Been without a job for over 5 months. My wife and I were supposed to move abroad for my new job. Visa done, tickets booked, bags packed. At Mumbai emigration, I was stopped because my passport has an ECR endorsement and I didn't have emigration clearance. This was supposed to be my first international trip.

I genuinely didn't know I had this endorsement or what it meant.

I'd shared my passport with my employer during the visa process. To be fair, their pre-departure guide does say employees with ECR passports should notify them. I missed that requirement amid all the relocation paperwork, and that one miss has derailed the move.

The emigration officers suggested getting clearance through the Protector of Emigrants (POE). I passed this option on to my employer, but they've asked me to get my passport reissued instead. The move is now delayed by weeks.

I accept that it's my passport and I should have checked. But shouldn't a company handling an international relocation also flag this when they've already received the passport?

Am I being unreasonable to feel let down, or is it fair to expect the relocation team to catch it too?

Also, has anyone been through an ECR offload or obtained POE clearance for an overseas job? What worked for you: clearance or passport reissue? What should I watch out for from here?

TL;DR: Been without a job for over 5 months. On my first international trip to start a job abroad, Mumbai emigration stopped me over an ECR endorsement I didn't know I had. My employer had my passport, but I also missed the ECR warning in their guide. Officers suggested POE clearance; my employer wants passport reissue, delaying the move by weeks. Is it fair to expect the relocation team to have flagged this? Anyone been through this: POE clearance or reissue, and what worked?

a name that sounds modern, is easy to pronounce, easy to remember and feels natural to Indian users.

What names would you suggest? Drop your ideas in the comments. Let's see if we can find a name that really sticks.

Okay, updating the post. Names from any language are welcome, including English. Let's see what we come up with.

Update : one name i liked till 29 comments vartalap, hike is all time fevt but its taken you can suggest English too or a mix of eng + indian languages

Update 2: You can now suggest names in any language, even Dothraki. and why does Indian Chatpata have -4 upvotes?

Update 3: wow 140 comments and i am searching for domains like hell and none of them available not even simple names or if any the cost is in crores

Something that comes up here from both sides constantly -- candidates asking how to clear DSA rounds, and people who've sat on panels asking why hiring takes so long -- and I think the two complaints are about the same thing.

A DSA round asks: find the longest substring without repeating characters, in O(n). It's fair, it's learnable in eight weeks of grinding, and it's cheap to run: one interviewer, one scorecard, an hour. It also tells you very little. Two candidates can score identically and one of them won't be able to explain why their own service fell over last quarter.

A loop built around a system someone actually owned asks different questions: what did it do, what did you choose and why, what broke under load, what would you do differently now, who disagreed with you and how did that get resolved. Those answers can't be prepped in eight weeks and can't be bluffed either, because the follow-up goes a layer deeper and the bluff collapses at the second "why".

The awkward part is cost. The second loop eats an engineer's afternoon and produces no comparable number, which is probably why the default here stays the first one. The cheap filter wins on volume, and volume is what most pipelines are actually optimising for.

So I'm honestly unsure whether what I'm describing is a good-team / bad-team split, or just a function of how many candidates a company has to sift through before it can afford the expensive conversation.

Which is why I'd like to hear from people who interviewed this year: did any loop ask you about something you built and then keep digging? And if it did, did the offer conversation afterwards feel different -- more like two parties negotiating who'd already seen each other work?

After every other post, all I’m reading about is layoffs Honestly fear mongering isn’t even the topic anymore. You can all see what’s happening and where the market is heading.

I just wanna see how people are still gonna say the bubble is gonna burst.

Hi

I am 23 yr pass out and software engineer 2 at a good company .getting around 1.8l per month. Tech wise it is good and work wise as well better. But as its been more than 3 yrs, I thought I should switch for higher package and now learning became stale. But after seeing market laid offs and stuff from past 6 months I am doubtful to take risk and join new company .

