From ‘Tier 2’ Indian college to VP at Meta: The remarkable rise of Soumith Chintala

Indian-American AI researcher Soumith Chintala, the co-creator of PyTorch, has left Meta after 11 years. Chintala announced his departure from Meta in an X post last week, saying he did not want to be “doing PyTorch forever”. Soumith Chintala has quit Meta after 11 years with the IT giant. Chintala had joined Meta as a software engineer in 2014 and rose to become a VP at the Mark Zuckerberg-led tech giant. At the time of his leaving, his LinkedIn profile described him as the “AI fixer” of Meta. What is PyTorch?PyTorch, the open-source deep learning framework Chintala co-created, is arguably what he is most famous for. “Eleven years at Meta. Nearly all my professional life. Making many friends for life. Almost eight years leading PyTorch, taking it from nothing to 90%+ adoption in AI. Walking away from this was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I’m leaving with a full heart,” the AI pioneer said in his X post. PyTorch is a software library that allows developers and researchers to build and train artificial intelligence (AI) models. Unlike older frameworks that required complicated pre-defined structures, PyTorch lets users write Python code naturally, while still optimising for performance on GPUs. “My time on PyTorch was special,” Chintala said. “I loved every part of building it—designing it, managing it, being the PM, TL, comms lead, doc engineer, release engineer, squashing bugs, growth hacking, turning it into a coherent product with hundreds of people, transitioning it to industry stakeholdership – the whole nine yards.” The story of Soumith ChintalaSoumith Chintala went from a Hyderabad-born student who struggled with maths to student at a “tier-2” engineering college to a VP at Meta. His extraordinary story is one of resilience and determination. Soumith Chintala was born and raised in Hyderabad, India. Growing up, he attended Hyderabad Public School, and his own account, he was not a natural at mathematics. Despite early academic struggles, he developed a keen interest in computers and problem-solving, which eventually led him to pursue higher education in technology. Determined to make a mark in the field of computer science, he joined Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), a tier-2 engineering college, where he earned his Bachelor of Technology in Information Technology. Moving to the United StatesAfter completing his undergraduate degree, Soumith aimed to further his education in the United States. His path was far from smooth: he initially scored 1420 on the GRE but faced rejections from 12 universities. In a post detailing his career, venture capital Deedy Das revealed that Chintala went to the US on a J-1 visa and “no plan.” Undeterred rejections, he continued applying and eventually secured admission to New York University (NYU) for a Master’s in Computer Science. At NYU, he joined Yann LeCun’s lab, where he worked on early deep-learning projects, including pedestrian detection, optical character recognition, and depth-image modelling. These formative experiences at NYU helped him gain practical exposure to AI research and laid the groundwork for his future contributions. From India to VP at MetaChintala’s early career was marked persence through uncertainty. He took a role as a test engineer at Amazon — it was the only job he could land. Later, he joined the startup MuseAmi, working on mobile deep-learning applications. These roles allowed him to develop faster AI models and demonstrate his technical skills, despite initial setbacks in securing top-tier research positions. Over time, his talent and dedication were recognised, leading to a position at Facebook AI Research (FAIR), now part of Meta AI, where he became a leading figure in AI infrastructure and research. “When I joined FAIR, I had massive impostor syndrome, and the first 3 months were very very difficult,” he confessed in his X post. Chintala eventually obtained a US green card through the EB-1 category for “aliens of extraordinary ability.” This was a significant milestone in his life, representing years of perseverance and overcoming challenges.