Some techies have a truly different start to the year

23-year-old IIT graduate laid off by Goldman Sachs in Bengaluru

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Shubham Sahu a 23-yearold IIT Kharagpur graduate is one of the thousands impacted by the job cuts initiated by Goldman Sachs.

While he was working at the firm’s Bengaluru office, he was fired when they decided to lay off nearly 6.5 percent or roughly about 3,200 of their employees. Shubham received the news on January 11, soon after his birthday and shared it on his LinkedIn post while seeking a new job. He had joined the firm as a software developer only six months ago. "Wow, this is truly a different way to start a year," he wrote in his post.

Sahu has worked in a different company for a brief period before starting his work at Goldman Sachs.  "It was my first job and my first experience in software development. While my time at GS was short, I am grateful that I had the chance to learn and grow in such a favourable environment," he mentioned on his post.

Sahu is not the only one who has had to bear the brunt of the layoffs. Many from the same firm have reached out on LinkedIn, seeking new opportunities. Shilpi Soni was laid off after spending over 1.7 years at the firm as a software engineer in Texas.

She said, "how quickly life can turn upside down,” in an emotional post on LinkedIn. "I take pride in being the first person in my family to pursue a master's in a foreign country. I come from a rural family, so it has been one roller coaster of a journey, overcoming social and financial restrictions to come here," Soni wrote.

"Knowing from where I started, being laid off hurts. But, I am still hopeful that this may not be the end of my journey here in the US. So, I have decided to keep fighting and make use of my limited time to find a new job”, Soni further wrote.

Indian employees who are on H-1B visas in the United States are impacted by the job cuts. The firm is also poised to unveil financials tied to a new unit that houses its credit card and instalment-lending business, which will record more than $2 billion in pre-tax losses, sources have said.