So what do u suggest

Settle here or switch

I am sure I may not get laid off(i hope so) in current company, unless I work very bad which is currently not.

I want to go to some US based companies so I can get US stocks . But seeing laidoff in big companies is concerning

When we comes across the term prodict based, renowned comapnies names are taken FAANG, MAANG, some other..Are there these much companies and rest or service based companies having product based roles?? Are there any other product based companies also or not??

A recruiter reached out for a Staff Engineer role at Google. They wanted to have System Design and Googlyness virtual rounds first and said they would be elimination rounds; once I clear them, I will need to fly to in-office interviews. I wanted 4 weeks of prep time, I interviewer negotiated hard to only allow me 2 week. Just a few days before the System design interviews, I realised I am not ready and will bomb the interview. I politely requested 2 more weeks of time, and after that I was ghosted. Did not receive any reply over email; I have tried reaching out multiple times over email and phone, with no replies. I am shocked by how times have changed. There was a time when Google recruiters were open enough to support candidates if they needed more time, but now they just want to close the position ASAP.

The job market is brutal, with so many laid-off candidates trying to find jobs and companies reducing the no. of job openings now that AI is able to do so much.

Hello guys..

Location Bangalore is a necessity. Being available to meet.

Team of 2 here with absolutely no technical background trying to build a bootstrapped platform.
I have built 50-60% of the app using Claude but getting complicated and I don’t want app to break in the initial stages.

The idea is validated by the market already and we are trying to build a platform. (Think Airbnb Uber and UrbanClap).

We are searching for a Technical Cofounder (WILL BE GIVEN EQUITY as well) to help us build the MVP and launch the app and I can pay a nominal amount for the MVP App but the builder has to come on board as a CTO to help navigate a few months of technical issues while I do the field work to onboard customers through direct approach.

The Platform if accepted has a potential of scaling to multiple Metro Cities and will become a Recurring Revenue business.

Note: Please be kind. Everything is informal here. I have not sat with Peter Thiel to get the business etiquettes or a formal pitch format and I don’t like that either. So.! Those who have no intention of discussing, stay away from the comments section entirely. Have some impulse control.

You are free to DM.

Please help me make this crucial career decision.

I have received an offer from a Tokyo based company with 9.5M YEN all fixed and relocation package which is yet to be shared.

I was very keen on moving to Canada next year. I have made a calculated decision with my CRS score reaching 522+ with masters there.

And learning French is almost a sure shot of getting PR and I’m willing to invest some time while doing my masters if required.

Tokyo pros :
- Already have a job offer so the move is significantly less risky than going to Canada with masters and then job uncertainty.
- The job is remote friendly, expected to be in office once a week with transportation reimbursements so I can stay in a cheaper suburban place far from Tokyo

Tokyo Cons :
- language barrier and PR chance are very low unless I learn Japanese which I don’t intend to.
- Tokyo is extremely crowded so the whole transit situation is similar to India.

Canada pros :
- huge land, better quality of life in terms of housing, population.
- English speaking country so I can always jump ship.
- have lots of my close relatives staying in US so somewhat better support system.
- better TC prospects atleast when compared to Japan.

Canada cons :
- moving on a student visa so there’s always uncertainty of not getting job or even PR if they change the rules so might have to return back to India.

TC : 50L + esop
Yoe : 6

Hey everyone!

I'm looking for a teammate for an upcoming AI hackathon who has hands-on experience with Agentic AI, LLMs, and AI integration.

Requirements:

- Experience with LangChain and LangGraph

- Understanding of agentic workflows and AI agents

- Experience integrating LLMs and open-source AI models

- Knowledge of tool calling, structured outputs, and API integration

- Familiarity with RAG, embeddings, and vector databases

- Experience with FastAPI or similar backend frameworks

- Ability to connect AI systems with web applications

- Strong problem-solving skills and a willingness to collaborate

Bonus: Experience with multimodal AI, model deployment, and building end-to-end AI applications.

