u/Many-Revolution965

I keep seeing this debate everywhere and honestly can't tell what's true anymore. Every other day there's a headline about AI causing layoffs, but when you actually read the story, half the time it sounds like normal cost-cutting or restructuring, and companies are just using "AI" as a convenient reason to say it out loud. But then some layoffs do seem real, like certain roles are actually shrinking because AI tools now handle most of what a junior person used to do.

I have 5 years of experience[India], mostly in data engineering, and I'm about to start a new job that's a mix of cybersecurity and AI data engineering. On paper it feels like a safer space since security work isn't going anywhere and AI is actually making that field grow rather than shrink. But I have a lot of financial responsibilities and people depending on me, so I can't just assume I'm safe and relax.

This is where I'm stuck. Should I go all in on this job and get really good at it, or should I use some of my time and energy to build something on the side, like a business, just in case things change later. I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to do both properly right now, so I have to pick one as my main focus for the next couple of years.

If anyone has been in a similar spot, new job, real financial pressure, watching all this AI job talk and wondering if your role is actually safe or not, how did you decide where to put your energy? You focus fully on the job or build something on the side as backup?

I come from true data engineering and AI background - Do you recommend coming to cybersecurity domain? Any tips

I keep seeing this debate everywhere and honestly can't tell what's true anymore. Every other day there's a headline about AI causing layoffs, but when you actually read the story, half the time it sounds like normal cost-cutting or restructuring, and companies are just using "AI" as a convenient reason to say it out loud. But then some layoffs do seem real, like certain roles are actually shrinking because AI tools now handle most of what a junior person used to do.

I have 5 years of experience[India], mostly in data engineering, and I'm about to start a new job that's a mix of cybersecurity and AI data engineering. On paper it feels like a safer space since security work isn't going anywhere and AI is actually making that field grow rather than shrink. But I have a lot of financial responsibilities and people depending on me, so I can't just assume I'm safe and relax.

This is where I'm stuck. Should I go all in on this job and get really good at it, or should I use some of my time and energy to build something on the side, like a business, just in case things change later. I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to do both properly right now, so I have to pick one as my main focus for the next couple of years.

If anyone has been in a similar spot, new job, real financial pressure, watching all this AI job talk and wondering if your role is actually safe or not, how did you decide where to put your energy? You focus fully on the job or build something on the side as backup?

I come from true data engineering and AI background - Do you recommend coming to cybersecurity domain? Any tips

Edit1: My role: I’ll be building and automating end-to-end vulnerability management workflows on the ASM team - Python pipelines that normalize and route vulnerability data into Databricks/SIEM/SOAR systems, plus AI/ML components like model-based risk scoring and LLM-assisted triage. I will be trained on these certifications - I GCIA, GCIH, GMON

I keep seeing this debate everywhere and honestly can't tell what's true anymore. Every other day there's a headline about AI causing layoffs, but when you actually read the story, half the time it sounds like normal cost-cutting or restructuring, and companies are just using "AI" as a convenient reason to say it out loud. But then some layoffs do seem real, like certain roles are actually shrinking because AI tools now handle most of what a junior person used to do.

I have 5 years of experience, mostly in data engineering, and I'm about to start a new job that's a mix of cybersecurity and AI data engineering. On paper it feels like a safer space since security work isn't going anywhere and AI is actually making that field grow rather than shrink. But I have a lot of financial responsibilities and people depending on me, so I can't just assume I'm safe and relax.

This is where I'm stuck. Should I go all in on this job and get really good at it, or should I use some of my time and energy to build something on the side, like a business, just in case things change later. I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to do both properly right now, so I have to pick one as my main focus for the next couple of years.

If anyone has been in a similar spot, new job, real financial pressure, watching all this AI job talk and wondering if your role is actually safe or not, how did you decide where to put your energy? You focus fully on the job or build something on the side as backup?

Hi all,
Thanks for all the advice on my previous post. The overwhelming majority suggested Nike, and after a lot of thought I’ve decided to go with Nike.

Current offers: 5 yoe || Data Engineer
Nike – 41 LPA CTC (₹5L variable)
~50% Cybersecurity, ~50% Data Engineering & AI

Sigmoid – 33 LPA CTC (₹3L variable)
Pure Data Engineering & AI

Microsoft (IGD) L59 – ₹28L fixed + RSUs + Variable
Pure Data & AI, but service-side work which I’m not very interested in

Cigna Healthcare – ₹30L fixed + ₹4.5L variable
Pure Data Engineering & AI

One question for experienced folks:
This is my first time handling multiple offers simultaneously. I still have around 30 days before joining Nike. When should I send rejection emails to the other companies?

