Write out a blog for me that is personal to be handed out with friends but a tad bit professional too: The harsh realities of hikes in startup environments: Show Offer letter with much higher CTC and you will get a fair hike

So I went to interview with Cognizant around Feb end 2026 (26th Feb).

Exposure and Experience: My first interview after passing out of college, that is IEM Kolkata

Preparedness: nil, I was chilling the previous night as did not want to take the pressure, and I knew a few days prep would not give me any particular advantages and even forgot to take a pen to the interview (I thought I would be given a laptop to code stuff up, but the best code editor is not even Google Docs [reference to the JOMATECH joke: https://youtu.be/X34ZmkeZDos?t=61], I was literally given a pen and white paper to code and had a hard time writing since nested indentation almost made my writings triangular before I shifted to using <-> symbols to denote indents on the paper - more to follow), I was extremely focused on the clothing - dressing well as is apprarent from the pictures - wore a navy blue professional suit jaacket with - which I think was very wise - as because it was confidence I needed that day, and the suit - which I literally never wear gave me that.

Images to be added: assets\images\20260130_interview_experience

This being a given, I had to buy black shoes which would match with the dresses, as my girlfriend commented, sports shoes would be a big no for these interviews and make me look stupid. So I arrived with short sized shoes (grabbed whatever we could the previous night from New market area - around 12 - 1 am midnight where hardly anything was open so you can imagine). So the shoes barely fitted me and were extremely uncomfortable - chewing into mmy legs but alas, we carried on.

Location: Well there is just one cognizant but there was confusion regarding the building location so I was kinda grumpy that they could not provide a maps location on the invitation email itself for a quick access. Anyways got down at the good old webel bhavan, which is just beyond college more IEM (our good old college) and cognizant is two mores behind it, so had to walk around 1km in the extremely uncomfortable shoes, tho not sure whose fault really. and traffic was oneway so uber/rapido was outta question.

I entered the building, as soon as I had the guard with a big fat register appeared, thankfully I had no laptop.

If I carried a locked laptop, uh, I had to like keep it at the entrance because the guards are strictly not allowed to, you know, carry the laptop inside and we are not allowed to carry the laptop inside basically. So I had to keep like ask the guards and. That bought, uh, you know, laptop bag kind of thing in which I had my documents and all the things like they had asked to like bring that. So once, you know, I got that, then I had to fill the details in the into the register, the phone number and stuff like that. So it was really new to me. Then they give me uh, ID card kind of which was uh, on which, you know, the guest was written. And then I was allowed to enter. And then I saw, I went inside and I saw like skyscrapers with big eyes. The campus is huge and it’s great. And at first like, I didn’t know where to go. So then I asked the guard like where do I have to go really? And then he guided me, you know from here like take a left, take a right and Bengali. And then I went as instructed and you know I was not expecting like a lot of candidates since it was invite only. I thought around. 10 to 20, uh, candidates or small room, maybe like a few interviews and then we’ll leave. But to my surprise, I found that it was not like 10 to 20 candidates or even 50 candidates. So there’s this hall that I enter, right? And the hall is already filled with like, let’s say. Easily like 300 to 400 participants, maybe 1000, maybe more that got filled in eventually, but it was like 300 participants, 400 participants sitting there seated. Then there was a small queue, there was a small line out there at the counter with on which there were. Like 10 people, right? And, uh, on their resumes, they were carrying their resumes and they were submitting it for the review. And basically on that resume as was written, the notice. And a few details that they had asked to fill up. And that is where I realized, hey, I had not brought a pen. OK, so before all of this happened, when I entered the hall and I saw like the 405 hundred people, I froze, right? Because, you know, the experience was totally new for me. I was my first like physical interview after like college time, right? So basically feeling very under control then. And I thought. You know, let’s not waste this day and just just move behind, right just turn around and take a U-turn and say call it a day and you know, just enjoy Kolkata. Maybe you know, and not give the interview talk because. Then 500 that’s a very like thin chance, right? So anyways, since I was wearing the suit, which becomes now relevant, right? Um, I went there right and I wanted to give the interview so I was like I was like losing 50% of my confidence just by. In that crowd, because you know that crowd is something amazing and it shows like what kind of what kind of pressure is there and what kind of unemployment or like low paid employment is there? Like what kind of demand is there for the job really. So yeah, that was there and then. And, and log in binary trees and whatnot, right? And, uh, binary trees, software engineering decisions, system design, someone was studying architectures, right? So a plethora of topics. So this was basically for a Jenai engineer and a data scientist role. So everything about machine learning and everything we were like trying to go through and, you know, just practice. So I learned that some people out there were way more experience than me. Like like way, way more, right. So people with tattoos, I’m not like shaming tattoos or anything, but people with tattoos, 12 years of experience. More than 12 years, right? And 7 to 12 years, so significantly higher than me. And I was a bit amazed at that, but I was comfortable since I’ve taken interviews for more experienced people at my startup, right? So I was not that worried about that. But still it, it was like, you know, you’re small. There’s one child here in this world, right? Um, and so given that then, uh, basically they took all the forms. I had come in a bit late, so the session started around 9. I was there by 11 around, right. So I was already delayed by two hours, but it was like. You know, uh, coming at your own time, there was no like urgency as such. So at around 11:00 AM I reach sharp. And then what happened once the resume and everything was given, what suddenly started to happen? So our names weren’t getting called out. So in our small like. That when she group right, we had all come in later maybe. So although the front benches were getting called eventually like in a list of like 5 to 10 candidates, let’s say and they were getting interviewed, right. So a lot of them weren’t even called. So they had to just sit and waste time and it was eventually I think around this time. I started to get hungry too because I hadn’t had a proper like good lunch because you know, it was already around 1:00 PM since, uh, I was being, not being called and stuff. So, you know, started getting grumpy there too. And then suddenly what happened? So this is a very particular incident that happened and there was. This fire alarm ringing, right? And the fire alarm ringing, uh, brought us to our, you know, feet, right? Because we, we don’t know what’s going on and it was weird for us, right? Though what happened was that the fire alarm was set off, right? And we basically thought there’s a fire and we had to like jump out the building or something like move, move out, rush out, right? So things began to panic in my mind for a bit, but I saw that nobody moved and stuff like that, so. In the interview panel, the the judges who were like shortlisting the resume is out in the front were very relaxed and calm. So we just watched it, watched the washroom and one person rolled out there and he basically opened a mirror gate kind of thing, right? And basically the. Noise like widened, so we just disregarded it as as his phone ringtone or something like that. But then he passed away and you know the the door closed, right And then the music was still there. The siren sound was still there, right. So we we didn’t understand what happened and then a few people came out there and basically we are. Understood from the voice from that, um, they were so, so deep into pressure that they were smoking and the judges apparently knew about it and the interview panel basically, and they were like chill about it, right? And so that was an incident that I remember like very clearly. Right. And So what happened like suddenly then amidst this, you know, incident and stuff going on, like us talking and stuff. So what happened was suddenly my name was called, right? And nobody else was called, right. And in our group, maybe like a couple of people who called it 5 to 10. People but they were not in the backbenchers group so. I, uh, promptly stood up and I had to go right. Uh, that was basically like this one guy who was like guiding us where to go. So we took a lift to, I don’t know, the 13th or the 14th floor of that got damn menace of a building, right. And then we went to the 13th and the 14th floor and. Uh, then we entered