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NIT Kurukshetra to Big Tech: Indian engineer maps her AI-driven rise across Amazon, Meta and Microsoft
Nandita Giri’s journey highlights how learning artificial intelligence outside work helped her climb the ranks of Silicon Valley’s biggest firms
An Indian software engineer, as per a report by Business Insider, working in the United States has offered a rare inside look at how careers evolve inside some of the world’s most powerful technology companies, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, and how self-taught artificial intelligence skills can accelerate that journey.
Nandita Giri, 32, began her professional life far from Silicon Valley, studying mathematics and problem-solving at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra. Her big break came in 2018 when Amazon recruited her directly from campus, relocating her to Seattle and launching her career in Big Tech.
At Amazon, she found that engineering went beyond simply writing working code. The company, she said, puts a strong emphasis on how software is built and how it will scale over time. Hiring and performance reviews are closely tied to Amazon’s leadership principles, making cultural fit just as important as technical skill.
It was also during her time at Amazon that Giri began exploring artificial intelligence on her own. Outside office hours, she started learning AI through online tutorials, blogs and hands-on experiments. What began as a hobby soon became a professional advantage. She built simple AI agents to automate everyday tasks, dramatically reducing the time they took to complete. Those experiments, she said, helped her stand out as AI began to move to the centre of product development across the tech industry.
Her growing AI expertise caught the attention of Meta. In 2022, a recruiter reached out to her on LinkedIn, and she joined the social media giant to work more closely with applied AI and large-scale data systems. Giri described Meta’s engineering culture as fast-moving and tightly integrated, with a single codebase supporting platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
A year later, she made another major move, this time to Microsoft, through an internal referral. The shift was driven by her interest in enterprise-focused AI tools such as Copilot, which are designed to improve workplace productivity rather than consumer engagement.
According to Giri, Microsoft’s culture contrasts sharply with her earlier workplaces. While Amazon and Meta prioritise speed, experimentation and rapid iteration, Microsoft is more focused on long-term impact for businesses operating at global scale.
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