Techie quits toxic US job, returns to India with ₹37 LPA salary: ‘I miss the US lifestyle’

An Indian tech professional’s Reddit post about leaving the United States just as his permanent residency application moved forward has struck a chord with thousands navigating the brutal reality of the H1B system.An Indian techie talks about quitting his US job and returning to India. (Pexels./Representational Image)In a post shared on Reddit, the techie said that he quit his job at a US startup because of the toxic work environment — he was regularly humiliated at work, to the point where he would sit in his car and cry after office.Some background on his caseThe techie wrote that he moved to the US in 2022 on an H1B visa from a Big 4 firm in India, encouraged verbal assurances that he would eventually be hired permanently in the US. Trusting those promises, he built his long-term plans around settling in America — a childhood dream, he said.After two years of working on an H1B visa, he was told that he would either have to find another job in the US or return to India.“I didn’t want to give up on my dream of settling in the US, so I started searching. The only offer I had at that time was from a very small boutique startup, so I joined,” the techie said.Toxic environment at startupUnfortunately for this Indian techie, working at the boutique startup proved very difficult. The startup filed his PERM application, which was approved after a year and a half. But those 18 months, he said, were “the hardest phase” of his life.With more than 11 years of experience, he expected architect-level responsibilities. Instead, he was relegated to working solely as a developer.He described a toxic work environment where his only teammate routinely humiliated him, eroding his confidence and self-worth. “My only teammate (a Russian colleague) would regularly humiliate and verbally demean me,” he said.(Also read: ‘I’m losing my sanity’: Indian techie in US considers moving home, willing to take pay cut)The company, despite being a decade old, had no stable clients and remained perpetually in “stealth mode”. Sales meetings failed, growth stalled, and the pressure mounted.“I slowly lost confidence and started questioning my own competence,” the Indian techie wrote.The search for a new jobThe Indian professional began looking for new jobs, but this proved tough. With the recent upheaval in the H1B visa system and a brutal job market, jobs in the US were scarce.“The US job market was brutal,” he wrote, adding that switching jobs was far harder than he had anticipated. Some days, he would sit in his car after work and cry — “I used to sit in my car after work and cry,” he said.“After 1.5 years, completely exhausted and emotionally broken, I decided to move on. I searched in both the US and India,” the techie revealed. Finally, he received two offers — one paying $124,000 in the US, and another offering ₹37 lakh per annum in India.(Also read: