When a 26‑year‑old Bengaluru software engineer told his parents that he had landed a hybrid job at Google with an annual package of Rs 80 lakh, their first reaction was disbelief rather than celebration.
“My dad was like, ‘No way, this must be a scam,’” Arka Mazumder said told Moneycontrol, recalling that it took his first month’s payslip and bank statement for his parents to finally accept that the offer was real. Mazumder is fresh into his new job at Google after working with TCS and Kuku FM, managing to get a salary jump from Rs 3.2 LPA to Rs 80 LPA. Moreover, he only has to work three days from the office.
For a child who grew up in a middle-class family that had to take a loan to sponsor his education, the moment when he landed the Google job summed up both the distance the family had travelled and the odds stacked against them. Coming from a simple background, large tech salaries were something his parents had only heard about—not experienced firsthand.
‘Whatever I am today is because of them’
Arka Mazumder said the achievement mattered less as a personal milestone and more as proof for his parents, who had supported him through years of uncertainty, including taking an education loan for his studies.
“More than anything, whatever I am today is because of them. I just wanted to prove to them that their son can do something meaningful and make them proud,” he told Moneycontrol.
While the salary has brought financial comfort, he added that the family’s lifestyle has not changed dramatically. “We were always simple people. It’s not like everything changed overnight,” he said. The biggest difference, according to him, is being able to ensure his parents have access to things they never had.
Among his immediate plans is getting passports made for his parents and sending them on international trips—an experience they have never had.
From Rs 3.2 LPA at TCS to Google in three years
As reported by Moneycontrol, the engineer started his career at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 2022 with a package of Rs 3.2 lakh per annum before moving to Google within three years.
He openly shared his overall Google compensation on social media, saying such salary ranges are widely known and largely standardised at global tech firms. He, however, declined to disclose a detailed breakup.
‘Average scores don’t define your future’
Mazumder said he did not come from an IIT or other elite institution and described his academic record as average. That, he acknowledged, made his journey harder in a market that places significant trust in college tags.
“I had to put in extra effort to prove myself,” he said, adding that while the IIT ecosystem produces exceptional talent, candidates from non‑elite backgrounds are equally capable if they focus on the right skills.
After joining TCS, he followed a strict routine—studying five to six hours daily after work and using weekends for revision and new topics. He deliberately started with difficult concepts like recursion early, using peak motivation to build confidence.
By the time he interviewed at Google, he had solved over 700 problems on LeetCode, spanning arrays, dynamic programming, trees, graphs and other core areas.
‘I have nothing to prove’
Responding to scepticism around his salary after a reel on it went viral, Mazumder said he had no interest in convincing critics. “If you know how FAANG companies operate, you already know these numbers are real,” he said.
Now working in a hybrid setup—three days in the office and two from home—the engineer said his journey is only beginning, but consistency and discipline, he believes, made all the difference.