into, you know, that there was, uh, a pathway and there were multiple pathways, right? So very easy to get lost and stuff. And so basically we went to a room on the left and on the right. So on the right one, the candidates were waiting, right? And there was where we were asked to wait. And on the left one, the interviewers were taking the interview. So, you know, they’re, the rooms are just across each other. So we waited. On the right one there was a coffee machine. So I, you know, thought of getting some coffee. But the guys there, one guy came in, right. I think he was a worker of Cognizant and he was an employee there. Right and he was so expert with the coffee machine like handling like 5 to 6 buttons at a time, right and you know proving his espresso or something like that and basically like he made premium quality latte or something, right. So since I did not know that well. And none of us did, frankly, to operate the, you know, um, coffee machine. So we just took a seat and pretended that we’re very busy, although all of us were, I guess, very, very hungry. And I believe around 11:50, candidates were sitting around 10 to 20 candidates were sitting around in that room. And basically then. We put like discussing like we generally do and then suddenly my name was called. So I reached across to the other room and then there the interviewer was there and he called out. So basically 3 candidates were called out at once and one of the guys so out of us 3. Other guys recognize the interviewer and the interviewer recognized him. So maybe they were a mutual acquaintance or something, right? And so that is where I started to panic, you know? So out of three, again, again, the chance has reduced maybe. So there’s always this preference, this personal bias, right, that is there towards someone who is. Uh, with you so, but, uh, I quickly, you know, it just recorded that and boosted my confidence. But then what happened? So basically they, he, he asked us if he didn’t ask us, but basically we were all given some question to solve and I didn’t have a plan. So I just said, hey, I don’t have a pen and therefore. Be assigned me a pen and what happened was he gave us a blank sheet of paper and I had like much much trouble writing code in paper because I have not done like that since a long time. I’ve done diagrams and stuff but never coded raw on the paper. Maybe the pseudo code there but yeah so Python code. Goes by 4 hundreds right? Or some indents, right? And what happened was there was no indent that you could do with the help of a pen and a paper, right? So I had to use some kind of like tool, some lines or stuff like that and make the code happen so. Regarding the questions, the questions were very simple. I think there were involving simple like operations on our mighty array. I think one of them involved some greedy approach and I wasn’t able to solve it in the optimal sense, right. So, but I was able to solve it in order of N and maybe it could be. Log in or something right? Or I could solve it in log N and could have been solved in North because I sorted the stuff or something like that. I don’t recall the exact questions but they were quite simple. So once I filled that out I handed it over like first amongst 3rd 3 candidates. And I was very prompt, so I gave the like, uh, answer sheet to the interviewer and then in the process, I realized that my pen was leaking. The pen that they had given was leaking. So I just briefly told the interview that, hey, like this is an issue going good gold loop. Can I go to the washroom right and. Fix it. So he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, please go, Please do. Right. And so therefore, then I move down to the washroom, right? And I, I cleaned up that mess. And while I was coming back again, you know, that place is amazing. So I kind of got lost, but I was able to retrace my steps back in, you know, one or two minutes. And I came back and, you know, there was a bit of a sprout on my knees with blue uh, this one, uh, so the suit, right? And so I cleaned that up and got a new pen and basically now the interviewing node had begun. So basically they had reviewed the questionnaire and. And he sat down to an interviewer like in front of me and he was, um, a middle-aged guy, like quite experienced, I guess around 40 to 35 to 40 years, right? We’re down like an engineering manager kind of thing, right? And the interviewer interview went very well. Uh, some questions that I totally fumbled upon, right? So he asked about a basic building block of conversational neural network, right? And he asked me the exact functions for it. And at that point of time, I totally forgot the exact functions and basically I. Started blurting out, uh, you know, striding and uh, basically your um, gradient descents and stuff like that. But I could not arrive at the actual like answer, which is like 2 elementary and two basic which I should have remembered but I did not recall at that time. And he basically asked me a lot of. Questions around from my resume itself, right? And he basically inquired into whether I’m into a lead role, totally right, or an individual contributor role. And he was like very unsure if I could code or not, right? So I said, yeah, I do code. I don’t just manage people and stuff like that. Like what that clarified with him and he asked me like whoops, questions. So basically inheritance questions, which offers not like very prepared, but I answered it very, very correctly because he was satisfied. And basically it’s like, you know, you’ve got two classes and classes inherit each other and what properties if you call. Is what happens what is like the Super innate right? So those questions were there and they got me kind of by surprise that these are very elementary and I think I’ve like forgotten to brush up on this, but I tried to answer everything like very confidently. And so that is how the interview. And then I was like, generally not sure if, you know, I would get selected then because as per me, the interview was way below expectations. I was at, you know, 10% of my prep or 20% of my prep. So I had like basically given up that, hey, it’s not happening. The time was around 2:30 or three right now, and I went back to the staging room, right? The other room that was parallel to the interviewing room. And basically as I’m sitting out there, the guy comes in and says, hey, please fill out this form. And he hands over a form to two or three of us in the entire like 20. Um, 20 people rooms, right? And I don’t know if I’m selected. I think he’s just like fishing for details or something like that. But then I fill in the form and basically I submitted, right? I am the last to submit the form. I make mistakes. I correct it with the white now or something and then I fix it. I was very like grumpy at that stage, right? And then I give him the form, I submit the form over and basically then he takes over the form and once he has taken the form and I ask him like what to do next? What is the next level of the interview? He said it’s