Which is a better company to work for in India among Amazon, Akamai, Microsoft, Flipkart, Directi and Google?

I have been at Directi for the past 2 years. I am happily hacking on revenue bending, data hogging, algorithmic-ally complex systems. Not that others don't do so. But here you are responsible from start to end of your projects  which allows you to hack away on the latest technologies and take responsibility of every atomic detail that comes with it. Personally I have had a stupendous growth rate here in every aspect monetary or knowledge wise. Working with amazingly smart people who share a passion for technology has been very rewarding. While I type away this in my 3/4ths, the background is filled with colleagues swearing and debating about the correct implementation that needs to be pushed to production. The work culture here is amazing and being part of the loudest team filled with a lot of corny humor, I am used to forgetting that I have to get back home. This has been a very small gist of the amazing experience I have had at Directi. If you want work at a very fast paced, technologically driven and an environment that is consistently start-up like Directi is the place to be. Best of luck !!!

All of these companies are great places to work at. If you want to get selective, you should figure out what kind of lifestyle you want: Big challenges, fast growth: Join an early-stage high-impact product in a small team where the rewards can be disproportionately high. The parent organization may be a startup or a well-established co. Even if the product does not do well, you will end up learning a lot which should set you on a strong growth path. Easy life, steady growth: Pick a relatively mature product in a large organization. May not sound glamorous, but you would still have a pretty good life. Having said that, there are some reasons why I left Microsoft 4.5 years ago to join Directi and haven't looked back since: 1) Challenge I am currently working on http://talk.to. This is consumer software. The market is global. The problem is not well solved (big gap between typical user experience and available tech) and very complex (several variables which can be fit together in myriad ways). Incredibly challenging intellectually as well as execution-wise. 2) Learning Building a large, complex system FROM SCRATCH helps you learn more and faster as compared to doing incremental work on a mature system. Also, given that the team is small, you get exposed to a lot of aspects regarding product strategy, design, marketing, etc. which helps overall growth. 3) Impact In a small team you need to pull your weight. If you do not perform, the product is impacted. If you do brilliantly, you visibly improve the product. Your work - good, bad or mediocre - cannot hide. Everyone, including the CEO, knows what you are doing and how well you are doing. This translates into greater responsibility and faster growth. 4) Money * Direct compensation - equivalent or better than other companies you have mentioned * Stocks - As an early employee of a pre-IPO company, one can make a lot more in stocks as compared to a post-IPO company. Hope that helps

I've worked at Microsoft and have good relations with people working at Google, Amazon and Flipkart. Partially answering your question - * Google - Best work culture. Brilliant people to work with. Generally very happy people, ALL things considered. * Amazon - Probably the best for growth. India operations are expanding and they are starting a couple of new 'divisions' for which intense hiring is underway. Join one of these and differentiate yourself, then watch yourself climb the ladder. * Microsoft - Good in many ways, not very spectacular in anything. This applies atleast to India based development. * Flipkart - I wouldn't suggest flipkart if growth is very important to you. But the learning experience here will be awesome. Some general advice (you'll understand these things when you've worked for a few years) :  - For a first job, the specific team and the specific project you will be working on (atleast for a year) is as important as the company you're joining.  - Dont concern yourself too much with growth if money isnt your primary motivator. Best way to do well - find the job that will give you the most amount of work, the most challenging work, the smartest people to work with, and the freedom to make decisions. Everything else will fall in your lap if you make sure you have these in your first job.

Just to correct you In terms of Salary Direct-i's CTC is 20 , but fixed component is just 11-12 Microsoft,Flipkart,Amazon fixed component - 10.5 fixed Google - 11.5 fixed From my experience in Industry , if you get a job in Google , do take it . Work is decently good. In software industry in India, there are just 2 brands whether someone accept it or not one is your are from Google one is you are not. A google stamp in your career makes you something similar to (ISI mark). You have proved you r the best , after google wherever you go , people will know you are good , you will have an edge over people from direct-i, flipkart or whatever. SO i would say Take a job at google , you will like it. Moreover getting into google is way more tougher then getting into these other companies you mentioned

I have worked in three out of mentioned 6 companies and currently in fourth. As a fresher you would be pretty much excited about joining any one of them and so  should you be, but the single most important thing, which I suggest, is to choose your team/project wisely. Working in a big company is not that difficult/big thing but getting right project/team is extremely important. So as far as your personal growth/learning is concerned you can even choose any startup which offers you great learning curve at this stage. It's difficult to get any inputs about work which you would be doing after joining any company even after you ask your manager beforehand (these things come with experience), then join company and if you find work is not good don't hesitate to switch to some other company if growth/learning is important for you.

