The latest articles on DEV Community by Immanuel John (@immanuel_john_c2955a158cd). https://dev.to/immanuel_john_c2955a158cd https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3816146%2F0cfdac50-eb2c-45e2-ab0c-721425a35df2.png https://dev.to/immanuel_john_c2955a158cd en Immanuel John Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:49:46 +0000 https://dev.to/immanuel_john_c2955a158cd/i-turned-down-25k-to-take-10k-heres-what-happened-over-7-years-1i2p https://dev.to/immanuel_john_c2955a158cd/i-turned-down-25k-to-take-10k-heres-what-happened-over-7-years-1i2p <p>fresh out of college in 2018. two offers on the table.</p> <p>₹25,000/month from a service company. stable, safe, known brand.</p> <p>₹10,000/month from a small bangalore startup. unknown, risky, half the money.</p> <p>i took the ₹10K one.</p> <p>everyone around me thought i was making a mistake.</p> <h2> why i did it </h2> <p>the service company would put me in training for months before i touched production code.</p> <p>the startup would throw me into real work from week one.</p> <p>i figured the learning was worth more than the salary difference. turns out i was right but it took 7 years to fully play out.</p> <h2> the actual numbers, year by year </h2> <div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"><table> <thead> <tr> <th>year</th> <th>salary</th> <th>what changed</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2018</td> <td>₹10,000/mo</td> <td>intern, debugging production crashes at 2am</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2019</td> <td>₹25,000/mo</td> <td>full-time, building features end to end</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2020</td> <td>₹35,000/mo</td> <td>full stack, making architectural decisions</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2021</td> <td>₹45,000/mo</td> <td>leading small projects</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2021</td> <td>₹80,000/mo</td> <td>switched to blockchain after 5 months of night learning</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2022</td> <td>₹3,50,000/mo</td> <td>remote role at a french startup</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2024+</td> <td>left to start my own company</td> <td>—</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div> <p>35x in 7 years.</p> <h2> the move that changed everything </h2> <p>in late 2020 i noticed something.</p> <p>my salary was growing slowly. i was doing the same react + node work on repeat. comfortable but stagnant.</p> <p>i started researching niches where:</p> <ul> <li>demand was high</li> <li>supply of developers was low</li> <li>remote companies were hiring</li> </ul> <p>blockchain checked all three boxes in 2021.</p> <p>so while still employed, i spent 4-5 months:</p> <ul> <li>doing cryptozombies (free solidity course)</li> <li>watching patrick collins' blockchain bootcamp on youtube</li> <li>building two side projects and putting them on github</li> <li>contributing to open source blockchain repos</li> </ul> <p>applied to 15 companies. got callbacks from 6. offers from 2.</p> <p>nearly doubled my salary without changing jobs first.</p> <h2> then the french startup </h2> <p>1.5 years into the blockchain role, a french startup called ternoa found me on linkedin.</p> <p>three interview rounds. offered ₹3,50,000/month.</p> <p>4x my previous salary. 35x my starting stipend.</p> <p>why did they pay that much? because a blockchain specialist in france costs them €6,000–8,000/month. at ₹3.5L i was actually cheaper for them — and life-changing money for me.</p> <p>that's the india remote arbitrage nobody talks about enough.</p> <h2> what i did with that salary </h2> <p>didn't lifestyle inflate.</p> <p>used the next 1.5 years to quietly build teckas technologies on the side — nights and weekends. blockchain and AI projects for clients. small money at first. ₹50K here, ₹1L there.</p> <p>saved 12+ months of expenses.</p> <p>then left the ₹3.5L salary to go full time.</p> <p>today teckas is 9 people, clients across india, europe and the us, 6 months of consecutive revenue growth.</p> <h2> mistakes i actually made </h2> <p><strong>1. stayed comfortable too long in year 2.5</strong><br> wasn't learning anything new. should have specialized 6 months earlier. probably cost me ₹10–15L in lost salary.</p> <p><strong>2. didn't document the journey</strong><br> zero tweets, zero blogs, zero linkedin posts during those 7 years. wish i had built in public from day one. personal brand compounds — the earlier you start the more it's worth.</p> <p><strong>3. ignored financial literacy</strong><br> taxes, contracts, invoicing — learned all of it the hard way when i started teckas. nobody teaches developers this stuff.</p> <p><strong>4. didn't network intentionally</strong><br> every major opportunity in my career came through people. i should have invested in relationships much earlier instead of just focusing on code.</p> <h2> if i started over today </h2> <ul> <li>take the low-paying startup over the safe service company job</li> <li>specialize by year 2, not year 3</li> <li>start applying to remote companies the moment you have 2+ years experience</li> <li>build in public from day one</li> <li>start the side business before quitting, not after</li> </ul> <p>i wrote this because i spent years looking for honest breakdowns like this from indian developers and couldn't find them.</p> <p>so i built <a href="https://developerstory.xyz" rel="noopener noreferrer">developerstory</a> — a place where developers share their real salary journeys with actual numbers. </p> <p>this is my story. one new story every week.</p> <p>if you're sitting at ₹20K–₹40K wondering if things will change — they will. but only if you make them change.</p> <p>the one decision that mattered most: taking the ₹10K internship.</p> <p>everything else was downstream of that.</p> career webdev beginners