A software engineer’s viral post comparing Indian and US startup cultures has sparked debate online.
Long working hours, late night calls and endless meetings are often seen as part of startup life. But for software engineer Devaansh Bhandari, working at a remote US based startup showed him that things can be very different.
In a post on X that has resonated with many professionals online, Bhandari reflected on his experiences at multiple Indian startups before joining a US startup seven months ago. While he expected salary to be the biggest difference between the two work cultures, he said what stood out most was how employees were treated.
“I’ve been working at a remote US startup for around seven months now. Before this, I worked at multiple Indian startups. I thought the biggest difference would be the salary. It wasn’t. It was the way people are treated,” he wrote.
According to Bhandari, employees at some of the startups he worked for in India were expected to be available almost all the time.
“Getting a call at 11 PM on a Sunday wasn’t unusual,” he recalled.
‘I stayed awake until 4 AM’
One incident from his college days continues to stand out in his memory.
“I still remember one incident from college. I had an exam at 8 AM the next morning, but I stayed awake until 4 AM because the founder wanted to launch the product that day,” he wrote.
What frustrated him, he explained, was that the work was not urgent.
“The launch wasn’t blocked by any critical bug. We were adding animations and visual polish, not fixing something that couldn’t wait.”
Bhandari also highlighted the difference in how work is organised at his current company. Instead of spending hours in meetings, the team relies largely on asynchronous communication.