Indian tech workers pay stalled or fell for one in three professionals this appraisal cycle, according to a survey by Blind, the anonymous community app for professionals. In the survey of 2,178 India based professionals, 35% said they received no salary hike (30%) or took a pay cut (5%). Including those who got 1% to 5%, 59% received a hike of 5% or less, up from 34% in 2025.
Dissatisfaction among Indian tech workers was high. Overall, 63% of respondents were dissatisfied, including 47% who were very dissatisfied. Among those who got no hike or a pay cut, 83% were dissatisfied, compared with 33% of those who received more than 5%. The gap suggests the result, not just the process, drove the mood among respondents.
Indian tech workers blamed company level factors more than their own ratings. Asked for the biggest factor behind their hike, 41% pointed to company financial performance or cost cutting, and 18% pointed to AI and automation changing team priorities. Only 22% cited their individual performance or manager rating. The survey ran from 15 to 26 October 2026, and company level results cover firms with at least 30 responses per company.
Indian tech workers at Zoho and Microsoft
Zoho gives the sharpest example in the survey. Founder Sridhar Vembu froze annual hikes this year, citing rising AI and server costs, and said the company would work to avoid mass layoffs. Among Zoho respondents, 95% received no raise or a pay cut and 90% were dissatisfied. Last year, 84% of Zoho respondents reported a hike above 10%.
On Blind, a Zoho employee wrote that Zoho staff were talking about unionisation after no hike. The comment is one worker’s post, not a union filing, but it shows how a freeze that was framed as a trade for job safety can still anger staff when the change from last year is that large.
Microsoft shows a similar pattern on a larger scale. Among Microsoft respondents, 91% got 5% or less this year, doubling from 45% last year. Only 5% got a raise of more than 10%, down from 27%. About 86% were dissatisfied, the second highest share after Zoho. The findings come as Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees across India, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as it pours money into AI.
Indian tech workers across other large firms
Beyond Zoho, a hike of nothing or a pay cut was most common at Oracle (60%), Salesforce (42%), Cisco (40%) and Amazon (36%). Those figures are shares of each firm’s respondents, not shares of each firm’s whole workforce, so they describe the survey sample rather than a full payroll count. Even with that limit, the pattern across firms is consistent: small or zero hikes were common in 2026.
Two firms stood out in the other direction. Nutanix stood out with 67% of respondents receiving raises above 10%. Amazon’s results were split: 36% received no raise or a pay cut, while 33% received raises above 15%. The split at Amazon suggests different teams, roles or performance bands saw very different outcomes in the same appraisal cycle.
The survey also tracked what Indian tech workers searched for on Blind. Over the past year, 21% of Blind users in India searched for layoffs or severance, up from 16% the year before. The share searching for buyouts and voluntary exit programmes rose 60%, while the share searching for hikes, raises or pay freezes fell 7%. Search data shows what workers worried about.
What the survey does and does not prove
The Blind survey of Indian tech workers has limits that matter for reading it. It covers 2,178 India based professionals who chose to answer, not a random sample of the whole Indian tech workforce. Year on year comparisons use 2,417 India based respondents to Blind’s 2025 survey. A self selected sample can overstate dissatisfaction, since unhappy workers may be more likely to answer a pay survey.
Even with that limit, the direction of change for Indian tech workers is hard to ignore. The share getting 5% or less rose from 34% in 2025 to 59% in 2026. At Microsoft, the share of Indian tech workers getting 5% or less doubled from 45% to 91%. At Zoho, the swing from 84% getting above 10% last year to 95% getting nothing or a cut this year is large by any measure.
For Indian tech workers, the survey describes a year in which pay growth slowed sharply while firms spent heavily on AI. Workers named cost cutting and AI as the main drivers, ahead of their own performance. The next appraisal cycle will show whether 2026 was a one year squeeze tied to AI spending, or the start of a longer period of smaller hikes.