HR & the number
The technical rounds decide whether you get an offer. This round decides what is in it. Treat it with the same seriousness, because an hour here is worth more per minute than any other hour in the process.
You earn ₹1,02,000 a month in hand with no PF and no deductions — so your take-home and your cost-to-company are effectively the same figure, ₹12.24 lakh a year of real cash. Almost no Bangalore offer works that way. A typical package hides ten to twenty percent of the headline in variable pay, employer PF, gratuity accrual, and then income tax on top. A "₹16 lakh" offer at a normal product company pays you roughly ₹1,00,100 a month — a thirty percent hike on paper and a pay cut in practice.
| Offered CTC | Monthly in hand | Real change | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₹16 LPA | ≈ ₹1,00,100 | −2% | reject a pay cut wearing a hike's clothes |
| ₹18 LPA | ≈ ₹1,11,200 | +9% | reject less than staying put and taking an appraisal |
| ₹20 LPA | ≈ ₹1,22,200 | +20% | floor only for a company you badly want |
| ₹22 LPA | ≈ ₹1,32,600 | +30% | accept a real move |
| ₹24 LPA | ≈ ₹1,43,000 | +40% | target say this number out loud |
| ₹26 LPA | ≈ ₹1,52,900 | +50% | anchor where you open |
| ₹28 LPA | ≈ ₹1,61,300 | +58% | stretch reachable if two offers compete |
Modelled on a standard Bangalore structure: 10% variable, basic at 40% of fixed, employer and employee PF at 12% of basic, gratuity accrual, new tax regime with the ₹75,000 standard deduction. If an offer is fully fixed with no variable, treat it as roughly one band higher — a fully fixed ₹22 lakh behaves like ₹24 lakh here. Indicative, not exact; your real number depends on the specific structure.
Anchor · ₹26 lakh
The first number you say. Never open at what you would accept.
Target · ₹24 lakh
A forty percent real increase. Defensible for six years with production architecture ownership.
Walk away · ₹20 lakh
Below this you work harder in a more expensive city for the same money. Bangalore rent eats the difference.
| Type | Realistic for you | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Service & consulting TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, LTIMindtree, Mphasis, Nagarro | ₹15–19 LPA | mostly below your floor The easiest walk-ins and the worst economics for you specifically, because your zero-deduction package is already worth more than their structure. Practice and safety net, not a plan. Nagarro and Mphasis at the top of their band are the only realistic ones. |
| Agencies & studios | ₹16–21 LPA | borderline Fast to close, two rounds, and your client-ownership story is their exact problem. Push hard for fully fixed here — many can do it, and that is worth a whole band. |
| Series A–C product startups | ₹20–28 LPA | your best market They pay for exactly what you have: someone who takes an empty repo to production and stays for the reliability. Harder loop, better money. |
| Mid-size product & SaaS Freshworks, Zoho, Chargebee, Postman tier | ₹22–30 LPA | highest ceiling Hardest loop — real DSA and a design round with a bar. Worth the seven-day prep. Do not walk into these cold on day one. |
Then stop talking. The silence after a number is uncomfortable and the person who fills it loses. Practise this literally: say the number, close your mouth, and count to ten if you have to.
My current fixed is ₹12.2 lakh, and the important part is that it is entirely fixed and entirely in hand — no variable, no PF deduction, so I take home ₹1,02,000 every month. That is why I compare offers on monthly in-hand rather than CTC. For this role I am looking at ₹26 lakh, and I am flexible on how it is structured.
Softening the number in the same breath — "₹26 lakh, but I'm negotiable, obviously it depends." You have just told them the real number is lower and invited them to find it. Be flexible on structure, out loud; be silent about flexibility on the total.
- Is that fixed or total?
- What is driving that number?
- Can you share your current payslip?
Never answer this with a number. It converts your floor into their ceiling in one sentence.
I would rather not put a floor on the table before I understand the full structure — the fixed and variable split changes what a number is worth quite a lot. What is the top of the band for this role? If it is genuinely below what works for me, I will tell you straight away rather than waste your team's rounds.
That last clause matters. Offering to disqualify yourself early is credible and generous, and it makes the refusal to name a floor read as efficiency rather than gamesmanship.
- We cannot share bands.
- Would you consider ₹X?
This works because it moves the conversation from "what you want" to "arithmetic we can both check". It is very hard to argue with, and it does not require them to agree you are worth more — only that the maths is the maths.
I understand, and I would rather explain the reasoning than just hold a number. Because I have no deductions today, an ₹18 lakh offer with a variable component and PF actually lands me around ₹1.11 lakh a month — that is a nine percent increase for relocating to a more expensive city, which does not work. At ₹24 lakh the move makes sense for both of us. If the band caps below that, I would genuinely rather know now.
- Where did you get those numbers?
- We could look at a joining bonus instead.
Never accept in the room, even when the number is good — especially when the number is good, because that is when they expect you to be too pleased to negotiate.
Then use those forty-eight hours: email every other live process saying you have an offer in hand with a deadline. That single email is the highest-return action in your entire job search. It is the difference between negotiating with words and negotiating with alternatives.
Thank you — that is a serious offer and I am genuinely interested. Could you send the written breakdown with the fixed and variable split? I will come back to you within forty-eight hours. I have one other process closing this week and I would rather give you a clean yes than a rushed one.
An "exploding offer" that expires in 24 hours is a pressure tactic, and how a company behaves here is real information about how it behaves later. A company that will not give you two days to consider a multi-year decision is telling you something.
- The offer is only valid until Friday.
- What would it take to close this today?
- Fixed versus variable, in writing. "₹24 lakh" with ₹6 lakh variable is an ₹18 lakh job with a bonus you might get.
- Was the variable actually paid last year, and at what percentage? Ask directly. A straight answer tells you a lot about the company; an evasive one tells you more.
- Joining bonus and its clawback period. Usually one year. It is real money but it is not salary — never let it be used to close a gap in fixed pay, because year two you are back to the lower number.
- Notice buyout. Ask them to reimburse it. Many will, it costs them almost nothing structurally, and it is the easiest concession in the whole negotiation.
- Equity, if a startup. Ask for three things: the strike price, the total outstanding shares (not just your count), and the last round's valuation. Without all three the number of options is meaningless. If they will not give you all three, value the equity at zero and negotiate on cash. Also ask about the cliff, the vesting schedule, and the exercise window after leaving.
The tactic worth more than every script on this page: get two offers in the same week. Technique moves a number by maybe ten percent; a second live offer moves it by thirty. That is the real argument for walk-ins — do not treat them as one interview at a time, treat them as a compressed campaign where four processes land in the same seven days. Interview at the companies you want least on day one.
They will ask:
- Confirm current CTC with payslips or Form 16.
- Notice period, last working day, earliest joining date.
- Are you holding other offers, and at what number? (You may decline to name the company; a range is fine.)
- Background verification consent — employment, education, sometimes address.
- Any gaps to explain?
- Comfortable with the location and the five-day model?
- What would make you turn this down?
Have on your phone before you walk in:
- Last three payslips and your most recent Form 16.
- Offer letters and relieving letters from previous employers.
- Degree and diploma certificates as PDFs.
- PAN and Aadhaar.
- Six printed copies of your resume. Walk-ins run on paper and you will be asked for it three times in one building.