A software engineering graduate's story of losing a promised high-paying job is going around on the internet. When layoff stories from big companies are becoming everyday talk, another job loss, interestingly, is striking a nerve with people. Especially those navigating an increasingly uncertain job market.

According to a post shared on Reddit, the graduate (who goes by the handle @NightFury_GT) had secured a six-month on-campus internship that came with a performance-based pre-placement offer worth Rs 35 lakh per annum. Just two days before the internship ended, that offer was apparently revoked.

Here is the Reddit post.

The graduate, who claimed they come from a tier-1.5 engineering college, said their manager had repeatedly reassured them throughout the internship that the offer was essentially guaranteed. "I gave my everything, tried my best during the internship and had really positive manager feedback. I was basically told by my manager that I would 100 percent get the PPO and not to worry," the techie wrote. But just before the programme concluded, all 90 interns in the batch reportedly received rejection emails at once.

According to the post, the company decided against hiring the interns as software engineers after shifting its investments toward artificial intelligence instead.

But the biggest blow wasn't just losing the promised Rs 35 lakh package. Since the internship came with a pre-placement offer, the graduate had already been removed from the campus placement process. When the offer was revoked, the only job left was a backup offer from Accenture which they said was worth Rs 6.5 lakh per annum, leaving little room to explore other opportunities.

The graduate called the situation demoralising, pointing out that the fallback salary was even lower than what they had earned as a stipend during the internship, and that off-campus opportunities for freshers seemed scarce despite having a strong profile that included experience with Google Summer of Code.

The internet weighs in

The post quickly gained traction on Reddit, with many users expressing sympathy for the graduate and criticising the company's alleged handling of the internship programme. One user wrote, "They have literally scammed you guys with the dream of 35 LPA. They knew giving this offer would make interns work extra hard to land the PPO. Now they gave the excuse of AI to not follow up on their promise."

Others said the incident reflected a broader trend of companies scaling back hiring despite earlier commitments. One Reddit user shared a similar experience, writing, "Bro, I am in the same situation. Got internship plus PPO offer in a reputed company and last year they gave PPO to every intern. But this year they didn't give the PPO due to budget issues."

Several users also advised the graduate to accept the backup offer for now and continue looking for better opportunities once the job market improves.

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Published On:

Jul 21, 2026 19:19 IST