Given the current market uncertainty, I’ve been holding the offers for now as a backup. Is it reasonable to wait until I’m closer to the joining date, or should I decline them earlier out of professional courtesy?

Would love to hear how others have handled similar situations.

Folks,

I recently completed the interview process for an SDE3 role at Sigmoid and received a Strong Hire rating. Thought I’d share my experience as I found very limited recent information online.

Profile
SDE3
Rating: Strong Hire
5 YOE
Offered CTC: 36 LPA
Data Engineering

R1 - DSA Round
Focused on problem solving and coding.
Questions included:
Array and string manipulation problems
Complexity analysis and optimization
Follow-up discussions on edge cases
Discussion around handling large-scale datasets
The interviewer paid significant attention to:
Thought process
Communication
Time and space complexity
Alternative approaches

R2 - PySpark / Data Engineering Round
This round was heavily focused on distributed data processing.
Topics discussed:
PySpark transformations and actions
Handling duplicate records in billions of rows
Top frequent duplicate transaction IDs
Joins and optimization strategies
Partitioning and skew handling
Executor behavior during Spark jobs
Shuffle operations
Performance tuning
Example discussion:
If 30% of a billion-record dataset contains duplicate transaction IDs, how would you efficiently identify the most frequent duplicates and optimize the Spark job?

R3 - System Design
End-to-end architecture discussions.
Topics:
Batch vs Real-Time pipelines
API-based ingestion systems
Data lake and warehouse architecture
Scalability and fault tolerance
Event-driven architecture
Distributed systems trade-offs
Monitoring and observability
One of the major discussions was designing a scalable data platform capable of handling large-scale ingestion and processing.

R4 - Hiring Manager Round (In Person - Bangalore)
Sigmoid arranged flights to Bangalore and back for this round.
This was the deepest technical round.
Covered:
System Design
Coding
Previous project deep dives
Architecture decisions
Trade-off analysis
Questions included:
Design a scalable data pipeline
How would you handle failures and retries?
Spark optimization scenarios
Design decisions you’ve taken in production systems
Coding and problem-solving discussions

R5 - Hiring Manager(Same person as R4) + HR round with Lunch

This round was largely conversational.
Topics:
Career goals
Why Sigmoid?
Leadership experiences
Conflict resolution
Team collaboration
Expectations from the next role
Long-term growth plans
No heavy technical grilling.
Salary Expectations

Overall Experience
Pros:
Very professional interviewers
Strong focus on practical knowledge
Well-organized process
Good communication throughout
Interviewers genuinely tried to understand problem-solving ability rather than asking trivia questions

Difficulty Level:
DSA: Medium
PySpark: Medium-Hard
System Design: Hard
Hiring Manager: Medium-Hard

Final Verdict:
If you’re targeting an SDE3 role at Sigmoid, focus heavily on:
DSA fundamentals
Spark internals and optimization
Large-scale data processing
System Design
Explaining your projects in depth

27M, IT professional, 5 years experience, Bangalore. Going to start a new job next month. Sharing my full financial picture and asking for genuine opinions.

INCOME AND EXPENSES (monthly)

Net take-home: 2,10,000
Rent: 26,000
Groceries and household: 5,000
Maid and cook: 5,000
Petrol: 2,500
Weekend and leisure: 8,000
WiFi, water, gas, electricity: 2,500
Family support (mom + sister): 37,000

Overall Expenses - 87k
Cash savings buffer: 10,000

MF SIP (current): 113000

CURRENT FINANCIAL POSITION

Equity portfolio: 20 lakhs
Mutual funds: 5 lakhs
Term insurance: 2 crore
Medical insurance: 15 lakhs
Emergency fund: None. Have credit cards with 10L combined limit but that is not a real emergency fund, I understand.

Mom is pushing me to buy a plot now with a 50K EMI for 15 years. Her logic is that real estate is real, land appreciates, and waiting means paying more later.

My instinct is different. The IT market is genuinely uncertain right now because of AI. I don’t want to lock a part of my take-home into an EMI with zero liquid backup. I would rather invest aggressively for 10 years in mutual funds and buy with a much larger down payment or outright.

Is mom right? Should I buy land I am not sure if my thinking is right or I am being too pessimist to AI?

• Sigmoid – Service-based, Pure Data & AI
• Cigna Healthcare – Product-based, Pure Data & AI
• Nike – Product-based, New AI team within Cybersecurity BU (~60% Data & AI, ~40% Cybersecurity)

Hi all,

I am a data engineer
My tech stack is Python, SQL, PySpark, dbt, dbx, crew AI, lang(chain,graph and smith), react, FastAPI, FastMCP, Azure and AWS

I have two options -

1. Sigmoid: Its a pure senior data engineer role with a taste of AI
2. Nike: This is 60% cybersecurity and 40% data & ai role... basically its a cybersecurity role with AI/Data as an enabling capability, not a pure Data & AI role.

