I am 2025 IIT grad but recently got fired after 5 months from joiing, need help ?
TL;DR: Graduated IIT CS in 2025. Left a stable PSU role for a startup, only to face extreme toxicity, 14-hour workdays, and constant gaslighting from management. Was eventually pushed to resign after setting boundaries. Feeling lost, questioning my skills, and looking for advice on how to bounce back and explain this to my parents.
The Aftermath & My Questions
I’m a 2025 graduate from an IIT (second-generation IIT) in Computer Science. During my final year of college, I received an offer from a PSU. The role included a 6-month internship followed by full-time employment. Due to college requirements, the company officially agreed to provide a 6-month internship certificate even though they only wanted me to intern for 3 months initially. Eventually, I worked there as a full-time employee for around 5 months, making my total experience roughly 11 months although honestly, I still don’t know how recruiters would formally count it.
After that, I switched to a startup because it offered better compensation and, more importantly, because I wanted to explore the private sector too. And not getting much exposure from my current company.
Very quickly, however, I realized the company culture was extremely toxic.
At first, I thought this was simply how corporate life worked. But after speaking to seniors from my college and discussing my experiences with friends, many of them pointed out that this wasn’t normal workplace pressure, it was a toxic environment.
My manager would ask for updates every few hours and constantly tell me things like:
“You are too slow.”
“You don’t put enough effort.”
“You need to improve.”
Initially, I tried to compensate by working harder. I would regularly work until 2–3 AM, then still report to the office by 11 AM and leave around 10 PM. Over time, it started affecting both my physical and mental health.
What scared me the most was seeing the seniors in my engineering team. Almost all of them looked exhausted, unhealthy, mentally drained, and desperate to leave the company. But the workload was so consuming that nobody had the time or energy left to prepare for interviews or improve themselves. Everyone seemed trapped in an endless cycle of surviving one day just to face the next.
From the very beginning, there was constant panic in the office atmosphere:
“Bugs are increasing.”
“We need to ship faster.”
“Customers are leaving.”
Initially, I assumed this was a temporary crisis. Later, I realized this was simply the company’s normal state of operation, permanent panic.
There was no proper onboarding or no formal knowledge transfer sessions, and no structured training. Within days of joining, the engineering teams were restructured and I was moved to another product entirely. I barely got enough time to understand the first system before being pushed into another one.
People, at least from my perspective, were often dismissive and harsh. Since there was no proper process for learning, asking questions was the only way forward. But instead of guidance, I would often hear things like:
“Oh, you don’t know this?”
“You are weak.”
“How can you not know that?”
My engineering manager sat directly in front of my desk and constantly pressured me:
“Move faster.”
“You lack confidence.”
“You are slow.” think when someone keeps hearing such things for long enough, they slowly start believing them. It might be possible that, I am slow stupid and not a good engineer.
When I spoke to my father about how much I disliked going there, he simply said:
“इतना सहना पड़ता है बेटा, ऐसा तो सब जगह होता है।”
And honestly, I couldn’t even argue with him. He’s getting older too, and perhaps from his generation’s perspective, enduring suffering is simply part of life.
The real breaking point came when I was shifted to another team and handed an important project on April 6th with a deadline of April 15th.
Even though I don't had much familiarity with the product, I believed I could somehow figure out that, which is not a very big task and can be easily do able by anyone. A frontend engineer was assigned alongside me. But from day one, everyone kept implying that backend work was “small,” and therefore my part should not take much time.
But by April 8th just two days later the co-founder himself repeatedly came to my desk asking for updates and insisting the feature should go to production “by tonight.” The product manager kept saying:
“You are too slow.”
“We need this on prod by tonight.”
The engineering manager also kept pressuring me constantly.
At some point, the pressure became so overwhelming that I deliberately reduced my work intensity outside office hours. I started sleeping properly, eating properly, and even tried taking evening walks because I could physically feel the damage stress was causing me.