I have worked in 3 among the above mentioned companies so it makes me partially qualified to answer this question. I am nearing 5 years of experience and that makes me a hopper :( but i tend to blame it to circumstances. I started my career with Directi when it was in the verge of revolutionizing its hiring process. I was among the first few hires who had the experience of participating in programming contest and at that time, not a lot of people on the floor knew algorithms well enough to recruit at the IITs, NITs and IIITs. I along with 4 other colleagues with a decent algorithmic and data structure background used to invest more than 50% of our effort in creating a strong hiring platform. I have been a code chef administrator and a recipient of several flowery words from some very frustrated participants. I travelled all over the country hiring people and since I was a fresher, I was greatly motivated by that lifestyle. The thing I loved about Directi was that it is way too casual. I never felt that I left college. I used to wake up at 12:30 PM, brush my teeth and end up at work in the same pajamas. There was not much work pressure and I had the freedom to do almost anything. One of my colleagues was writing an extensible message queue which may or may not be used by the company. It is absolutely amazing to work their and the learning curve is high at least in terms of breadth. The down side is that not a lot of their products, which they make their top talent to work in are very successful. That is why they put more weightage on them. Neverthless it is a very unique company and I had an amazing first year. My second job was at Amazon. This one was much difficult. I landed up in a team where my manager and I were the first members to implement a system which was eventually going to save hundreds of millions of dollars for amazon (It eventually did ;)). From a super cool college like workplace, I was suddenly thrown into a blast furnace. Amazon is known for burning its employees and my team was a startup inside Amazon. I have worked for 40 hours in a row without sleep. 60-70 hours a week was normal and no one complained. The thing I hated most about Amazon was its on call schedule. There are times when I stood outside the movie theatre resolving bugs on phone as I miss the climax. The best thing about Amazon however is the growth it offers. I joined as an SDE with the standard amazon offer for 1 year experience and by the time I left, which is 2 years post that, my salary was 2.5 times of what it was at the time of joining. I also greatly admire Amazon's developer tools. I think it beats any other company by a very big margin. It is almost 5 years ahead of the second best competitor. My third job was at Google. Google's biggest asset is the average IQ on the floor. All the companies you mentioned above, the smartest engineer from them combined won't be half as smart as an average engineer in Google. Google tends to hire the best engineers in the World even for cleaning their toilets. Google engineers are frustratingly smart and therefore though it does an amazing job of making its employees happy, a lot of my Google colleagues have a tough time finding opportunities which truly challenge them. It is almost like being a really really small fish in the biggest pond in the World. I worked at their Mountain View headquarters and there were all sorts of freaks like Topcoder targets, International Olympiad winners, JEE rank 1 etc. around me. Succeeding in Google requires a lot more than individual skill. Everyone is 10x more motivated and if you put a certain amount of effort to grow by 3 levels in some company, that effort might only raise your level by 1 in Google. So it is upto you if you are up for that kind of challenge. Depending on what you value the most make an appropriate selection. I would recommend, if you are able to get through Google, don't let the opportunity slip. The probablity of making into the other companies is higher. Google calls you if you are really lucky :). I made this anonymous because of some intended/unintended criticism. If you need to know anything else, drop your mail id in the comments. P.S. Above is my individual experience and might differ drastically from what the original situation is.

I have worked with one and currently with another. I have friends/contacts in all companies listed except Akamai so I will give it a shot. Microsoft IDC Hyderabad - They have a world-class office and nice talented people. Work culture is good and perks are awesome. People get gifts every 3-4 months like external hard disk, vouchers , bags etc. This year every full time employee got a Windows Phone 8. Work quality is really dependent on the team but on an average I have seen people getting bored with the work in an year or so. Innovation is completely missing and most teams are just working on next releases of already existing products. You won't get to know much about the happenings of open source world unless you are very interested yourself. Join it if you want to have a good lifestyle with an not-so-quality work. Google Hyderabad/Bangalore - I could not get into Google but people who I know who joined Google Hyderabad/Bangalore, I don't get to hear much from them about the company as such. I don't know whether they don't want to share or want to hide something. One friend told me work is very monotonous after 6 months or so but again it depends on the team. However, I have seen my friends getting chance to travel to Zurich, MV, New York Offices and that's a great perk in itself. Salary is similar to others and people are intelligent. If you get an offer, join it without a doubt just because you don't want to miss an opportunity like Google. Bangalore office has slightly better reviews than Hyderabad office. Amazon Hyderabad/Bangalore - This is one company I have never heard good about from any of my friends. The work hours are long, culture is frugal and a developer has to do work like machine setups etc which might get very frustrating. Money is good and that's the reason most people join it.  Directi - I don't have any close friends there but I have heard only good reviews about the place. They work on cutting edge technologies and develop relatively unknown products. Everyone I talked to seems to be working on http://talk.to. Salary is at par with others. It's main office is Mumbai. This is probably the best company to join if you are a fresher techie. Flipkart - Work culture is nice. People are friendly. Meetings are a big time killer here and not attending them seems to be a big deal. Salary is good, free snacks/food add more to savings. However it's still the most immature company of all mentioned though it's moving very fast. Work quality is decent. They have experts for most technologies and your technical growth will be good. Join Flipkart if you are interested in a fast paced dynamic environment. Don't join if you are looking for work-life balance which is probably best at Microsoft. Akamai - No friends/contacts there. Can't say anything about it. But it doesn't seem to be a darling company of young techies. I have hardly seen or heard any of my friends applying for Akamai. It's not exactly a user facing company and hence not so popular with young techie junta. I would also like to mention InMobi along with these companies. If you get a chance to work at InMobi, give it preference over others barring Google.