Former employee at Narayana Murthy’s Infosys on work culture of 1990s: ‘We slogged like…’

Infosys was founded in 1981 by Narayana Murthy and several other prominent engineers.

A former employee at the Indian tech giant Infosys has shared his experience of working at the company decades ago. He gave the insights while reacting to a purported old video from the Infosys canteen in Bengaluru, which has gone viral on social media platforms. Param Arunachalam opened up on X about what life and work was like at the tech firm when the industry was just taking off in India and across the globe.

How was the work culture back then?

In a series of X posts, Arunachalam said that long work hours defined the IT work culture of that era. “We slogged like hell. A 15-hour workday was routine. I spent 50+ hours in the office once. Don’t be misled by 90-second videos.” He, however, added that it was a great time to work. “But that was because we had humbler backgrounds than the average employee now and we had more or better opportunities because the industry was nascent. My first onsite trip was before I completed my first year in Infosys and there were others in my batch who went before me,” he stated.

‘We were living the dream’

Arunachalam also fondly recalled the early days at the Infosys office in Mangaluru — then called Mangalore. “Our batch of the first 20 employees of Infosys Mangalore were featured in a recruitment ad in Udayavani about three months after we joined! We were living the dream.” He added: “My experiences were different from my big city counterparts in Bengaluru– we were more tight-knit and fun.” Arunachalam’s posts quickly went viral, with many fellow X users appreciating the balance and authenticity in his insights.