If you're interested, comment below or DM me with a brief introduction, your relevant experience, and GitHub/portfolio links.

Let's build something awesome together!

#AI #AgenticAI #LangChain #LangGraph #Hackathon #LLM

Hey everyone,

I'm a 2024 B.Tech CSE graduate, and honestly, I'm a bit lost about what to do next.

After graduating, I spent time preparing DSA, building projects, doing freelance work, and trying to get into software development. I've also worked as a DSA instructor and have around six months of internship experience in backend development.

My main tech stack is Java, Spring Boot, Python, FastAPI, SQL, etc. I've built real-world projects and my LeetCode profile is in the top 4% globally, so it's not like I've done nothing since graduation.

But despite all this, I still haven't been able to land an SDE job.

I've applied through job portals, worked on my resume to make it ATS-friendly, sent cold emails, asked for referrals, and tried different approaches. I've had a few interviews too, including some where I reached the later rounds, but nothing has worked out so far.

At this point, I'm starting to question whether I'm approaching this the right way.

I'm considering joining CDAC, but I'm confused about whether it's actually worth it for me. I'll have to invest more time and money, and I'm not sure whether it will significantly improve my chances of getting a job.

Should I go for CDAC, or should I continue applying and focus on getting better at interviews and strengthening my existing skills?

I'm also wondering whether I should stick to Java backend development or start exploring .NET and other technologies to increase my chances.

I'd really like to hear from people who have been in a similar situation, especially those who graduated in 2023 or 2024.

If you did CDAC, did it help you get a job? And if you didn't, how did you eventually break into the industry?

I'm not looking for motivation or someone to tell me to just keep trying. I'd genuinely appreciate some practical advice on what I should do differently.

If you were in my position, what would you do?

Hi, I am looking for guidance on a career pivot and higher education options in quantitative fields. Here is a brief background of my profile and dilemma:

- **Academic Background:** B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from an NIT (strong quantitative foundation, deep personal interest in mathematics

).

- **Current Role:** Graduate Engineer Trainee / Operations role in a pharma supply chain company.

- **Compensation:** Decent (approx. 70k INR in-hand per month), but the day-to-day work is monotonous and unstimulating.

- **Dilemma & Goals:** I want to transition into a more intellectually stimulating quantitative/analytical career. I am currently eyeing three specific postgraduate programs:

1. CMI M.Sc. in Data Science

2. ISI M.Tech. QROR (Quality, Reliability, and Operations Research)

3. ISI M.S.QMS (Quality Management Science)

- **Specific Concerns:** While the placement records for these institutes are generally solid (predominantly leading to risk analytics roles in banks, quantitative modeling, or data science positions), I am deeply concerned about the current tech/analytics job market and recent industry layoffs.

Given this context:

1. How do CMI (Data Science) and ISI (QROR/QMS) stack up against each other in terms of risk-reward, curriculum rigor, and industry perception during a tight job market?

2. Are these degrees resilient enough to hedge against current tech volatility, or are risk/quant roles seeing similar hiring freezes?

3. What would be a structured way to evaluate whether giving up a stable 70k/month job for a rigorous full-time master's program makes sense right now?

Used AI for the body text

​

https://github.com/akaza8/sentinel-mcp

please visit and suggest needed improvement or else if found not much useful let me know !! not expecting too much but ready to take criticism but to build something better next time

Hey fam, please don’t come at me and tell me the job market is already bad and I can’t DREAM of becoming an SDE 2 at this level of experience, because I’m already aware of what’s happening in the market.

I want to hear from people who have actually switched or seen other people switch with a relatively low years of experience than the standard 2-3 years expectation. What were the companies? How did you/they make it happen? Was it a strong referral that acted in their favour? I’m really curious!

