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Indian techie who left OpenAI to join Meta reveals how to get hired at top AI company
The Indian techie, who started his career at Apple, worked at OpenAI for months before joining Meta Superintelligence Labs.
An Indian techie who graduated from BITS Pilani shared top tips that helped him land jobs in big tech companies. Prakhar Agarwal, who currently works as a researcher at Meta Superintelligence Labs, shared how he landed a job at the company after working at OpenAI.
Who is Prakhar Agarwal?
According to his LinkedIn profile, Prakhar Agarwal completed his bachelor's in engineering at BITS Pilani and then pursued higher education at the University of Washington.
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After working as a research intern for several organisations and as a software engineer at Walmart Labs, Agarwal joined Apple as a machine learning engineer in 2020 and worked with the tech giant for nearly five years.
In January 2025, he joined OpenAI as a member of the technical staff. Almost seven months after joining Sam Altman’s company, he became an employee at Meta in July.
“I started my career at Apple in 2020. I spent five years there, then moved to OpenAI in the OpenAI API team. I moved to Meta Superintelligence Labs this summer when a lot of folks were making the shift,” he told Business Insider during an interview.
He continued, “I was in graduate school at the University of Washington, specialising in machine learning, when I applied to Apple. Later, OpenAI, Meta, and a bunch of other companies began reaching out, so I didn't have to explicitly apply for any of those.”
Top tips to get hired at an AI company:
Agarwal explained that though experience plays a huge role in landing a job at a top AI firm, there are also certain things that an aspirant needs to follow. “I don't deny that experience plays a huge role. In most of these companies, the number of positions is pretty small, so naturally, they're converging more toward experienced folks.”
The techie shared that companies want candidates to be confident in their ability to operate in an ambiguous domain. He added that having a PhD helps.
He highlighted the value of practical work experience. “I recommend that people get their hands dirty and actually work on problems and solutions. Practical experience gives you the required skillset and a base to build on. It'll also teach you what not to do and what won't work. Building that intuition will differentiate you from the crowd at interviews.”
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He shared that companies seek candidates who can communicate, handle problems, and identify gaps.
“Start following people who are sharing a lot on these domains. You might not be able to understand everything on day one, but you'll start picking it up.”
