Tech interviews in India: pay, notice periods, and what's different

1. What tech roles pay in India (₹)

Pay is in rupees and varies enormously by employer type. A senior software engineer:

• Service companies (TCS, Infosys, Wipro): roughly ₹15 lakh to ₹40 lakh a year.
• Product companies and startups (Flipkart, Razorpay, Swiggy): ₹45 lakh to ₹80 lakh, often two to three times the services number.
• Big tech and GCCs (Google, Microsoft, Amazon): the top of the market, with senior packages well past ₹1 crore.

The single biggest factor in your pay is product versus services. Product companies and the global capability centres pay two to three times what the services giants do for the same experience. Aim there.

2. Job security and notice periods in India

Lighter in protection but heavy on notice. Private-sector employment is fairly flexible, but the long notice periods (below) effectively lock you in for months at a time.

India is known for long notice periods. The services giants (TCS, Infosys, Wipro) and most large IT firms mandate 90 days for experienced hires; product companies and startups are shorter, usually 30 to 60 days.

• Expect 90 days at a services firm, 30–60 days at a product company.
• 'Notice buyout' is common, many employers will buy out part of your notice.
• Factor the long notice into your timeline; it shapes the whole job search here.

If you're looking while still employed, this matters even more. See how to interview while you're still employed.

3. Working culture and turnover in India

Varies sharply by employer. The services giants and traditional firms can be hierarchical with long hours; product companies and startups are flatter and closer to a Western tech culture.

Very high. Job-hopping is the norm, counteroffers are common, and the long notice periods exist partly to slow down a famously mobile market.

4. What's different about interviewing in India

Interviews at product companies and GCCs mirror the global FAANG loop. Services firms run a more standardised, high-volume process.

• Product companies and GCCs run LeetCode-style coding plus system design.
• Services firms run a more standardised, scripted process at scale.
• Everything runs in English, the working language of Indian tech.

5. Who's hiring in India, and what they pay

• Big tech & GCCs: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and the hundreds of global capability centres now hiring at scale in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Top pay and global loops.
• Product companies & startups: Flipkart, Razorpay, Zerodha, Swiggy, Zoho, Freshworks, PhonePe, strong pay and a modern engineering culture.
• Services giants: TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, huge employers, lower pay, longer notice.

6. AI and the 2026 market in India

AI is booming in India. The global capability centres are building large AI and ML teams, startups are raising fast, and the sheer size of the talent pool makes India central to where global AI engineering gets done. ML roles are among the most in-demand.

For the shifts hitting every market this year, see what changed in tech interviews in 2026.

7. Language and the international scene in India

English is the working language of Indian tech, so there's no language barrier. This is a big part of why India is so tightly integrated with the global market.

The market is overwhelmingly local talent, but it's deeply connected to global companies through the GCC boom, hundreds of multinationals run major engineering centres here. For most engineers, the move is between Indian employers rather than into the country.

8. Working in India: visas and right to work

Most engineers here are Indian nationals, so visas rarely come up. Foreign nationals need an employment visa tied to a sponsoring employer, with a salary threshold; it's a smaller part of this market than in the expat hubs.

9. How to prepare for a India interview

Interviewing in India runs heavier on raw DSA volume than a typical US loop. Online coding screens on HackerRank or HackerEarth are a near-universal first filter, and competitive-programming pedigree carries weight. The market splits sharply. Service companies like TCS, Infosys, and Wipro hire freshers by the thousands through aptitude-plus-coding tests such as the TCS NQT, while product companies and startups like Flipkart, Razorpay, and Swiggy run a distinctive 90 to 120 minute machine-coding round where you build a runnable app live. Big-tech Global Capability Centers such as Amazon India and Microsoft IDC run their standard global loops locally. English is the interview language throughout.

How the loop actually runs shifts by employer. A few of India's best-known names:

• Flipkart: An online coding test of two to three medium-to-hard DSA problems, then a signature machine-coding round of roughly two hours split into pre-coding, about 90 minutes of coding, and post-coding, where you build a working low-level-design app. DSA rounds follow. System design appears at SDE-2 and above, while SDE-1 gets a DSA round in its place. Ends with a hiring-manager round on fit.
• Razorpay: A practical, project-driven loop. A machine-coding round of about 90 minutes that requires fully running code with proper design patterns (examples include a file-sharing app, an in-memory SQL database, or a pub-sub system). Then an HLD system design round, a resume deep dive on past architecture decisions, and a hiring-manager round mixing behavioural questions with some HLD discussion.
• Swiggy: Four to six rounds. SDE-1 starts with a 90-minute online DSA assessment of about three medium problems. Then a machine-coding round to build a functional app end to end (examples include an OOP-based game or a Splitwise clone), live DSA rounds of usually two problems, an LLD or HLD design round, and a hiring-manager round.
• Zomato: Leaner, around three rounds. The first is pure technical, covering projects, DSA on strings and arrays, and applied topics like websockets, authentication, rate-limiter design, and SQL versus NoSQL. The second is mostly system design. The third is with an engineering manager.
• Amazon India / Microsoft IDC: Standard global loops run locally. Amazon SDE has an online assessment then an onsite of four to five hour-long interviews, all technical plus Leadership Principles behavioural, closed by a bar raiser who can veto. Microsoft IDC in Hyderabad or Bengaluru runs a screening then a loop of three to four separate interviewers, typically about five hours onsite.

These loops describe engineering hiring. Management and leadership candidates (Engineering Manager, Director, VP) meet a similar local process but a different bar, so pair this page with the leadership interview prep hub and your role guide.

Questions worth preparing for an interview in India:

• Machine coding: build a working Splitwise-style expense-splitting app with core features in about 90 minutes, with clean OOP design and room to extend.
• Machine coding: design and implement an in-memory SQL database or a file-sharing service as runnable code with proper design patterns.
• Low-level design: model a parking lot, elevator, or Snake and Ladder game with OOP classes, then code it end to end.
• Applied system design: design a rate limiter, and discuss websockets and authentication in the same round.
• DSA under time pressure: two live medium-to-hard problems on arrays, strings, trees, graphs, or dynamic programming, with complexity analysis explained aloud.

The role itself doesn't change at the border. A senior engineer is held to a senior engineer's bar wherever you are, so the substance of your prep comes from the role-by-role guides and the 2026 Tech Interview Report: the questions, the level, and the common mistakes for your exact role. This page is the local layer on top: pay in ₹, the right timeline, and a process that shifts with the company. It's also worth reading why strong candidates get rejected, since those mistakes travel everywhere. And wherever you interview, the prep that actually transfers is rehearsing out loud — run a mock interview before the real one.

Sources

• Levels.fyi, Senior Software Engineer, Bengaluru — total-compensation data across employer types.
• Senior Software Engineer salaries in India — the product-vs-services pay gap.
• The 90-day notice period in India — why services firms mandate 90 days.
• InterviewBit, Flipkart interview questions — the Flipkart machine-coding round structure and DSA rounds.
• Glassdoor, Razorpay Software Engineer interview — the machine-coding round, HLD round, and resume deep dive.
• Swiggy SDE-1 backend interview experience — a first-person account of the DSA assessment and machine-coding round.
• GeeksforGeeks, Microsoft IDC Bangalore interview — an interview experience at Microsoft's India Development Center loop.

Pay, notice, protection and visa details are sourced above. The notes on working culture, turnover and market trends reflect widely-reported conditions as of 2026, and are meant as a general read rather than precise figures.