There was a time when landing a job in India’s top IT firms like TCS, Infosys, Wipro or HCL was considered a golden ticket. Parents felt proud, students celebrated, and society assumed your future was set. But today’s ground reality is far from that dreamy picture. Behind the shiny glass buildings and glamorous corporate tags lies a stressful, exhausting, and often unfair world that few outsiders really know about.
Let’s pull back the curtain on the true Indian IT job reality.
Offer Letters Without Joinings
Thousands of fresh graduates proudly hold offer letters in their hands… but never get to walk inside the company.
Big IT companies are known to hire in bulk from campuses and then delay joining dates by 1–3 years.
Take the story of Kartik Kumar, who got hired by Infosys in 2022. It’s 2025 now, and he’s still waiting for his joining. He even took a loan expecting a salary soon, but could only pay two EMIs. This side of the Indian IT job reality is never shown on LinkedIn.
Salaries That Barely Grow
Once you’re inside, the struggle doesn’t end.
- Annual hikes often fall between just 1–5%, even after years of hard work.
- Promotions are painfully slow and sometimes skipped despite good performance.
- The cost of living keeps rising, but paychecks stay almost frozen — another hidden piece of the Indian IT job reality.
14–16 Hour Days and Burnout
The glamorous offices hide another truth:
14–16 hour workdays are common, with only 3–4 hours of sleep.
Employees have reported:
- Chest pain and anxiety
- Frequent burnout
- Even heart attacks at the office desk
One HCL employee reportedly died inside the office washroom from a heart attack. Another employee’s father passed away in ICU because he wasn’t granted leave to see him. These tragedies are rarely spoken about — but they are part of the real Indian IT job reality.
Layoffs and Job Insecurity
While hiring headlines make the news, the layoffs rarely do.
In the last two years alone, over 40,000 employees have been let go by companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and Cognizant.
Many are fired overnight, often just for refusing excessive overtime. The fear of being replaced constantly hangs over employees — another dark corner of the Indian IT job reality.
Freshers Trapped With Stagnant Pay
Even when freshers do get joining, their starting salaries remain stuck at early-2010 levels, while rent, food and bills have doubled.
They enter this industry full of hope… and end up stuck with frustration, fatigue, and zero work-life balance.
The Truth No One Wants to Admit
This is the silent crisis behind the brand logos and corporate hashtags.
The Indian IT job reality isn’t just about code and coffee — it’s about sleepless nights, broken promises, and mental exhaustion.
If you’re planning to enter this industry, do it with your eyes open — learn in-demand skills, build a personal brand, and keep upgrading yourself. Because in today’s IT world, survival is no longer about talent alone — it’s about strategy.