Science route
Software Engineer (B.Tech Computer Science)
Write the code behind the apps, websites, banking systems and games that people use every day.
First question
What does this person do?
You build software. In practice that means sitting with a laptop for most of the day, writing code in a language like Python, Java or C++, reading other people's code, finding out why something broke, and testing your work before it goes out to real users. Almost nobody works alone: you are on a team of five to ten people, you explain your work to them in short daily meetings, and other engineers read and comment on your code before it is allowed in. The work splits into rough families - the part of an app you can see and click (front-end), the servers and databases behind it (back-end), phone apps, and the machine-learning and data side. The route in is a four-year B.
Tech in Computer Science, and the entrance exam is JEE. The pay bands below are broad editorial estimates across IT services, startups, product companies and global capability centres. They are not campus-placement medians or the highest offers reported in headlines. Institute placement figures retained in Sources describe their own graduating cohorts and do not measure the wider software job market.
Next question
What are they paid?
LPA = lakhs per annum; ₹1 lakh = ₹100,000. These are broad India market estimates across common employers and work settings—not guaranteed offers, audited statistics or the ceiling. References give context, not proof of each exact band. Historical anchors and evidence gaps remain in Sources.
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Entry first role
Estimated range₹3.5–10LPA
Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. IT services, startups, product companies and global capability centres are combined; elite product-company compensation can sit above the band.
Science estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹5.0 LPA · midpoint median across 13 editorial Science routes · compare all routes
Market reference: Glassdoor www.glassdoor.co.in Estimate dated
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Mid about 5 years in
Estimated range₹8.0–25LPA
Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. IT services, startups, product companies and global capability centres are combined; elite product-company compensation can sit above the band.
Science estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹9.0 LPA · midpoint median across 13 editorial Science routes · compare all routes
Market reference: Glassdoor www.glassdoor.co.in Estimate dated
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Senior about 10 years in
Estimated range₹15–45LPA
Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. IT services, startups, product companies and global capability centres are combined; elite product-company compensation can sit above the band.
Science estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹15 LPA · midpoint median across 13 editorial Science routes · compare all routes
Market reference: Glassdoor www.glassdoor.co.in Estimate dated
The vertical line marks the midpoint median of the editorial estimates for this stream. Published examples are excluded. Scale: ₹ lakhs per annum.
Hiring landscape
Who hires for this work?
Examples of large employers and institutions associated with this route in India:
- TCS
- Infosys
- Accenture
- Microsoft
Examples, not a ranking or a promise of a current vacancy. Hiring changes; check the employer’s own careers page.
What it takes to get in
- Entrance exam
- JEE Main, conducted by the National Testing Agency, is the gate for almost everything: the NITs, IIITs, and the Delhi engineering colleges DTU, NSUT and IIIT-Delhi. Clearing JEE Main at a high enough rank also qualifies you to sit JEE Advanced, which is the separate and harder exam for the 23 IITs. Many private universities run their own entrance tests instead, and a few states run their own common entrance test.
- Realistic cut-off
- Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry and Maths. The exam is the whole filter and computer science is the most contested branch in it - at almost every institute, computer science closes at a better rank than any other branch, often by a wide margin. Roughly a million candidates sit JEE Main each year and about 250,000 of them qualify for JEE Advanced; the IITs then admit around 17,000 across all branches. A rank that comfortably gets you an engineering seat somewhere may not get you a computer science seat anywhere you have heard of, and students routinely take a second year to reattempt.
- How long
- 4 years
- Roughly what it costs
₹6–25 lakh
At an IIT, roughly Rs 8-10 lakh in total for four years of fees and hostel, with fee waivers and heavily subsidised loans widely available on the basis of family income. At Delhi's state-funded engineering colleges - DTU, NSUT, IIIT-Delhi - broadly Rs 6-10 lakh. At NITs, roughly Rs 6-8 lakh. Private engineering colleges range from about Rs 6 lakh to well over Rs 25 lakh for the same four years. Coaching for JEE, if you take it, is a separate Rs 1-5 lakh over two years and is the cost families most often forget to count.
Approximate, tuition only, excluding coaching and living costs unless the source text says otherwise.
- Can you switch out later?
- Very good. Software skills transfer to finance, consulting, product management, research, and to starting your own company, and the industry hires on demonstrated skill more than on paper credentials once you have a few years behind you. The common moves out are into product management, into an MBA, into data science, or into a startup. The main thing that does not transfer is the reverse direction: it is far easier to move from computer science into most other fields than to move into computer science from them.
Delhi entry paths
These are the routes people in Delhi commonly take into this career. This is not a ranking of institutions and does not list cut-offs for any particular college.