over, man, you’re selected. Just go home, relax and you’ll get a call from the HR and you know, he’ll do the proceeds. So that was my entire experience. I made a friend there and basically we came back to the IEM management campus and we, we just, you know, went behind the. Chakras and the dadas right where we used to have the food there in the college times. So I ordered a regular snake paneer and on there and it brought me down memory lane and we had our, you know, sweets. There’s this sweet shop that is parallel to that that. You always used to have sweets in and that was an amazing, amazing, uh, you know, ordeal. And from there, basically I totally rushed to 3 letters. I got a pair of shoes because my shoes were killing me. So I fixed that and then I basically relaxed for the entire day. Cognizant. To me look like a lot of time, uh, they took until 20th Feb to send the final offer because I was pushing for a higher package, but that was not like getting approved from the management in time, right? So they were constantly delaying that. So I said, OK, send me the lowest offer that you can send without any. Like further approval from the management. So they sent a 22 LP offer to me. Out of which like 21.3 was fixed and 70K was a variable right? And the designation was as given in the offer letter. Just fill that. So uh, given my current track rule at UH X startup, I won’t name name the startup because you all know about it and I want to keep it confidential. So given my current form, I am at 14.5 LPA +2 LPA, right? And this time. Large delays in the UH bonus, There are delays in the New year gifts. They have not come in yet. There are delays in Esops, right? And there are delays in each and everything. The salary does not come in time. Like the salary is supposed to come before 5th, but it never comes before 5th. It’s always 5th to 10th. Taken like 10th as the last date for the salary, but yeah, so, uh, Long story short, everything running delayed, not very healthy, but yeah, it is what it is and the salary is good. So I don’t complain about it. People do the gifts. I don’t complain about whether it’s, you know, you can always. Record from the salary and you know, ordered something on Amazon yourself, right. So that is there. And basically I just mentioned this to my manager that I bought this offer letter. I was giving my 10% or 20% at Cognizant and I’ve got this off at the top. So basically he said. You know, you signed the offer letter and I’ll handle it. So this was when I had got the letter of intent, I hadn’t got the final offer letter and he said like, send me the final offer letter and I’ll handle it, right. So once I sent the offer letter, right, they, they took like 5 days or six days. Time but without any negotiation, they offered me 20 + 2.8. So which is 22.8 which is greater than the cognizant offer, right. So basically a shocker for me, right? Because I have been working very hard and like just previous to you know. I mean the offer letter I had the appraisal talk in which you know they were criticizing and basically they were like going to slide it down with the lower like lower offer of course like just increasing 1 or 2,00,000, right. So the standard like hike that people have got is 10% and people who have performed. The exceptionally well like I’ve heard is you know, they’ve got just 15% at the maximum, right? So me getting an offer of around 38 to 40% hike is enormous, right? And what makes me sad is you know people are capable of. Spending that much and I was capable of earning that much and the company has you know, not the company won’t be paying you just because you know they should just because it’s fair you have to, you know, go in there and earn it kind of so you have to like enforce it that hey the other. Companies offering offering me this much right and if you guys don’t pay right, I’ll have to go right so you have to give that thread or leaving thread you don’t exactly have to thread, but it’s hard to see that the companies they don’t realize that we are not paying them their work or they. To realize it, but they’re like, you know, where will the guy go? He doesn’t have an offer in that, right. So I think for startups or companies, we should pay the employees worth rather than, you know, what their current salary is, right? That is what is I think strikingly. Fair for me, right? And to everyone, right I guess, And that is why I have been I wanted to write this blog to make you aware, the reader aware that you know. Just grab that option. So 1 is like companies will be unfair to you. You know your worth. You you don’t know your worth. Actually you know you should go to the market and get it evaluated like on a scale, right? In Hindi, we call it the Tarrazu, right? The the weighing scale, right? And we want to, you know, get it weighed on an industrial level to get your salary weight at an industrial level. You’re not prepared, you know, no worries. Just go and give that interview, OK? And get yourself evaluated, right? And basically, once you are evaluated, you know what worth Maybe you’re worth less, maybe you’re worth more, right? So you should know your worth is what I’m saying. And companies won’t be paying you your worth, so you should. You will have to fight for it. On the second thing is, you know, if you’re not getting a proper hike, I think this is the strategy you can leverage or even know about, right? Is that you basically, um, get your offer letter right And you push gently to the company that, hey, I’ve got this offer letter. I don’t want to leave here. I really like the work here kind of like that. Basically, uh, is there any like chance that we can get rid of right? So what I feel sad about is I was worth 23 LPA all this time. OK? I have been doing the same things for the past one or two years now. 18,000 candidates handling a lot of responsibilities and these folks, they did not even discuss with me, right? And realized, hey, this is fair, right? This is a fair ask from Farrah, right? So they could have given me the same earlier, right? But they chose not to. And now that, you know, there is fear that this guy will leave right now, they’re offering the fair pay. Otherwise they would have said, hey, hey, Fran, we cannot match it, right? We don’t have that budget or we don’t have like. One thing like we can pay you that much, like you’re not worth that much, right? And that that would be totally acceptable to me, right? But what’s not acceptable is you’re not even negotiating and you’re putting that number in front of me, which I feel like is something that is not just a retention bonus. Also along the lines of you know the worth of the person. So just food for thought right? But this is something I wanted to write about in the current offer and basically something I have chosen this because this will work. I’m home, I’ve got restrictions, right? But, uh, I really love the company, right? And the work we do here. But yeah, so even if you wanna switch and stuff like that, OK, keep interviewing. So I’ll see you in the next blog, guys.

