOMATECH joke, you’re missing out on peak tech humor. Let’s just say that trying to code on paper with indentation is a special kind of torture.

The Suit Moment

The one thing I did obsess over was clothing. I was terrified of looking out of place. I bought a navy blue professional suit jacket and paired it with formal trousers, dress shirt—the works. My girlfriend was adamant: “Sports shoes will make you look stupid. You need black formal shoes.” She was right, of course.

Looking back, this obsession with appearance was probably the best decision I made that day. Here’s why: confidence is a multiplier.

That suit didn’t make me smarter or a better coder. But when I walked into a room filled with 300-400 candidates, that external confidence boost kept me from completely falling apart. There’s something about a well-fitted suit that says, “I take this seriously. I’m here to compete.”

The catch? I bought the black shoes the night before at New Market around midnight (because everything closes early in Kolkata, even the shopping zones). They barely fit. Like, barely. We grabbing whatever was available in my size, and I made peace with the fact that they’d be uncomfortable.

The next morning, I laced those shoes up, looked in the mirror, and thought: If this doesn’t work out, at least I’ll look professional while failing.

The walk from the office entrance to the registration desk at Webel Bhavan? Roughly 1km. In uncomfortable shoes. Through morning traffic. In Kolkata heat. My feet were already starting to protest.

But I was wearing the suit. And in that suit, I felt invincible. Stupid? Maybe. But it worked.

Lesson: Never underestimate the psychological power of looking the part. Sometimes, you need to dress the job you want before you even interview for it.

Arriving at Cognizant
Before the walk—fresh, confident, feet still intact
Inside Cognizant office
After the 1km walk—still professional, barely intact

The Building, the Crowd, and the Fire Alarm

On the location: There was just one Cognizant office, but there was confusion regarding the exact building location. I was kinda grumpy that they couldn’t provide a maps location on the invitation email itself for quick access. I got dropped at the good old Webel Bhavan, which is just beyond college—near IEM (our good old college). But Cognizant is actually two more buildings behind that. So I had to walk around 1km in those extremely uncomfortable shoes, through confusing lanes, trying to figure out where exactly to go. The traffic was one-way, so Uber/Rapido were out of the question. Fun times.

I eventually found the building. When I entered, the first thing that appeared was a guard with a big fat register. Thankfully, I had no laptop—if I had brought one, I would’ve had to keep it at the entrance because guards are strictly not allowed to carry laptops inside. You’re also not allowed to carry laptops inside. So I would’ve had to leave it. I had my documents in a bag, which was fine.

They asked me to fill in details in the register—phone number and all that. It was all new to me. Then they handed me an ID card with “GUEST” printed on it. Only then was I allowed to enter.

Once inside, I looked around with big eyes. The campus was massive. Skyscrapers everywhere. It was huge and impressive. But at first, I didn’t know where to go. So I asked the guard: “Where do I have to go?” He guided me in Bengali: “Take a left, take a right…” I followed his instructions.

I wasn’t expecting a lot of candidates since it was invite only. I thought maybe around 10-20 candidates, or at most a small room with a few interviews.

Then I entered the main hall.

Holy moly.

I was expecting 10-30 candidates, max. This was supposed to be an “invite only” round, right? Instead, there were easily 300-400 people already seated, with more trickling in. The hall—a typical corporate training hall with uncomfortable chairs arranged in rows—was absolutely packed.

There was a long queue at the counter where people were submitting resumes and filling out forms. I realized at that moment: I didn’t have a pen. Great. One more thing to figure out.

The scale of it was demoralizing. Thousands of people competing for the same role. And there I was—in my uncomfortable shoes, competing against people with 7-12+ years of experience.

For a split second, I seriously considered just turning around. Walking out. Going back to enjoy Kolkata. Having some phuchka near College Street. Pretending I never came.

But then I touched my suit jacket. Call it superstition, but that navy fabric grounded me. I’d come this far. My feet were already in pain. I might as well see it through.

So I stayed.