A bit about my background: I’ve been working at a FAANG company for 1.5 years now. Before that I’ve done couple of internships adding which makes my experience 2.1 years (but most companies don’t count internship experience is what I know sobs)

I have good grip over DSA + LLD + Fundamentals and have done good projects at my company with decent level of ambiguity and technical complexity. My team & manager were inclined for my promo but my org is in a really bad shape with people leaving left and right, including my manager and I don’t see my promo coming anytime within the next year now, which is a MAJOR SETBACK to the timelines I had.

I’ve had some call backs from other FAANG+ tier companies but they’re all offering me SDE 1 roles, which doesn’t improve my situation at all.

I’d really be grateful if people with more experience or insights on this could help me with some clarity on this situation. Thanks in advance ✨

I have a Mobile app that is used as an extension for our internal app, now Earlier we had a developer he has a mac and he could build the app and update the version for Android and iOS.

After his passing and we are not planning to get a mac anytime soon how can we do the same?

Background

- Graduated from a tier-1 engineering college (among the top 3 NITs) in 2025

- Worked ~2.5 years at an early-stage startup during college (4-member team, remote, unpaid, but basically full-time hours) across product, building, and distribution

- Skipped campus placements because I was set on product roles

What happened at my current company

- Joined a famous mid-size company in Hyderabad in late 2025 as a 6-month intern (25k stipend), with a verbal promise of 6–8 LPA on conversion and a product role. Nothing in writing (my mistake)

- Got a marketing ops designation on joining; was told "ignore it, focus on the full-time role"

- Took ~17 days (Not a continuous one) of leave + remote work for my sibling's wedding. The internship was then extended by 2 months "to cover the leave", even though I kept working remotely during that time

- The senior manager who made the promise left, and now denies it

- At conversion time, they offered 4 LPA. I said I'd leave. They converted me to full-time anyway, without my consent, ~9 months after joining

- After more back-and-forth: 5 LPA, arrears "pending founder approval", designation Junior Product Associate

- When I asked to at least drop the "Junior", I was told that title sits in a higher salary band

What I've worked on in ~10 months

- an AI doubt-solving app for Class 11–12 students. Photo of a problem in, step-by-step video explanation out, in regional languages, with voice. I own it end-to-end: PRD, roadmap, key product decisions, development, distribution planning

- Owned a RAG chatbot end-to-end: payment and CRM integrations, reduced token consumption, chunking and fine-tuning improvements

- Built a second RAG bot, revamped a lead-prediction tool's logic, and led a chatbot-to-website transition (planning, development, marketing dashboard)

- Multi-channel campaigns (SMS, WhatsApp, email)

All this on a 6-day week, often working late.

Job search so far (APM / product roles)

- Some say I'm "overqualified" because their role is mostly coordination

- Some ask if I'd rather apply as a developer

- Recent ones say my ask for Market band (12–14 LPA) is too high and offer ~30% over current CTC

- Cleared some rounds, failed some

Seniors and Peers say do not leave the current role without an Offer in Hand.

Constraints

- Need to stay in Hyderabad for family health reasons. Open to remote

- Current pay doesn't cover my living expenses

What I'd love advice on

- Is 12–14 LPA unrealistic for my profile, or am I just being anchored to my current CTC?

- How do I handle the "current CTC" question without badmouthing my company?

- Which roles or companies value a "builder + PM" profile? AI PM, product analyst, founder's office, GCCs, something else?

- Should I take a ~7–8 LPA offer with a proper PM title just to reset my base, or hold out?

- Has anyone been in a similar spot? How did you get out?

Honest feedback welcome, including if I'm overestimating myself.

