A decision that still haunts me after 1.5 years

My biggest regret of life -

Joining TCS instead of a startup. I completed my b tech in 2024. Wasn't a good placement season. Very limited companies visited campus. Couldn't crack anything on-campus until the very last when TCS came.

Later in June I contributed for a short while at TUF+ as I didn't have anything to do as I was waiting for my joining letter. Next month I got an internship at a startup - Deep Cognition. Worked for some time and got my joining at TCS in sept.

My intern contract was 3 months with the chance for full-time conversion. When I went to CTO with resignation he instantly made me a full-time offer ( I wasn't expecting that). He offered me about 1.75 times what TCS was paying me. Plus ESOP.

I discussed it with my family and they wanted me to choose stability and I couldn't say no to them. I come from lower middle class family so logically their decision was not wrong in that sense. I don't have any safety net if something went wrong at startup and I lost my job.

And then the trauma begins...

In the last 1.5 years I haven't had a single day when I willingly went to the office. I don't get any tasks related to my role. People in my team don't even want to work and just try to avoid any incoming work.

I didn't learn a single skill during this time from my office work. Each day I go to office I think of submitting resignation at least 5 fcking times. I am a coward who can't do that without an offer.

No learning... No growth... Just be compliant and endless formalities.

Initially I thought I would soon get a new job but still couldn't. For one year I couldn't even get a shortlist. Things started to change this January. I got interview calls from a leading e-commerce tech company, a financial software company, and two other tech firms. I cleared a few rounds but couldn't convert to an offer.

A leading e-commerce tech company - 1st round was simple DSA (house robber + no consecutive characters in string + LP). In 2nd round I was asked to design an API for filtering file names from the folder. I never expected a design question. I couldn't make it. Every other candidate got a DSA question in 2nd round.

Two other tech firms - I was rejected from the last technical round. I don't know what went wrong. I asked for feedback but didn't get any. I fumbled in some questions but overall I had some expectations of going forward. No regrets with these rejections.

A financial software company - was a long process with about 4 rounds. I was rejected in the project discussion with feedback - "don't have enough depth". That's when it hit so badly that I didn't do anything meaningful in 1.5 yrs. Every decision that I made in my life flashed in front of my eyes.

Till Jan I used to think that I'm just unlucky that I don't get interviews. Once I get an interview I will definitely get into the company. But it seems like I was living in some kind of illusion. I was giving sympathy to myself. I lack some basic and necessary skills.