While sitting in the queue, I overhead people discussing DSA problems, binary trees, system design, and ML architectures—the full platter of topics. This was for a General Engineer and Data Scientist role, so people were prepping for everything from machine learning to software engineering decisions to system design.

Some of them had tattoos and weathered hands—obvious signs of years in the industry. “I’ve got 12 years of experience,” one guy mentioned to his friend. Another nodded, “Yeah, I’m around 10-12 years.” People with 7-12+ years of experience, significantly more than I expected.

Now, I wasn’t worried about that—I’d interviewed people with way more experience at my startup. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t just a fresh engineer anymore. I was a Senior Computer Vision Engineer with 5 years of shipped projects, leading teams, handling real responsibilities. So I could relate to their experience level. Still, standing there in that crowd of 300-400 people, you feel small. Like you’re one drop in an ocean.

Time crawled. By 1 PM, I hadn’t been called yet. The front benches—people who came early—were getting called in groups of 5-10 for their interviews. But those of us who came late (I arrived around 11 AM, two hours after the session started) weren’t being called. We were just sitting there, wasting time, getting hungry, getting grumpy.

Then it happened. A fire alarm went off.

A siren. Loud. Piercing. My heart jumped. Around me, people started looking confused. Were we evacuating? Was there an actual fire?

But I noticed something odd—the interview coordinators at the front weren’t moving. They were just… chilling. Totally calm.

Then a guy emerged from the washroom and opened some kind of mirror gate (probably ventilation). The noise got louder before the door shut again. A few people came out and muttered something.

The rumor mill kicked into overdrive: “Someone was smoking in the washroom.”

Apparently, this was such a common occurrence that the interviewers didn’t even flinch. The whole “security theater” of it felt surreal—a fire alarm for someone sneaking a cigarette, and the interview panel just… ignoring it.

The Written Coding Round

Finally, my name was called. Along with a few others, I was guided to the interview area. The guy guiding us told us to take a lift to the 13th or 14th floor—I forgot which. The building was a goddamn menace. We got there and walked into a pathway with multiple corridors. Very easy to get lost, honestly. We were directed to wait on the right side while interviewing was happening on the left (the rooms were just across from each other).

On the right side, there was a coffee machine. I thought about getting some coffee, but then I watched a Cognizant employee come in and operate it like he had a PhD in espresso preparation. This guy was handling 5-6 buttons at a time, making premium lattes and all. Since none of us knew how to operate it, we just took a seat and pretended we were very busy, even though all of us were very hungry. Classic.

There were about 10-20 candidates waiting in that room. Eventually, around 11:50 AM, my name was called.

Three of us were called at once. One of the other candidates recognized the interviewer, and the interviewer recognized him back. Apparently they knew each other. That moment, I felt a slight panic—out of three candidates, the odds just got worse. There’s always personal bias toward people you know. But I quickly noted that and pushed it aside. I could do this.

We were given a question to solve on paper. Paper. Not a laptop. Paper.

I didn’t have a pen, so I asked for one. The interviewer gave us blank sheets and a pen.

Writing code on paper was absolute torture. I hadn’t done that since school. I’ve done diagrams, maybe some pseudo code, but never actual Python code with proper indentation on paper. And you know what happens with nested indentation? Your writing starts looking triangular because there’s no actual way to indent neatly. So I shifted to using <-> symbols to denote indents. It looked ridiculous, but it worked.

The questions themselves were straightforward—array operations, one involving a greedy approach. I wasn’t able to solve it in the optimal sense, but I got a working solution in O(N) time. Could’ve been O(log N) if I’d sorted things or optimized differently, but I don’t remember exactly.

I finished first among the three candidates and submitted my sheet promptly. But then disaster: the pen was leaking. There was blue ink on my navy suit—great, just what I needed.

I told the interviewer about the leak and asked if I could go to the washroom to clean up. He said yes, no problem.

So I rushed to the washroom. But here’s the thing about that building—it was SO easy to get lost. I got turned around trying to find my way back. Multiple pathways, confusing corridors. But I retraced my steps and managed to find my way back in about a minute or two.

When I got back, there was blue ink on my knees too (the suit got hit). I cleaned everything up, got a new pen, and now the real interview could begin.

The Actual Interview

The interviewer was a middle-aged engineering manager, probably 35-40 years old. Very composed, clearly experienced.

Some questions I nailed. Some I fumbled badly.

He asked about the basic building blocks of a CNN (Convolutional Neural Network). I blanked on the exact terminology and started rambling about stride and gradient descent instead of just saying “Kernel and Activation Function.” Elementary stuff I should have remembered.

He asked questions from my resume. He inquired whether I was interested in a leadership role or individual contributor role. He questioned whether I could actually code (not just manage). I clarified that yes, I code. I don’t just manage people.

He asked me inheritance questions—which I wasn’t super prepared for, but I answered very correctly because he was satisfied. Basic stuff: “You’ve got two classes that inherit each other. What properties do you get when you call…? What’s the super method…?” Those kinds of questions. They surprised me because they were so elementary. I thought I’d forgotten to brush up on this, but I tried to answer everything very confidently.

The interview went pretty well overall. But I walked out uncertain. I felt like I’d performed at maybe 10-20% of my actual capability. I genuinely thought I wouldn’t make the cut.

The Shock

But then, around 2:30-3:00 PM, the interviewer came back and asked me and a couple of others to fill out a form. My heart skipped. What now?

I filled it out nervously. My hands were shaking slightly. I made some mistakes and had to correct them with white-out.

My feet were killing me. I was hungry. I was exhausted. And I had to fill out forms.

When I handed back the completed form, I did the most idiotic thing—I asked, “What happens next? Is there another round?”

The interviewer—the same calm one who’d sent me to the washroom—looked at me, smiled slightly, and said:

“It’s over. You’re selected. Just go home and relax. HR will call you with the next steps.”

I was floored. Genuinely shocked.

After the Interview

I made a friend there and we came back to the IEM campus together. You know, the place where we both studied. We went behind the “Chakras and Dadas”—that area where we used to grab food during college times. Pure nostalgia hit. I ordered a regular paneer snake, and it brought back so many memories. We had sweets too from that sweet shop that was right next to it—the one we always went to during college. It was an amazing ordeal, honestly.

After that, I rushed to a shoe store and got a new pair because my feet were absolutely killing me. Those original shoes had been a nightmare. Then I basically relaxed for the entire day, emotionally and physically drained but relieved.

The Aftermath: Cognizant’s Offer

Cognizant took until February 20th, 2026 to send me the final offer letter (Reference No: 40004446). They had been dragging their feet, waiting for management approval to bump up the numbers from an initial lower offer.

When it finally arrived, here’s what it said:

Offer Details:

It was a nice offer, no doubt. A significant step up from my startup salary. The role was respectable—Sr. Associate is typically a Level 4 or 5 position at Cognizant, not a junior role. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t excited about joining Cognizant. Don’t get me wrong—great company, stable, good benefits. But my heart wasn’t in it.

However, this offer letter was about to become the most useful document I’d hold all year. Not because I was planning to join Cognizant, but because I was about to use it as a negotiation weapon.

But first, let me tell you about my startup life.

The Current Picture: What I Was Actually Worth

Here’s the context: I’m a Senior Computer Vision Engineer with 5 years of professional experience. I’ve shipped projects, led teams, made architectural decisions, mentored juniors, and handled significant responsibilities at my startup.

At my startup, I was making:

With a lot of “future promises”:

But here’s the thing—the work was genuinely good. We were building something meaningful. The company was growing. The problems I solved felt important. My team was tight. And despite the delays and bureaucratic friction, I actually enjoyed going to work.

That’s the dangerous part.

When you’re a Senior engineer with 5 years of experience doing meaningful work in a growing startup, it’s easy to overlook compensation issues. You tell yourself, “It’s a startup. They’re growing. The ESOPs will be worth something someday. Plus, I’m building real ML models that matter.”

That’s the narrative companies use to underpay senior engineers.

