'My father sold my mother's jewellery to...': Microsoft engineer recalls family's sacrifice behind ₹1.9 crore career

A Bengaluru-based Microsoft engineer has shared the personal story behind his career journey, recalling how his father sold his mother's jewellery to pay his college fees years before he went on to earn an annual salary of ₹1.9 crore at Microsoft's Seattle office.

Manu Agrawal, now a senior software engineer at Microsoft in Bengaluru, recalled that his family once struggled to arrange even ₹15,000 for a semester of his Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) course.

"My father sold my mother's jewellery to pay my BCA fees. ₹15,000 per semester. That's all it cost. But we didn't have it," Agrawal wrote in the post.

Don't Miss: Your iPad can now be your main WhatsApp device; Here's how

He said watching his mother quietly part with her gold bangles left a lasting impact on him.

Years later, while working at Microsoft's Seattle office, Agrawal said he called his mother after he began earning an annual salary of ₹1.9 crore and told her she could buy back whatever jewellery she wanted.

 

 

According to the post, her response was: "Beta, tere aane se sab wapas aa gaya (Son, you came and I got back everything)." Agrawal ended the post with the line: "Some debts aren't financial."

Agrawal's career reflects a steady rise through some of the world's biggest technology companies. According to his LinkedIn profile, he joined Microsoft in 2017 and later moved to Redmond, Washington, where he worked until 2020 before returning to India. He then spent over two years at Google in Bengaluru before rejoining Microsoft in Bengaluru in July 2025.

His earlier posts have also detailed the path that brought him there. Agrawal grew up in Jhansi and studied in a Hindi-medium government school before pursuing a BCA from Bundelkhand University. He later completed a master's degree from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, secured a Microsoft internship and eventually landed a full-time role in the US.

'I wasn't working late for Microsoft'

In another recent LinkedIn post, Agrawal reflected on his internship days at Microsoft, saying he often worked until 1 am even though nobody expected him to.

"Nobody asked me to. No manager pushed me. No extra pay," he wrote.

"I wasn't working late for Microsoft. I was working late for the boy from Jhansi who had no business being there."

He said the extra effort eventually helped him secure a pre-placement offer.

The post also revisited his humble beginnings, including studying in a school where the fees were just ₹5 and scoring 28 marks in computer fundamentals at one stage of his academic journey.

'Google gave polish, Microsoft gave depth'

Agrawal has also shared his views on working at Google and Microsoft.

In a separate LinkedIn post, he wrote that Google gave him "polish" while Microsoft gave him "depth."

According to Agrawal, Google felt like a workplace where employees were constantly aware of the company's culture and brand, while Microsoft offered greater ownership, ambiguity and opportunities for growth. He concluded that neither company was better than the other, but each shaped employees differently.