What Indian Engineers Actually Earn at Every Level in 2026

Salary conversations in India are weirdly secretive. This secrecy benefits employers and hurts everyone else. I'm going to share real numbers - based on thousands of placements at TopHire across startups, mid-size product companies, and large tech firms. All numbers are annual CTC in lakhs (L).

Fresher / SDE-1 (0–2 years)

• Service companies (TCS, Infosys, Wipro): 3.5–7L CTC

• Product startups (early/growth stage): 6–14L CTC

• Top product companies (Flipkart, Swiggy, CRED): 12–22L CTC

• FAANG / top-tier (Google, Microsoft India): 18–35L CTC

The range is enormous. A TCS fresher earning 3.5L and a Google fresher earning 30L might have graduated from the same college. The difference is interview preparation and placement opportunity, not necessarily raw talent.

SDE-2 / Mid-level (2–5 years)

• Service companies: 7–15L CTC

• Product startups: 14–28L CTC

• Top product companies: 22–40L CTC

• FAANG: 30–55L CTC

This is where the service-to-product gap becomes hard to close. Switching at this point usually means a 50–80% hike, but the candidate has to clear a bar that gets higher every year they wait.

Senior Engineer / SDE-3 (5–8 years)

• Service companies: 15–25L CTC

• Product startups: 25–45L CTC

• Top product companies: 35–55L CTC

• FAANG: 50–80L CTC

Staff Engineer / Tech Lead (8–12 years)

• Product startups: 35–60L CTC

• Top product companies: 50–80L CTC

• FAANG: 70–1.2Cr CTC

Engineering Manager (8–15 years)

• Product startups: 40–70L CTC

• Top product companies: 55–90L CTC

• FAANG: 80–1.5Cr CTC

Director of Engineering / VP Engineering (12+ years)

• Startups: 60L–1.2Cr CTC (+ significant ESOPs)

• Top product companies: 80L–1.5Cr CTC (+ RSUs)

• FAANG: 1.2–2.5Cr CTC (+ RSUs)

What affects the number

City

Bangalore pays the most for product company roles. Mumbai pays well for fintech. Hyderabad and Pune are 10–15% below Bangalore for comparable roles.

Technology stack

ML/AI engineers command a 15–30% premium over general engineers at the same experience level. DevOps/SRE engineers are 10–15% above average. Frontend engineers are typically 5–10% below backend at the same level (a gap that's slowly closing).

Interview performance

At senior levels, two candidates with identical resumes can get offers that differ by 15–20L based on how well they performed in system design rounds. The interview is the negotiation, even if it doesn't feel like one.

My advice

For candidates: know your number - your actual market value based on your experience, skills, and the type of company you're targeting. For companies, the salary data changes fast. If your offers are getting rejected at a higher rate than usual, it's probably not the candidates being greedy. It's your data being stale.

And for everyone: talk about money more openly. The secrecy only benefits the side with more information, and that's rarely the individual engineer.