Nike's in hand is same as sigmoid but bonus, work life balance, retirals, other benefits are better in nike the only issue is Nike is 4 days working.

My question is I have limited knowledge in cybersecurity but good enough in data & AI...
Should I join sigmoid or nike?
Also what are your views in cybersecurity field?
Should I join nike and if it does not go well, I can look for internal switch after a year maybe?

[Please ignore my grammar as I am not using chatgpt, I want to rant my emotions raw]

Hi all, I[26M] am starting a new job soon in July as I was not able to save much plus AI job loss fear is haunting me daily - barely sleeping

Context - I’m the only bread winning for my family and also sponsoring my sister’s education. This started from 2016 when I lost my father it was a time when my mom, my sister and I used to survive on 5k per month that too from contribution from our relatives. We are very thankful to them.

Back in 2021 I started earning barely enough to meet our basic expenses in a hope that future has better days little did I know that 5 yrs down the line I will be worries about going back to days where we used to survive at 5k if AI takes my job. I know I am being very pessimist but I have trauma from those days and daily I am worried about future uncertainty

In that fear I started studying AI and more on data(I am a data engineer btw) and was able to secure a job with a leading apparels and shoe brand in the world.. I will be working as data & AI engineer in cyber security space but honestly I don’t know a shit about cybersecurity. I told this to interviewers they said they only want person with data & ai knowledge rest can be trained. Plus my sister is not understanding gravity of AI she thinks I am being too strict with her studies - I want her to live life but I also want her to be aware about the industry trends

Sorry I was just ranting out so far… don’t know what I am trying to say… Sorry

Coming back to the topic
My real question is -
Seeing my condition do you thinking I am expending too much? Please note these calculations are from
July onwards right now I am just earning 1.37 Lakhs per month when expenses is 90k.

New job Budgeting
Income 2.16 Lakhs per month
Rent 27,000
Furniture Rent 3000
WiFi 550
Water 550
Electricity 500
Groceries 5,000
Weekend fun 8,000
Mom 20000
Mom 450
Mom 2000
Sister 15000
Petrol 2500
Gas Bill (Own) 450
Maid & Cook 5000

Total Essentials
₹89,950

Cash buffer 10k

Sister’s education loan 15k[she is also doing BTech but sure how AI is going to treat her]

SIP 95k

Mom is turning 53, If AI takes my job I don’t know how am I going to give them a life they deserve…I DON’T WANT TO FAIL AS A SON … I love my mom n sister very much!! they don’t deserve those 5k kinda days 😭**..**
I have a lot of regret about choosing engineering and made my sister do the same …

I don’t know folks, I have stated too many problems here… its mostly ranting

Thanks for patience. Any advice is appreciated!!

[Please ignore my grammar as I am not using chatgpt, I want to rant my emotions raw]

Hi all, I[26M] am starting a new job soon in July as I was not able to save much plus AI job loss fear is haunting me daily - barely sleeping

Context - I’m the only bread winning for my family and also sponsoring my sister’s education. This started from 2016 when I lost my father it was a time when my mom, my sister and I used to survive on 5k per month that too from contribution from our relatives. We are very thankful to them.

Back in 2021 I started earning barely enough to meet our basic expenses in a hope that future has better days little did I know that 5 yrs down the line I will be worries about going back to days where we used to survive at 5k if AI takes my job. I know I am being very pessimist but I have trauma from those days and daily I am worried about future uncertainty

In that fear I started studying AI and more on data(I am a data engineer btw) and was able to secure a job with a leading apparels and shoe brand in the world.. I will be working as data & AI engineer in cyber security space but honestly I don’t know a shit about cybersecurity. I told this to interviewers they said they only want person with data & ai knowledge rest can be trained. Plus my sister is not understanding gravity of AI she thinks I am being too strict with her studies - I want her to live life but I also want her to be aware about the industry trends

Sorry I was just ranting out so far… don’t know what I am trying to say… Sorry

Coming back to the topic
My real question is -
Seeing my condition do you thinking I am expending too much? Please note these calculations are from
July onwards right now I am just earning 1.37 Lakhs per month when expenses is 90k.

