Ex-Google | Stanford LEAD | Ex-Founder | Sr. Engineering Manager. Career systems for engineers who want FAANG offers, faster promotions, and leadership roles. 650+ interviews conducted, 1,100+ engineers mentored. Read by 178,000+ engineers across platforms.
How To Become a Crorepati on a 9-5 Salary
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Hey Reader, Today, I am revealing the system I wish someone taught me while I was at 4.25 LPA. My friend Sagar called me last night. "Abhishek, be honest. ₹14 LPA at TCS. Bangalore rent. EMIs. Parents asking for money. I save maybe ₹3L a year. How the hell am I supposed to become a millionaire?" I told him the truth: "You're asking the wrong question." The question isn't "how do I save more?" The question is: "How do I think like someone who will have ₹2 Crores by 45?" Because Sagar will retire with ₹60L if he keeps doing what he's doing. His batchmate Rahul? Same college, same company, same ₹14 LPA? He'll retire with ₹2Cr+. I've watched this happen. Over and over. Let me show you the exact framework: I. The Millionaire Skill (Start Here) Most engineers think becoming a millionaire means "start a startup" or "get lucky with stocks." Wrong. It means: Get absurdly good at a skill that millionaires have. Here's what I did when I was at ₹4.25 LPA, stuck, and desperate: I Googled: "What do millionaires in tech actually do?" The list:
I made a grid: Career Path → Interest / Skill / Time 1/ Staff Engineer 2/ Engineering Manager 3/ Solutions Architect I picked Engineering Manager. Not because it paid the most. Because I was already decent at people skills (3/5), genuinely interested (4/5), and could see a path (4-6 years felt real). Here's what I realized: I wasn't great at math. Going back to school for some advanced degree would take 3 years + ₹15L I didn't have. But learning to lead teams? To design systems? To communicate up and down? That was the fastest path based on MY skills. Your turn: List 5 millionaire-level tech roles. Rate your interest + current skills. Pick ONE that scores highest. That's your target. Everything else is noise. II. Cut the Broke Friends (I'm Serious) This is the hardest one. You will never become a millionaire if you cannot cut broke people out of your life. I'm not saying they're bad people. I'm saying their mindset will cap yours. Six years ago, I told my friends I was going to transition from service to product, learn system design seriously, and eventually become an EM at a top company. I thought they'd be excited. Instead:
They didn't mean to hurt me. But they couldn't be less interested in my goals. We'd meet for drinks, and they'd talk about:
Meanwhile, I was:
The truth? Your energy is finite. Your broke friends, if they're not interested in your goals, if they make fun of your ambition, if they can't even LISTEN without glazing over, they're killing your momentum. I had to create distance. Stopped going to every hangout. Stopped explaining my goals to people who didn't care. It hurt. But it worked. III. Find Rich Teachers (The Free Way) Once you cut the broke friends, you need to replace them. Not with more friends. With teachers. Think about whoever is at the level you want to reach. For me? That was EMs at Google, Flipkart, and unicorns. I asked myself: "Would they want to have coffee with me right now?" Honest answer: No. Current Abhishek at ₹4.25 LPA has nothing interesting to say to an EM making ₹80 LPA. So what would make me interesting enough? I made a list of 10 people I wanted to learn from:
Then I studied them obsessively:
Cost: ₹0 Result: A roadmap. A pattern. The pattern I found: Every single one:
I didn't need them to mentor me. I needed to study what they already shared publicly. IV. Stop Wasting Time (Your Most Important Asset) Time is your only real asset. Between a 9-5 job, commute, and dinner, you have maybe 4 hours/day. Most engineers use it like this:
I used it like this:
Here's the key: On mornings? I listened to podcasts during my commute. Evenings? I studied. Weekends? I built. In the shower? I thought through system design problems. I used EVERY waking minute to build the skill set. Not because I'm special. Because I believed: Someone knows something I don't. If I learn it, I can have what they have. That's it. That's the entire hack. But most people:
You do deserve to relax. But 14 hours/week of Netflix won't make you a millionaire. 2 hours/week of actual rest + 12 hours/week of directed learning will. V. Go Into Debt to Invest (Most Controversial) This is the hardest one to accept. Most people think: "I'll invest when I have extra money." You will never have extra money. Lifestyle inflation eats everything. Here's what I learned: You have to invest BEFORE you feel comfortable. Not in stocks. Not in crypto. In yourself. Examples from my life: 2019: ₹18K design patterns course
I did it anyway. That course got me through 3 interview rounds. Led to ₹20 LPA offer. ₹8L bump from ₹18K investment. ROI: 44x in Year 1. 2020: ₹25K to attend tech conference
Met an EM from Flipkart. Had coffee. Got a referral 8 months later. Interview → ₹28 LPA. The pattern: When you invest (even if it means debt, even if it feels uncomfortable), you:
Grant Cardone says, "If you don't invest time and money, you will never have time and money." He's right. Indian version: You don't need to spend ₹8 lakhs on masterminds. You need to spend:
One year from now, you're either the same person who "couldn't afford it"... Or you're a different person who invested, learned, and jumped. VI. Get in the Room (No Excuses) To go from zero to millionaire, you need to get into rooms with people who can actually help you. If you don't get in the room, you won't become that person. My strategy: When I committed to attending Bangalore meetups, I'd tell myself: "Abhishek, in 3 months, when you attend this meetup, you need to have completed XYZ projects so you can talk about them." Because right now? I was lame. Right now, I have nothing interesting to offer anybody. But in 3 months? I could create something.
