Episode
AI Is Destroying India's Outsourcing Industry?
- Published
- Jun 2, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 975
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Summary
Every once in a while, I make the mistake of opening LinkedIn. I know I should not. For an unemployed former Big Tech engineer, LinkedIn often feels like an abusive relationship. I log in knowing there is a good chance I will encounter some combination of layoffs, humblebrags, AI hype, and carefully curated success stories that leave me questioning every major life decision I have ever made. And yet, like drivers slowing down to stare at a highway accident, I sometimes cannot resist the morbid curiosity. Recently, that curiosity led to a conversation that has been occupying my thoughts ever since. An old colleague reached out. Let us call him Kaushik. For several years, Kaushik and I worked together inside a large technology organization. He was a senior architect based in India, working out of one of the company’s offshore centers. We collaborated on multiple projects and developed the kind of professional relationship that forms when two people spend years solving difficult problems together. Back in 2023, our organization was hit by a major round of layoffs. Roughly half the organization disappeared overnight. I survived, although survival came with a soft demotion. My title was downgraded from Chief Architect to Senior Architect. To regain my previous position, I had to navigate a familiar corporate ritual. There were applications, self assessments, recommendation letters, and endless documentation designed to demonstrate my value to the company. Kaushik played an important role in that process. He wrote one of the strongest recommendation letters I have ever received. Reading it felt almost surreal. According to Kaushik, I was apparently a visionary thought leader whose technical brilliance illuminated the path for offshore engineering teams across the organizatio…