A Bengaluru-based techie has revealed that his friend turned down the opportunity to earn in US dollars and opted to continue his in-office job in India because he did not want to give up the office perks he enjoyed. Ashish Jha’s post about his friend has sparked a spirited debate on X about earning in rupees vs dollars, the downsides of remote work, high salaries in tech and more.
What Bengaluru techie posted
In a post shared one day ago on X, Ashish Jha, a solutions engineer at DevRev, wrote that his friend chose not to join a remote job that would have paid him 75,000 USD — which is approximately ₹67 lakh per annum.
He explained that his friend is a Technical Support Engineer with four years of experience who is currently working for a mid-sized AI startup. His salary is ₹48 lakh per annum.
Despite the fact that his salary would have increased significantly if he had joined the remote job, the techie opted to continue with his current role as he did not want to give up the office perks he enjoyed.
“Friend got a 75k USD remote offer and rejected it to continue his current 48 LPA role in a mid-sized AI startup because of office perks,” Jha revealed on X.
A debate over remote work
As Jha’s post gained traction, many people expressed disbelief that a person would give up the opportunity to earn a significantly higher salary while working comfortably from home.
“Only possibility he’s crushing over a colleague because there’s no other office perk that can’t be reproduced with a 20 lakh increment in salary,” X user Aditi opined.
Another user called it the “fumble of the year”.
“This is a clickbait for engagement farming. No way someone with 4 yrs of exp is getting paid that much in a startup,” a user said. To this, Jha replied: “You are just unaware with how much engineers are getting paid in good startups and even MNCs.”
Asked what perks his friend was enjoying, the Bengaluru-based techie said, “Just the usual food and travel perks. Nothing out of the blue.”