You can become somebody worth talking to in 3 months IF you know you're committing to be in a room with people you want to impress. Practical actions: Find 10 people you want to learn from. Find rooms they'll be in (meetups, conferences, online communities). Invest your money to get in that room. Then, when you show up, impress the hell out of them. VII. Become the Ultimate Stalker (The Good Kind) Before any meetup, any conference, any networking event: Research the hell out of who will be there. Don't be creepy. Be informed. Find out:
My rule: Walk into every room knowing exactly who my 5 targets are. Not to "network with everyone." That's amateur. To find the handful of people who can actually move my career forward. The secret: It's always a handful. You're not trying to meet 50 people. You're trying to find 3-5 people who are 2-3 levels ahead of you. Then have meaningful conversations where you:
Most people waste conferences talking to everyone. Millionaires target their conversations. VIII. Learn to Sell (Yourself) The richest, most successful people all know how to sell. Making money is a game of knowing how to sell. Every day you're selling:
As engineers, we hate this. "My code should speak for itself." No. It doesn't. Your manager has 8 reports and 47 Slack messages. Selling = Making your work impossible to ignore. What I learned:
This isn't corporate BS. This is: Visibility = Promotions = Higher Comp = Millionaire Math. But here's the real insight: You have to sell YOURSELF on you first. If you don't believe you're worth ₹50 LPA, you won't negotiate for it. If you don't believe you can become an EM, you won't put in the work. Confidence in yourself comes first. Then confidence in selling others on you becomes easy. IX. Set Your Millionaire Metrics (Daily Math) Here's the coolest thing about becoming a millionaire: It's literally just math. But you're in a 9-5. So reverse engineer: To hit ₹1 Cr TC in India:
Break that down further: What do you need to do EVERY DAY to get there?
That's it. When you break ₹1 Crore down into daily actions, it stops being scary. It becomes: Do these 4 things today. Repeat for 1,000 days. X. Remind Yourself You're Still Broke Even when you hit ₹50 LPA, you're not rich. You're well-paid. That's different. Rich = ₹10 Crore net worth. Passive income. Fuck-you money. My daily practice: I look at my vision board. Then I look at my bank account. Back and forth. Vision board:
Bank account:
The gap keeps me honest. Keeps me hungry. Your reality today doesn't match your potential yet. Your potential is SO MUCH GREATER than what you've already created. But you have to have this vision of where you're going. You have to believe: I can actually become a millionaire. Not just "I hope." I WILL. Because when you simplify it — when you realize becoming a millionaire is just learning specific things, doing specific actions, for a specific amount of time — it stops being a dream. It becomes a plan. The Uncomfortable Truth You can become a millionaire on a service company salary. I've seen it happen. I'm watching it happen right now. But not with service company spending habits. The system:
The millionaire gap isn't talent. It isn't luck. It's systems + discipline + time. Bonus: Companies That Hire from TCS/Infosys/Wipro Last week you asked for this list. Here it is: Product Companies (50-100% hike): Flipkart, PhonePe, Groww, CRED, Razorpay, Swiggy, Zomato, Zerodha, Paytm, Meesho, Postman, Hashedin, Thoughtworks, Freshworks, Chargebee, BrowserStack Global Tech (100-150% hike): Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Salesforce, Intuit, Walmart Labs, Goldman Sachs Tech, JP Morgan Tech Fintech (80-120% hike): Jupiter, Fi Money, Slice, Coinbase India, Polygon Labs What they want:
Your TCS experience isn't the problem. Your positioning is. The Choice These 10 steps took me from ₹4.25 LPA to Google EM. They're taking Sagar from "I'll never be a millionaire" to "I have a plan." Same works for you. What's ONE step you'll execute this month? Hit reply. I read everything. P.S. Save this. You'll want the companies list for your next switch. And the 10 steps when you're tempted to give up. -Abhishek The Guided Growth |
The Guided Growth
Ex-Google | Stanford LEAD | Ex-Founder | Sr. Engineering Manager. Career systems for engineers who want FAANG offers, faster promotions, and leadership roles. 650+ interviews conducted, 1,100+ engineers mentored. Read by 178,000+ engineers across platforms.
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