Since the interview was invite only, I was expecting around 10 to 30 candidates, but holy moly

Make sure this invite is only via a shared link and is not scanned by any sort of robots or visible on google pages.

Which mobile device operator to use and absymal rates/outages

OK, so I recently also wanted to inquire that I’ve got an Airtel SIM and a JIO sim, right? But the Airtel SIM is killing me. I got a 3K recharge done way earlier, like 4 to 5 months earlier, which is a one year recharge right? But it’s more like you know. It gets expired, right? And it’s got just 30 GB of data. So what happens is the Airtel Wi-Fi is there, right? And it has an additional recharge of I think 3K for. Pretty good for three six uh for for six months, not not even a year right and what happens is the Wi-Fi gets stopped randomly right due to repairs or maintenance or downtime or whatever the sheet these guys put up right these Airtel like guys put up. And, uh, basically what happens is that the Wi-Fi goes down at random times and then I have to switch back to my phone Wi-Fi and basically that drains all the Internet because I’m always, you know, doing some network heavy tasks right from my work or my personal uses. So, um, I’ve got this geophone which I like hardly use, right. So any input on whether you guys use Jio or Airtel or how do you manage like Wi-Fi outages in whenever you’re working from home or something like that would be really helpful. So. I would like appreciate if you could leave some of the comments uh in my personal inbox or in my WhatsApp regarding like this Airtel to Jio and this Airtel Wi-Fi problem. So hertel Wi-Fi going down and then Geo and then the Airtel personal having a very high rate of. Um, the recharge, I’ve recently done a 4K recharge for an entire year for retail, but I, I don’t think that’s going to be enough to have totally wasted like. Earlier now 4K7K around and then 3K for the Wi-Fi, so around 10K on just the Internet, right? So if any suggestions or anything comes up so please do let me know.