Indian techie says ₹1 crore salary is the new norm, internet weighs in: ‘WITCH companies pay ₹15 LPA’

An Indian techie has started a heated discussion after claiming that “Indian tech salaries have levelled up” and someone earning ₹1 crore per annum is no longer considered an outlier. In a post shared on the anonymous professional community platform Blind, the Walmart employee claimed that he has met multiple techies with only four to five years of professional experience who earn ₹1 crore or more.

The Walmart employee said that he himself has 13 years of professional experience, and to him, earning this amount felt like an “uphill task.”

“For someone with 13 years experience, a 1 Cr CTC seemed like an uphill task starting then, but then I see someone with 4-5 years making 1 Cr,” he wrote on Blind, asking: “Is it just me or is this the norm now?”

The Blind user also asked people what, in their opinion, is a decent salary for someone with 13 years of experience in data engineering. In an accompanying poll, 33.6% of voters felt anything above ₹75 lakh per annum is a decent salary, while 38.3% said the salary should be more than ₹1.5 crore per annum. The remaining number felt that a salary of ₹1 crore or more is decent.

Internet weighs in

The post prompted a lively discussion on Indian salaries. Many people who responded to the post said that such salaries are still difficult to achieve in India.

“Are you a tech lead or something? The above ranges are for I think tech leads or architects/staff levels,” asked one respondent.

(Also read: Bengaluru entrepreneur accused of lying about ₹4.2 lakh salary says it’s ‘common in tech’)

“I hope this discussion is only about top paying product companies. Because if you include all companies including WITCH, then median salary for 7-9 yoe would be around 15LPA,” another said. WITCH is the internet acronym for Wipro, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, HCL.

“This is definitely not the norm,” a user added in the comments section. “There are only a select few companies paying this salary. I am talking to some companies where they are paying 25L for mid level engineer. And it's extremely hard to get a callback from the companies paying this high. There is extreme competition.”