- JEE Main is written at test centres across Delhi and Delhi NCR; it is a national exam and you do not need to be anywhere in particular to sit it
- Delhi Technological University (DTU) and Netaji Subhas University of Technology (NSUT), both Delhi state universities, admit through JEE Main and are the largest engineering intakes in the city
- IIIT-Delhi, a Delhi government institute that teaches only computer science and electronics, admits through JEE Main
- IIT Delhi admits through JEE Advanced
- Jamia Millia Islamia runs B.Tech programmes admitting through JEE Main
- Delhi's coaching ecosystem for JEE is concentrated in Laxmi Nagar, Pitampura, South Extension and Mukherjee Nagar; a large number of Delhi students instead spend class 11 and 12 at coaching hostels in Kota, Rajasthan
How this compares
| Route | Entry | Mid | Senior |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agricultural Scientist / Agriculture Officer (B.Sc Hons Agriculture) | ₹3.0–7.0 LPA | ₹6.0–12 LPA | ₹10–20 LPA |
| Core Engineer (Mechanical, Civil, Electrical) | ₹3.0–8.0 LPA | ₹7.0–16 LPA | ₹12–28 LPA |
| Research Scientist (Pure Sciences) | ₹4.0–8.0 LPA | ₹8.0–16 LPA | ₹12–25 LPA |
| Software Engineer (B.Tech Computer Science) (this route) | ₹3.5–10 LPA | ₹8.0–25 LPA | ₹15–45 LPA |
| Doctor (MBBS) | ₹6.0–12 LPA | ₹10–24 LPA | ₹18–45 LPA |
| Armed Forces Officer (via NDA) | ₹10–15 LPA | ₹14–22 LPA | ₹18–30 LPA |
Sources
- Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar www.iitbbs.ac.in
2026-08-17: IIT Bhubaneswar's own published 2025 placement statistics, giving branch-wise placement percentage, median and average salary: Computer Science and Engineering median Rs 14 lakh against an average of Rs 23.2 lakh, and the lowest package recorded that year at Rs 5.5 lakh 2026-08-17: Historical published anchor for the entry rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: This figure covers a much narrower group of graduates than it appears to. These are published MEDIAN starting packages at two nationally ranked government institutes: IIT Bhubaneswar's own 2025 placement disclosure gives a median of Rs 14 lakh for its Computer Science and Engineering branch, and IIIT-Delhi's NIRF 2025 submission gives a median of Rs 18,00,000 for its four-year B.Tech graduates in 2023-24, with 420 of 444 graduates placed (IIIT-Delhi teaches almost only computer science and electronics, so its institute-wide median is close to a computer science median). Two things to hold on to. First, the median is far below the average: in the same IIT Bhubaneswar disclosure the CSE average is Rs 23.2 lakh against a median of Rs 14 lakh, because a handful of very large offers drag the average up. Second, this band describes only graduates of institutes like these. The same disclosure records its lowest package that year at Rs 5.5 lakh. Most computer science students in India study at colleges that publish nothing, and no acceptable public source states what they are paid.
- National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org
2026-08-17: IIIT-Delhi's data submitted to the National Institutional Ranking Framework for India Rankings 2025: median salary of placed four-year UG graduates of Rs 18,00,000 in 2023-24 (420 of 444 graduates placed), Rs 18,50,000 in 2022-23 and Rs 17,00,000 in 2021-22
- National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org
2026-08-17: IIT Delhi's NIRF 2025 submission: median salary of placed four-year UG graduates across all branches of Rs 19,08,000 in 2023-24, with 711 of 946 graduates placed
- Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre www.vecc.gov.in
2026-08-17: Official Department of Atomic Energy table mapping designations to 7th Pay Commission pay levels and giving each level's basic pay band: Level 10 Rs 56,100-1,77,500, Level 11 Rs 67,700-2,08,700, Level 12 Rs 78,800-2,09,200 2026-08-17: Historical evidence gap for the mid rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: No acceptable public source publishes what an Indian software engineer earns at around five years. The salary sites people usually quote are self-reported compilations whose terms forbid this use, so they are excluded here, and no government or institutional dataset breaks software pay down by years of experience. What can be said with a source is the government path: an engineer recruited as Scientist/Engineer-SC at ISRO starts at Level 10 of the pay matrix, basic pay Rs 56,100 a month, and moves to Level 11, basic Rs 67,700, as they are promoted. That is basic pay before allowances and it is not what the private software industry pays - the private figure is generally much higher, which is exactly why it cannot be guessed at here. 2026-08-17: Historical evidence gap for the senior rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: Same problem as the five-year rung, and worse. By ten years engineers have split into very different jobs - some still writing code, some managing teams, some at large product companies, some at small consultancies - and their pay spreads out enormously. No source that this project is willing to cite publishes a figure. The sourceable government anchor is Level 12 of the pay matrix, basic pay Rs 78,800 a month, which a government Scientist/Engineer would typically be approaching around this stage. Treat any confident single number you see elsewhere for a ten-year software salary in India as unsourced.
- Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre www.vssc.gov.in
2025-09-20: Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (ISRO) recruitment advertisement confirming that Scientist/Engineer-SC, the entry-grade post for engineering graduates in the space programme, carries Level 10 of the pay matrix with a minimum basic pay of Rs 56,100 per month plus dearness, house rent and transport allowances
- JEE (Advanced) jeeadv.ac.in
2026-08-17: Official JEE (Advanced) site confirming that the exam is the admission route to the 23 IITs and is organised each year by one of them
- Glassdoor www.glassdoor.co.in
2026-08-21: Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. IT services, startups, product companies and global capability centres are combined; elite product-company compensation can sit above the band.