New job Budgeting
Income 2.16 Lakhs per month
Rent 27,000
Furniture Rent 3000
WiFi 550
Water 550
Electricity 500
Groceries 5,000
Weekend fun 8,000
Mom 20000
Mom 450
Mom 2000
Sister 15000
Petrol 2500
Gas Bill (Own) 450
Maid & Cook 5000

Total Essentials
₹89,950

Cash buffer 10k

Sister’s education loan 15k[she is also doing BTech but sure how AI is going to treat her]

SIP 95k

Mom is turning 53, If AI takes my job I don’t know how am I going to give them a life they deserve…I DON’T WANT TO FAIL AS A SON … I love my mom n sister very much!! they don’t deserve those 5k kinda days 😭**..**
I have a lot of regret about choosing engineering and made my sister do the same …

I don’t know folks, I have stated too many problems here… its mostly ranting

Thanks for patience. Any advice is appreciated!!

I recently completed all interview rounds for a Band 35 role at Nike India. All of my interviews were conducted by team members based in the US.

I’ve already shared my documents with HR and am expecting the HR discussion soon.

I currently hold another offer with compensation around ₹35 LPA, so I’m trying to understand whether Nike’s Band 35 compensation is typically in that range or higher.

YOE: 5.5yrs
Job role: Senior Data Engineer(but will directly work with USA team and have local manager only for performance)
Skills: Data + AI Engineer AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba, Dbx, Snowflake, Dbt, pyspark, python, sql, langchain, langgraph, MCP, RAG, React, NodeJs, DSA, OOPs, etc

I’d also like to understand:

1. Typical compensation range for Band 35 in India (fixed + variable)
2. Job stability and how common layoffs or restructuring are at this level - I am reading a lot of layoff reviews online

Would appreciate insights from current or former employees. Thanks!

Manager: Hi, how are you?

Me: I’m good, just a bit nervous. - 1st fuck up ...shown weakness

Manager: You’ve already passed the difficult rounds, so there’s no need to be nervous. I just want to ask a few scenario-based questions. There are no right or wrong answers.

Me: I understand. It’s just that I’ve been waiting for {company} opportunity for a long time. (I used air quotes while saying “{company}.”) - 2nd fuck up, I think I ruined here, hand quotes can be seen as negative

The interview then went into scenario-based questions.

Manager: If you find a critical vulnerability, would you analyze it first or take action immediately?

Me: I would first contain the issue, isolate the affected system, and then remediate it. I used a doctor analogy: stop the bleeding first, then perform the surgery.

Manager: How do you handle conflicts with your manager?

Me: If I disagree with my manager, I set up a 1:1 discussion and try to reach common ground. I never take things personally and always listen first.

Manager: What do you do when you don’t know the solution?

Me: I try to find a starting point, and if I’m still blocked, I escalate to domain experts rather than staying stuck.

Manager: How have you used AI in production?

Me: I explained some agentic AI systems I’ve built and shared how AI agents could help automate parts of security operations.

Toward the end:

Me: I know I’m stronger technically than I am in cybersecurity.

Manager: That’s fine. Cybersecurity knowledge can be learned in a month. We’re mainly looking for someone who can use Databricks and build AI products in cybersecurity domain.

Me: What cloud platforms do you primarily use?

Manager: Mostly AWS, but also Azure, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud.

Me: Am I good? Do you have any feedback, and what are the next steps? - Am I good? 3rd fuck up ...shows lack of confidence

Manager: I can’t provide feedback yet because we still need to discuss all candidates internally. This was the final round, and HR will get back to you.

Overall, the interviewer was friendly, reassured me multiple times, and the discussion felt decent but overthinking about fucked ups ...

Has anyone working with rebel food or can share the interview experience?

Hey folks,

Need some brutally honest advice.

Currently working in a leading SBC as a Team Lead. I’ve received an SDE3 offer from Sigmoid with ~+10 LPA over my current fixed (let’s say current is X, offer is X + 10).

On paper, it looks like a solid jump. But I’ve been seeing quite a few negative opinions about Sigmoid—especially around work culture, pressure, and overall experience.

Now I’m second-guessing my decision after putting in my resignation.

Is it really that bad? Like, bad enough that an extra 10 LPA won’t feel worth it?

Also, realistically—if I stay back and negotiate, how much of a hike should I expect from my current company to justify not moving?

I’m totally okay pulling back my resignation if that’s the smarter move.

Would really appreciate honest, no-sugarcoat feedback—especially from folks who’ve worked there or know someone who has.

Thanks 🙏

Has anyone interviewed at or is currently working at Sigmoid as an SDE3?

What salary range can I expect?

is there been any layoffs recently, given that it’s a relatively small organization?

Have HR round on Monday in office

Do they call everyone to office for interview?

YOE -> 5.5 yrs