‘Five months, no full payment’: Engineer claims startup owes him ₹90,000 salary

A startup engineer shared his experience of building a product from scratch while allegedly waiting for months of unpaid salary.

A startup employee’s Reddit post about unpaid salary has raised questions around early-stage companies and employee rights. A self-described founding engineer claimed he built the company’s entire product as the only developer but was still waiting for months of unpaid dues.

Startup employee shares struggle over months of unpaid salary. (Representative Image)

The user said he developed the system as a fresher, helped the startup get paying clients, and is now struggling to recover around ₹90,000 in pending salary.

The post was shared on Reddit with the title, "Solo founding engineer, built the whole product, still owed ~ ₹90k in salary."

The user wrote that he joined an early-stage startup as its only founding engineer and built the entire system, including a telephony AI agent with an event-driven architecture.

"That architecture is a big reason the company has clients at all. 20+ paying ₹10k+/month each, so this isn't a ‘no money coming in’ situation," the user claimed.

Sharing a timeline of his employment, the engineer said he was paid ₹10,000 during his first month as an intern. However, he claimed the next three months of his internship were unpaid.

He added that he was later hired full-time as a Full Stack AI Engineer with a salary of ₹35,000 per month. According to him, four months of salary remained unpaid, with the total amount due adding up to around ₹90,000.

The user said that whenever he asked about the pending payments, he received responses such as, "rent is due," "business needs the money right now," or that the payment would be made "soon."

"I’m not even asking for more than what was agreed, just what I already earned," he wrote.

The engineer also shared concerns about his future job search, saying he had no bank statements or paperwork to prove the agreed salary. He added that he felt guilty for asking for money that he believed he had already earned.

Read the full story here.

How did social media react?

One user suggested that the engineer could start another company and inform existing clients about his role in building the product. However, another user warned that such a move could lead to legal complications.

"It can invite legal battle for OP if he has signed some NDA and/or non-solicitation clause. Almost every contract mentions that employee's code done during employment is employer's IP," the user wrote.

Another comment pointed out the irony of the situation, saying, "Funny how an NDA may exist but no formal compensation document exists."

(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)