I had been at the startup for 1-2 years at this level, handling responsibilities that easily justified a 25+ LPA salary in the market. Leading computer vision projects, making technical decisions, mentoring engineers. But I was getting 16.5 LPA because I’d started at even less, and the increments were following the typical startup playbook: 8-10% raise per year, maximum.

The Manager Conversation

I showed my manager the Cognizant offer letter. Mind you, this was right after my appraisal discussion, where they had basically offered me 18 LPA as a “generous hike”—about a 10% bump. I had been expecting better, but the news wasn’t shocking.

But when I walked in with the Cognizant offer letter, his response surprised me:

“You’ve got leverage now. I’ll handle it from my end. Just send me the final offer letter.”

No negotiation. No pushback. No “We can’t afford it.” Just a straightforward acknowledgment that I was being underpaid, and now it was a solvable problem—if I had external proof.

I sent him the Cognizant offer letter—22 LPA in black and white.

Within 5-6 days, without any formal negotiation on my part, my startup counter-offered:

20 LPA (fixed) + 2.8 LPA (variable/bonus) = 22.8 LPA

That’s a 38-40% increase from my previous 16.5 LPA. In one week.

Let that sink in.

Thirty-eight percent. Because of a piece of paper from a competing company.

The Uncomfortable Truth: Why This Happened

Here’s what keeps me up at night, and what should keep you up too:

I was doing the exact same work the day before the offer and the day after. My capabilities didn’t change. My productivity didn’t spike overnight. I didn’t suddenly become 38% more valuable to the company.

What changed? One thing: fear.

Before the offer letter, I was “Farhan, the loyal guy.” I’d been there for 1-2 years, building stuff, doing good work, happy enough. So the appraisal conversation was simple: “We’re happy with you. Here’s a 10% bump. Take it or leave it.” They were offering 18 LPA, maybe 19 if I negotiated hard.

After the offer letter, I became “Farhan, the guy who could leave.” Suddenly, there was a budget. Suddenly, they found 22.8 LPA. Suddenly, they found money they didn’t have before.

This is the lie companies tell you, and you believe it:

“We don’t have the budget for that.”

They’re not lying about not having the budget at that moment. What they’re lying about is why. The budget exists. They just won’t spend it on someone who looks like they’ll stick around anyway.

The Core Problem

Companies optimize for cost compression, not fairness. Here’s how it works:

  1. You join at Salary X
  2. Each year, you get Salary X * 1.10 (10% hike)
  3. By year 5, you’re making Salary X * 1.61
  4. A new hire for your role? They start at market rate, which might be Salary X * 2.5
  5. You’re now underpaid relative to the market, but overpaid relative to what you started with
  6. You’re trapped

Your starting salary becomes your anchor. Without an external market signal (i.e., a competing offer), your company has no incentive to adjust. Why would they? You’re already “happy” with your predicable 10% annual bumps.

I was worth 22-23 LPA all along. How do I know? Because the market—in the form of Cognizant—valued me at exactly that. I had been doing these responsibilities for 1-2 years. I had proven myself. I had led projects, mentored juniors, shipped features. Why didn’t my own company proactively adjust my compensation to match my contributions? Why did it take an external offer to trigger the realization?

Because they could get away with not doing it.

And that’s the system we’re operating in.

The Harsh Realities: Three Key Lessons

1. You Don’t Know Your Worth Until You Test the Market

This is the biggest one. Most people stay at one company and get 10-15% annual hikes. You have no idea if you’re underpaid, appropriately compensated, or overpaid.

The only way to know is to interview. To actually get offers. To see what the market says about your value.

In Hindi, we call it the Tarazu (तराजू)—the weighing scale. You need to get on the industrial scale and find out your actual weight.

Action item: Don’t wait for a crisis or a job search. Interview occasionally, even if you love your current job. Just to know your market value.

2. The Offer Letter is Your Leverage

Once you have an external offer, you own the narrative. You’re no longer asking for charity or a raise—you’re asking your company to match the market rate.

