- Ketaki Vaidya joined Oracle in 2017 as a new graduate in India.
- Vaidya advanced from associate software engineer to AI product manager in seven years.
- She said for overseas transfers, there’s more than base pay to negotiate.
Ketaki Vaidya had worked in Oracle’s office in Hyderabad, India for about five years when she wanted a change.
As a software engineer, she was keen to be part of Silicon Valley’s innovations. She negotiated a move to California in 2022 and has since transferred to Seattle.
Vaidya shared how, over seven years with Oracle, she navigated two promotions, a career change, and the international transfer.
Associate software engineer
She began her post-college career as an associate software engineer at Oracle’s office in Hyderabad, India.
One of the first things Vaidya did was gauge what her entire team wanted from her, instead of focusing only on her supervisor.
“Managers always take 360-degree feedback, and they go around the entire team and talk to the entire team to get a sense of what your work is like,” she said. “When you keep your team happy, you automatically keep your supervisor happy.”
She also scheduled regular check-ins with her manager to get feedback and she highlighted her aspirations, like working with particular software, so that her manager could tap her when the opportunity came up.
She made about 900,000 Indian rupees, or $10,700 annually.
Software engineer
Vaidya was promoted to software engineer after two years.
She said she followed female role models who reminded her to credit herself, not just the team.
Being vocal meant always discussing her next promotion and growth opportunity with managers. She made sure to document and communicate her successes.
“They knew that I was very invested in my career, and then my managers would really help me all around the year to get better projects.”
In this role, Vaidya was paid 1.2 million rupees, or $14,200 annually.
Senior software engineer and team lead
After four years at the company, Vaidya was promoted to senior engineer, where she led a team of seven.
At the end of her projects, Vaidya said she found ways to demonstrate her work to leadership, like sharing what she learned on the team’s group chat.
She also carefully filled out her annual appraisal documents, drafting them several times.
“I’ve seen that a lot of people don’t take that very seriously, but it’s something that goes into the system,” she said. “That’s going to be taken into account every time you move up the ladder.”
In this role, Vaidya was paid 2 million Indian rupees, or about $24,000 annually.
Shifting roles and US transfer
As she progressed, Vaidya felt pulled to product management. She used her free time during the pandemic to chart what a job with more business strategy could look like.
“I set up 15-minute sessions with about 200 people on LinkedIn to understand what this field was,” she said. “The more I talked to people, the more I realized it was something that I wanted to do.”
She didn’t think she had all the necessary skills, so she applied for master’s courses specializing in product management in the US, so that she could better understand global work culture.
But when she tried to resign, Oracle “didn’t want to let me go,” she said. Her job was critical to releasing a product, so the company offered her a product management role in the US instead.
She negotiated a new salary with an eye toward the much higher cost of living in the US — even though Oracle was taking on significant costs, including for her visa.
“You can’t let the excitement show in the conversations that you’re having with your hiring managers,” she said.
To gather salary data, Vaidya looked at Glassdoor and talked to people who had made the move before.
“I was being given this offer for the credibility that I had built in the organization. I felt like I had an upper hand in negotiating,” she said. “I was much more confident in asking for the things that I deserve — so it ended up being a very smooth transition.”
After negotiating her base salary up to $80,000, she discussed other compensation components, including her next review’s timing, sign-on bonuses, relocation costs, paid leave, and remote work. She negotiated a sign-on bonus of $15,000 and relocation allowance of $15,000, which weren’t part of the initial offer.
“Everything under the sun is negotiable and you just have to start with that mindset,” she said.
The 2022 move took her to Redwood City, California, where she is an artificial intelligence product manager.
She has since moved to Seattle and plans to explore working in other US states.
Vaidya said that she has picked up two things from the work culture in the US: She has been inspired to work on projects beyond her job, such as speaking at conferences and hosting tech podcasts, and she has learned how to set better work-life boundaries.
Now, her compensation is about $130,000 annually, including stock units and bonuses. Business Insider has verified her work history and current compensation.
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