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21-year-old IIT Hyderabad student secures Rs 2.5 crore package, highest in institute’s history
Varghese secured the role through a pre-placement offer following a two-month summer internship at Optiver, rather than through multiple campus interviews.
Varghese secured the role through a pre-placement offer following a two-month summer internship at Optiver, rather than through multiple campus interviews.
The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad has recorded its highest-ever placement after a 21-year-old computer science student secured an annual package of Rs 2.5 crore, at a time when campus hiring across top engineering institutes has been subdued, as reported by The Times of India.
The offer was made to Edward Nathan Varghese, a final-year BTech student in computer science engineering, who will join global trading firm Optiver as a software engineer. The role is based in the Netherlands, with Varghese set to begin full-time employment from July this year.
The institute informed that this is the largest package ever received by an IIT Hyderabad graduate since the campus was established in 2008, surpassing the previous record of around Rs 1 crore set in 2017. Until now, offers in the range of Rs 60 lakh to Rs 90 lakh had been considered exceptional for the relatively young IIT.
Varghese secured the role through a pre-placement offer following a two-month summer internship at Optiver, rather than through multiple campus interviews. According to the institute, two IIT Hyderabad students were selected for the internship programme, but Varghese was the only one to receive a full-time offer after completing a short training phase and project.
Varghese informed The Times of India that Optiver was the first and only company he interviewed with and that he received an indication of the offer from his mentor following the internship, which he described as a moment of great excitement for both himself and his parents.
Born and raised in Hyderabad, Varghese later moved to Bengaluru for his schooling from Class 7 to Class 12. He said his early preparation and exposure at IIT Hyderabad helped him navigate the recruitment process despite cautious hiring sentiment, adding that his long-standing interest in competitive programming played a significant role. He informed the publication that he had been involved in competitive programming since his first year of engineering and ranked among the top 100 in the country, which helped him clear the interview process.
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