This is where I got lucky. My manager was smart enough to realize that retention was cheaper than recruitment. He found the budget.

But not all managers will. Some will say, “We can’t match it. That’s outside our band. Good luck.”

And that’s information too—it tells you something about your company’s commitment to you.

Action item: If you’re unhappy with your compensation, get offers on the table. Show them. Negotiate openly. Companies respect candidates who know their worth.

3. Companies Won’t Be Fair Until You Enforce It

This is the hardest truth to accept. Companies aren’t evil. They’re just incentivized to pay you less than you’re worth. It’s not personal; it’s capitalism.

You have to enforce fairness. Not through aggression, but through leverage.

The “leverage” in my case was a credible offer from a competitor. It forced them to recalibrate what I was actually worth to them.

Action item: Don’t wait for your company to realize you’re underpaid. Make it impossible for them to ignore. Show them the numbers. Make them choose between losing you or paying you fairly.

Advice (If You Want It)

If you’re in a startup or a traditional company and wondering whether to stay or interview elsewhere:

Interview. Get that offer letter. Even if you plan to stay.

Even if you love the company, even if the work is great, know your market value. The worst that can happen is you confirm you’re paid fairly. The best? You discover you’re worth significantly more.

Once you have the offer, the conversation changes from “Can you give me more?” to “The market says I’m worth X. What are you offering?”

And sometimes—like in my case—companies surprise you. They find the budget. They realize they’ve been undervaluing you.

But they’ll only do it if they have to. And the only thing that makes them have to is fear of losing you.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t write this to brag about my hike. I wrote it because I’m angry—not at my company, but at a system where:

This isn’t just about me. This is about every engineer, every analyst, every manager—everyone who’s been told there’s “no budget” for a fair raise while watching their company spend millions on recruitment, office renovations, or founder perks.

The solution is simple—but it requires you to act:

  1. Know your market value. Interview. Actually interview. Get offers. See what the market says you’re worth.
  2. Test the market regularly. Don’t wait 5 years. Don’t wait until you’re frustrated. Just keep your skills sharp and your market understanding current.
  3. Bring proof to the table. An offer letter is not an ultimatum. It’s proof. It’s data. It’s a statement from another company saying, “We think you’re worth X.”
  4. Make the conversation credible. You’re not asking for a raise. You’re saying, “The market values me at X. What’s your offer?”

As for Cognizant? I declined their offer. I sent them a polite email thanking them and mentioning that I’ve chosen to continue with my current organization. No drama. No bridge-burning.

I chose to stay at my startup because, despite the delays, the salary games, and the bureaucratic friction, I genuinely believe in the work we’re building. The mission matters to me. The team matters to me. The product matters to me.

But—and this is important—I’m going in with eyes completely open now.

They know what I’m worth. I have 22.8 LPA in writing. I have a Cognizant offer letter proving the market agrees. Next year, when appraisal season comes around, the conversation will be different. I’m not asking for a “reasonable” hike. I’m benchmarking against the market.

And if they don’t match the market? I’ll interview again. I’ll get another offer. And I’ll negotiate again.

Because that’s the game now. It’s not unethical. It’s not disloyal. It’s survival in a system where companies won’t value you fairly unless forced to.

Until companies change how they think about compensation, this is the only way to play it fair.

Have you faced similar situations? Have you successfully negotiated a hike without switching companies? Drop your thoughts in the comments or reach out. I’m curious to hear how others navigate this landscape.

Last thought: If you’re reading this and you’re underpaid at your startup or corporation, don’t feel guilty about interviewing elsewhere. Don’t feel like you’re “betraying” your company. They’re already betraying you by not paying you your market value. You’re just evening the playing field.

Go interview. Get that offer letter. Have that conversation with your manager. And if they don’t come to the table? You’ve got options. Real ones.

You’re worth more than they’re paying you. Let the market prove it.

This blog is shared via private link only. If you’ve received this, please don’t index it, scrape it, or share the link publicly. It’s meant for friends, mentors, and people I trust. Thank you for respecting that boundary.