AI made us worst in interviews because in technical interviews they say don't use chatgpt only use google and you have to build what they gave you without AI and give you 4 hours but the assignment they give always takes more than 4 hours if you write all the code by yourself. We got productive and able to deliver complex requirements in less time but interviewers don't give a damn literally. I am missing the time without AI, we used to R&D on a lot of websites and also used to watch youtube videos for help, implementation, understanding of anything. Stackoverflow was very popular but today nobody opens it. Developers gets paid high salary and had a great respect if you say that this will take time companies used to believe it and when you deliver something complex you used to get fulfilment and gets appreciated as well. If AI had not come we were better and refined developers and do we really need it a lot of great products made without AI before. We lost the satisfaction and fulfilment we used to get before on building or fixing something. We rarely write code these days the logic and problem solving and fundamentals also affected as companies want everything quickly and we are using AI for it. Interviews got tougher and expectations of companies increased, salaries decreased, less hiring, more firing. I wish something happens AI bubble burst people stop using it.

I'm a fresher(2026 grad) and recently appeared for an assessment for the Trainee Software Engineer role. However, the offer letter received mentions Automation Engineer as my designation.

I was expecting a software development role, so I'm a bit confused about this change. The HR contacted me and was talking everything so quickly I did not hear him saying the role clearly.

I'm concerned about whether accepting this offer might limit my options later. Like will I be able to work as a developer in future?

I have been building Analyse Domains - analysedomains.com . Give it a company's domain and it shows what they run (tools, vendors, infrastructure), who their customers are, who they are moving to or away from and similar companies. All of it is from public data.

It's built for people who sell B2B software: tell it what you sell and it reads the account against that and tells you where your opening is.

The video is the Claude version. You ask in plain words and the answers come back as cards you can click through instead of walls of text.

Why I built it

I have spent a while around sales teams and the data they buy to decide who to call. The thing that bothered me: a rep gets a list of accounts, each with the same handful of signals every rival's rep also has (raised a round, grew headcount, opened an office) and then spends 15 minutes per account tab-hopping to answer the questions that actually decide the call. Do they already run something like what I sell? Are they moving off it? What's the one specific thing I open with? Most of the time the research runs out before the answer arrives, and the opener ends up generic anyway.

The existing tools each cover a corner of this. BuiltWith and Wappalyzer are good at what they do, which is read what a web page loads: the analytics tags, the JS framework, the CMS, the CDN. But the tools that decide a B2B sale mostly never touch the homepage. The CRM, the support desk, the email platform, the data warehouse, the security vendors: those live in the back office and a page scanner mostly misses them. At the other end, platforms like ZoomInfo and HG Insights go deeper, but they sell to enterprise sales orgs at enterprise prices and even then you get a list of logos and have to work out the angle yourself.

Meanwhile most of the answers are sitting in public records. Companies leave a trail of what they run and who they work with, what they are adopting or leaving behind. Nobody was turning that trail into something a rep at a small company could use in the minute before a call. I kept saying someone should build it from public data, and eventually that someone was me.

The latest step was putting it inside Claude, since that's where a lot of account research happens now. You ask in plain words and get a card you can work in, not a wall of text.

Honest limits

- Coverage is strongest on companies that are already somewhat known. Unknown domains get queued for a scan.

- It only sees what leaves a public trace.

Would love feedback, especially from anyone who has built MCP Apps, or who works in sales or BD at a SaaS company.

Built this for CLAT/AILET (law entrance) aspirants who are bored of MCQ apps. It's a Subway Surfers-style runner, except every few seconds a question gate shows up (BNS, BNSS, BSA, Constitution, legal maxims) and you have to switch to the lane with the right answer.

The game is super hard to play after level 50 and only real heavy drivers can reach that.

Stuff in it:

• Learn from questions prepared and updated live every week.
• Jump barricades, slide under court banners, surf on bus roofs
• Power ups like bail bond , 50-50 , objection , legal team who runs with the player.
• 5 worlds that change as you run: Mumbai street, court complex, Parliament lawns, law library, monsoon flood.

Free, no login.
Would love feedback on the feel of the controls and performance on your phone.

Most vector DBs show fake benchmarks you can't reproduce.

