Hemant Pandey and Vaashu Sharma
This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Hemant Pandey and Vaashu Sharma. The couple moved from California to Bengaluru in November 2024. The essay has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified their employment and compensation history.
Vaashu: I moved to the US for my master’s in 2016 after working in India for two years after my bachelor’s. I had seen seniors from my course land exciting opportunities in tech in the US, and there seemed to be a lot more career options than I had in India.
I studied computer science at Stony Brook University in New York, and I met Hemant during our master’s program.
Hemant: I had also come to the US for similar reasons, but the plan was always to move back to India after a few years. We talked about it and were both aligned.
After we graduated in 2017, Vaashu went on to work at IBM, Meta, and then Google. I worked at Tesla, SAP, Salesforce, and Meta. We got married in 2020.
The itch to come home
Vaashu: When we were discussing timelines for when we want to move back, my first thought was, do we want an X amount of money? That’s when Hemant intervened and said that X would keep increasing, and we should not settle for a number. Instead, we picked a time and chose 2024 as the year we would move back.
Hemant: I had so many reasons for wanting to move back — some logical and some emotional. I felt happier whenever I visited India for holidays. I also saw the crazy speed at which India was growing from when I had left. My friends back home were all making good money, and their lifestyle was just like ours was in the US.
Vaashu: My biggest reason was that our family is based there, and I felt closer to the social and cultural values I was brought up with. I was also tired of missing big celebrations like my mother’s retirement, my cousins’ weddings, and being home for festivals. We were based in the Bay Area, and Indian festivals were celebrated with a lot of energy, but they could never match India.
My second reason was how much India’s tech scene had changed in the eight years since I had left. I saw a huge difference in the opportunities India had to offer, in terms of the number of teams Big Tech companies had in India, the products they were building, and the salaries they were offering to employees.
Lastly, we had built a safety net in the US that we would be able to leverage in India. Knowing we won’t have a financial crunch because of our savings gave me a lot of confidence.
Hemant: Visa challenges also played a role in us wanting to wrap up our time in the US faster. Vaashu and I fell into different cycles for our three-year H-1B visa renewals, which meant there were good chunks of time where we were unable to leave the US. We missed important events, but it was also scary because it meant we couldn’t be there for our family in India if we ever got bad news.
The H-1B visa also felt quite restrictive. We were making good money and our careers were growing, but there was never an opportunity to pursue any projects or side hustles because H-1B holders are not allowed to have secondary sources of income. There was no room to take a career break either, because our visas were tied to us working full time.
Vaashu: There was also this back-of-mind anxiety that we could get deported for the smallest things going wrong, even if it wasn’t our fault. The immigration situation has gotten more volatile in the past year, and when we talk to our Indian friends who are still based in the US, nobody knows what their plans are, even for the next three to five years. We know people who have skipped travel to India this year because there is a risk that they won’t be allowed back into the US.
We’re also seeing a lot more Indians in their 30s return, which gave us a lot of confidence in our decision. There are now entire communities dedicated to helping people move back and settle down in cities like Bengaluru or Delhi.
Convenience and cricket
Vaashu: We moved back to India in November and have settled in Bengaluru, India’s tech hub. I landed a senior software engineer role at Airbnb, while Hemant, who was most recently at Meta, is looking for his next opportunity.
It’s become such an exciting place for a tech career. Around 10 years ago, no one was talking about startups or creating something of their own. Today, even before starting the job, I see college students working on their own businesses in the background.
Hemant: It’s a very small thing, but we’re both huge cricket fans and we don’t miss a single match. Cricket is a second religion in India, and we missed watching matches with our friends and the crazy energy you can find in sports bars and cafés in India. In the US, we often had to wake up early in the morning to watch games played in Asia hours. It’s been six months since we moved, and we’ve already watched two live games in the stadium, which was never an option in California. Also, the food options here are unbeatable.
Vaashu: Life here is far more convenient. Groceries can be delivered within 10 minutes and because we can hire help, we have gotten back two to three hours every day we used to spend cooking and cleaning.
Not everyone in our family understands our decision to move back, especially my grandfather, who is from a different generation. It’s hard for them to digest that we moved back voluntarily because of all the stories they have heard about the American dream.
Hemant: There are cons as well. Almost everywhere is crowded, and air quality is a problem. But for us, the pros heavily outweigh the negative factors of living in India. We also feel a sense of purpose in paying taxes in our home country or employing Indians if we ever work on our own businesses.
This story is part of a project on the experiences of Indian H-1B holders working in tech. Read the full story here.
The post We moved back to India after working in US Big Tech. We missed family, festivals, and India’s roaring cricket culture. appeared first on Business Insider.
