My wife and I gave up $1 million in Big Tech pay to move from California back to India. I couldn’t find purpose in the US.

Nithin Hassan moved back to India in 2023 after nearly 20 years in the US.

I grew up in and around Bengaluru, India, in the late 1990s and 2000s.

I moved to the US in 2006 for a master’s in computer science. After graduating, I worked at AT&T, Cisco, Amazon, and Microsoft for the next 13 years. In 2021, I switched to Meta, where I helped build data centers for the company.

I got married in 2013, and my wife also worked in Big Tech in the US. We really enjoyed life in the Bay Area — we had bought our own house and had a strong friend circle I saw as my family outside India. We also had two daughters, who are now 6 and 2.

My wife and I were growing in our careers and making about $1 million in compensation together. I didn’t feel like my career or learning had stagnated, and I managed to find time for personal projects like writing books about business.

But around the pandemic, something felt missing. I felt like I had not yet found my purpose.

Golden handcuffs

I knew I wanted to give back to my hometown in some way, and I had spotted a problem I could build solutions for. I was also tired of missing out on things back home — I wanted to be close to my family while my parents were still healthy.

I realized that a well-paying job in the US was my golden handcuff — it kept me from moving back home and filling both those gaps.

Giving up our life in the US and my job was a tough decision for my family, but I wanted to follow a minimum-regret mindset.

When I told my colleagues at Meta about my plan, they thought I was crazy. We had just gone through a big 30% layoff, and I was among those that got to stay. The company even offered to move me closer to India, but I went ahead with my resignation.

I decided to return to India in December last year after nearly two decades in the US.

A startup to marry 2 passions

I took a monthlong break to sort my ideas and came up with a plan.

I had been noticing how temperatures in my hometown, Bengaluru, had risen drastically in the last 10 years. Even the monsoon months, which are supposed to be pleasant, started feeling like summer because of all the urban development.

It worried me that there weren’t any major government or private initiatives looking to improve things — even the tech giants I worked at were looking at climate solutions indirectly. I came up with the idea of building an e-commerce platform that aims to improve urban greenery. It gave me an opportunity to combine two things I love, technology and gardening, which was always my escape when things got busy.

I launched my startup in January and have been working on scaling it up since. I have also built a mentorship and job-readiness platform to help those looking for career guidance.

Both my ventures are bootstrapped, and I only plan to bring on any partners if they are a strategic fit. I don’t want the pressure of an investor pushing me to make decisions that only have a financial benefit, because I don’t want to lose sight of my original purpose.

Bureaucracy and big commutes

I love being back home, but there are challenges. India is still not among the highest-ranked countries for the ease of doing business, and I have faced bureaucracy when setting up my startups.

We’ve had to make sacrifices as a family too. My wife is still working at a Big Tech company and spends much more time commuting than she did back in the US. I have two daughters, and inequality in Indian workplaces and concerns for their safety also weigh on me.

But there is a different joy in building solutions for India and the problems that I grew up around, like improving local greenery and better access to mentorship.

Another big advantage is that the Indian market is chaotic. Even long-established players are still trying to figure it out, which makes it easier for new entrants. The market size has also been encouraging. One of our first orders came from the opposite end of the country, which was surprising because we had not even begun marketing or search-engine-optimization campaigns.

But most importantly, I feel like I have found what was missing.

Growing up, I heard my parents talking about their regrets and things they wanted to do. I didn’t want any regrets when telling my kids about my life.

I tell myself: I’ll explore my own venture for five to 10 years and go back to a corporate job if things don’t work out. I’ll have a bigger experience and a better story to tell.