Ironically, I still knew we were comfortably capable of meeting the April 15th deadline.
One day, after being repeatedly questioned every hour, I humorously replied to my manager:
“God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh.” How can I do it in few days.
It was simply a humorous literary reference from the Book of Genesis. I’ve always enjoyed literature and often speak this way casually. I genuinely thought it might lighten the mood.
Instead, people laughed awkwardly, and my manager clearly disliked it. He replied:
“We make money fast in startups, so we need to move fast here.”
I remember thinking:
“You are making the money, not me.”
But of course, I kept that thought to myself.
That same day, I left the office around 9:30 PM without completing one of the tasks because mentally I was already exhausted.
While I was in the cab, my engineering manager called me:
“How can you leave without finishing the work?”
“You are irresponsible.”
“You are not making enough effort.”
I calmly explained the actual technical reasons behind the delay:
the infrastructure around the feature was incomplete, deployment pipelines still needed setup, and there were issues with low-memory EKS instances causing deployments to fail repeatedly.
Technically, the project was manageable.
Emotionally, however, the environment had already broken me down.
That night, I seriously considered resigning. I discussed the situation with seniors from my college, but eventually decided against it because the current market situation is already difficult.
The manager asked me to come to the office on Saturday as well. I refused.
Ironically, during my initial months, I was often the first person to arrive at the office and regularly worked weekends voluntarily.
The following Monday, the project was taken away from me with the explanation that I was “not capable enough.”
After that, my workload gradually decreased to the point where I had to actively ask people to assign me tickets because I had nothing to do.
Finally, on my last day, I had a meeting with HR and my engineering manager.
I asked him a simple question:
“How exactly are you measuring that I am slow or incapable?”
I had been tracking my Jira board regularly and had solved around 34+ tickets in 4.5 months numbers comparable to many others in the team who worked for similar period.
I requested objective metrics or analytical parameters instead of vague statements.
But instead of giving measurable reasons, he brought up my Genesis quote again.
That was apparently enough justification.
Eventually, I was asked to resign, which I did.
Initially, HR claimed my probation period was incomplete. But I showed them both my contract and the official mail confirming probation completion after three months. After that, they agreed to process my full-and-final settlement within seven days.
Of course, there are other sides to this story too.
Perhaps I could have collaborated better with the frontend engineer.
Perhaps I asked too many questions.
Perhaps I was too resistant to blindly obeying instructions.
Perhaps I tried to solve problems in my own way instead of adapting faster.
Or might be I am really studpid, (well Yes I am not that smart and I need to learn a lot of things)
I genuinely don’t know.
From day one, the frontend engineer often told others he was blocked because of me. Whether that was entirely true or not, I honestly cannot say anymore.
But eventually, everything ended.
There are also things I hesitate to mention because I don’t know whether they matter or whether they are simply my own biases:
A significant portion of the workforce seemed connected either to the founders’ families or investors.
Many executives came from similar social circles.
My engineering manager did not have a formal degree beyond a diploma.
But ultimately, none of that may actually matter.
And I really don't think that engineering manager is really good or bad person or any another seniors I am no one to judge anyone, because I dont know the exact circumstances in there life that actually made them what they are.
What I do believe is that someone who is in this corporate for long period of time and such a bad environment sooner or later will become like that either knowingly or unknowingly.
I still don’t fully understand what this entire experience was trying to teach me.
But it definitely shattered a large part of my confidence and pushed me toward a far more nihilistic view of life, work, and the world itself.
And somehow, I still need to figure out how to explain all of this to my parents.
I want to end this with one of my favorite movie quotes:
“What’s happened’s happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It’s not an excuse to do nothing.”
This too shall pass........................................
There are some questions I need help on ?
- How do I explain a forced resignation/short stint to my parents without worrying them?
- How do I explain this 4.5-month startup stint to future recruiters?
- Has anyone else recovered from startup burnout? How did you regain your confidence?