From BPO walk-in to PhonePe.
The unfiltered version.

May 2013. 15 lakh engineers graduated in India. I had no plan, no calls from recruiters, and a clean shirt in my backpack. A random Facebook post changed everything.

6 months in. Flunked the certification. Moved to a new team. 12-hour night shifts turning me into a borderline vampire. But the biryani near Kamanahalli? Life-changing.

First job switch. New company, same starting line as people with a decade more experience. And I still looked too young to be there. Enter: the beard plan.

Rejected twice in tech lead interviews. A trainee who worked overtime for fun while my flatmates figured out how to slack off. Was I a workaholic, or just finding purpose?

I walked into a client meeting and asked for more business. They said yes — with targets that made me immediately regret it. Then came the office politics.

Still a team leader, crushing it. But no manager role in sight, no MBA appetite. Flipkart was taking off. Startups were rising. And something was pulling me toward the chaos.

13th employee of a new startup. Moved cities. Boss asked me to confront a customer for leaving negative feedback. Two months later, I was packing my bags back to Bangalore.

Good startup, great people, surprisingly good boss. 6-day weeks, 16-hour days, impossible targets. And the realisation that my motivation isn't money — it's impact.

Senior Manager. Over a lakh a month for the first time. I'd done the heavy lifting — but the managers around me hadn't learned. Now everything was breaking apart when I stepped back.