Test ours live in VS Code in 30s:

pip install icebergdb

• Raw text -> 384d CPU embed ($0 OpenAI cost)

• 1.95ms semantic / 8.73ms Hybrid RRF (hosted in Mumbai)

• 100K vectors free forever (never pauses)

Live benchmark script & browser test:

https://icebergdb.in/benchmarks

I made Bifurc, Git native API workspace and it has it all. API requests, Mocks, localhost mapping, proxy rules, API flows everything under a proper git tracked workspace where you can see the log for each change.

disclaimer - I have used AI in development. I am full stack dev with 4 years of exp. This is AI assisted not vibe coded.

I have used postman for as long as I have known. Used Bruno for sometime once postman started enforcing cloud and login and limited basic features. Bruno lacked the flows and some of the features I used in Postman so I set out to create my own. First iteration was electron based just to realize it was not better than Postman. My app had memory footprint of an Elephant. I pivoted and went with Rust so it will be faster and optimized for low end devices (You know those company dells and lenovo's).

You can check out all the features on the website or ask me questions in comments. but just for reference it has * *portless's localhost mappings
*API requests from postman, bruno and others including MCP requests
*CLI and MCP so ai agents can use it instead of writing curl and scripts
*Mock server to mock API when backend is not ready
*Flows to chain requests and create scenarios. Those can be load tested to.
*As usual it has environments and vault and stuff

Its called Bifurc, available at https://bifurc.app and launched on product hunt today.

Available to download through Microsoft store, website. Companion extensions are published to relevant stores

Hi everyone,

I have around 6.5 years of experience in customer support, including one year in technical support. I’ve been learning Python, Node.js, and PostgreSQL because I genuinely want to move into the tech field, and I’m currently learning backend development on my own.

Recently, I interviewed for a technical support role, hoping it would be a way to get into the industry. They told me they had stopped hiring entry-level candidates and had even let go of their trainer. I explained that I was willing to learn on my own and accept a salary lower than my previous one just to get the opportunity, but it didn’t work out.

The frustrating part is that even with 6.5 years of experience, I’m struggling to find customer support jobs that offer the same salary I was earning before.

So, going back to my existing field isn’t as straightforward as it sounds either.

I’m currently unemployed, so I can’t afford to spend another year learning without earning anything. At the same time, I don’t want to keep switching between customer support jobs without building a career in the direction I actually want to go.

I’m not expecting to become a developer overnight. I’m ready to start from the basics, build projects, and work my way up. The problem is figuring out which path gives me a realistic chance of getting hired.

For those working in the industry, what would you suggest in my situation? Should I target application support or technical support roles first, or continue focusing on backend development and try for junior positions?

I’d especially appreciate advice from people who transitioned from customer support or another non-technical background into tech in India.

I’m looking for practical advice based on the current job market, not just motivation to keep learning.

I believe this is high time to grab as much money as you can vai switch and find a way to get secondary income.

I am underpaid for my yoe and I believe there is a chance for risk takers since everyone wants immediate joiner but they all have 3 months notice.

Just want to get a average package and try to invest side by side to get a secondary income source.

This is a race now I am a backend developer but if you are fullstack you will have 2x opportunities cuz u just need to understand flow now in eyes of companies.

What do you guys think?

Hello People, I am someone with 10 YOE and am looking to switch jobs ! I have been open to new openings for a while now and am wondering what job interviews look like today?

I am well versed with using AI, have my own development workflows I use to do my work and review code. Manually writing code is strongly discouraged at my org and the amount of work we get, it's not even possible to write code manually any more.

I have applied to quite a few jobs but I am yet to land an interview. I want to understand from the community about the type of interviews taking place today. Since a lot of my friends are also trying and we haven't landed interviews yet, can people please share their experiences about how interviews look like today ?

What is expected in Senior/Staff engineer roles during interviews, do we still interview like before or the dynamics are changing and there is a lot more AI usage and discussion ?

People who are interviewing, can you please share your experiences ?