Oracle’s Recent Layoff Impact on Indian Engineering Students
Oracle has recently disclosed plans to eliminate approximately 20,000 jobs across its global operations.
This decision has led to the withdrawal of a significant number of job offers extended to students from leading Indian engineering institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs).
This abrupt reversal comes amidst widespread layoffs, inciting unease as the recruitment season approaches its conclusion.
According to reports from the Economic Times, placement offices have confirmed that both full-time employment offers for the Class of 2026 and summer internships have been rescinded at several esteemed institutions, including IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Guwahati, IIT-Madras, IIT-BHU, IIT-Hyderabad, IIT-Roorkee, NIT-Warangal, and MNNIT-Allahabad.
The rescinded offers reportedly range from two to five per campus, with estimations suggesting that over 50 offers have been revoked in total.
One student affected by this decision, Aditya Kumar Barwal, candidly shared on LinkedIn that his pre-placement offer was retracted due to “internal restructuring and headcount-related challenges.”
Aditya Kumar Barwal’s LinkedIn Update
Barwal detailed his situation on LinkedIn, expressing his disappointment regarding the retraction of his offer from Oracle, which was secured as a Day 0 company.
He is now actively seeking opportunities in AI/ML engineering, backend engineering, and software development.
He elaborated on his background:
- 2021: Achieved NDA clearance with AIR 77
- 2022: Enrolled at National Institute of Technology Warangal
- 2024: Served as an AI/ML Research Intern and initiated a startup that generated over ₹1L in revenue within 30 days, also emerging victorious at Impact Tank
- 2025: Interned as an AI Engineer at Oracle; secured a Pre-Placement Offer, placed as runner-up at Impact Tank
- 2026: Recognized as a runner-up at Velocity Hackathon
During his internship, Barwal engaged in projects focusing on natural language processing, large language model-based clustering systems, and backend AI workflows.
Currently, he is eager to find roles that enable him to contribute to AI/ML systems and scalable backend applications using technologies such as Python, LLMs, NLP, RAG, FAISS, TensorFlow, React.js, Node.js, and MongoDB.
Despite the challenges presented by this setback, Barwal remains optimistic, expressing gratitude for any support or referrals from his professional network.
Oracle’s Hiring History at Premier Institutions
Historically, Oracle has been a prolific recruiter at premier institutions, frequently making between 25 and 35 offers per campus for developer and server technology positions.
The sudden retraction of these offers has proven particularly disruptive, especially given Oracle’s established presence in the recruitment ecosystem.
Institutional Response to the Layoffs
In light of this situation, various placement committees and alumni networks are prioritizing support for affected students. For instance, at IIT-Guwahati, four out of more than ten offers were rescinded.
John Jose, head of the Centre for Career Development and a key figure in the All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC), indicated that discussions with Oracle are ongoing to reconsider the withdrawn offers.
According to AIPC guidelines, companies that retract offers are typically obligated to pay a three-month salary as compensation.
Numerous campuses have reported similar occurrences: IIT-Kanpur experienced a reduction of three full-time offers and one internship, while IIT-Delhi lost three final offers. IIT-Hyderabad saw five offers rescinded, and IIT-Roorkee experienced the loss of four.
Furthermore, IIT-Kharagpur noted two revoked offers from Oracle, along with similar retractions by EMA.ai, SuperAGI, and Interview Kickstart.
Placement officials acknowledged that given the near completion of the recruitment drive, identifying comparable opportunities is proving to be a significant challenge.
Institutions such as NIT-Warangal are actively facilitating connections with other recruiters to help affected students.
Although companies withdrawing offers have occasionally faced blacklisting, Oracle’s longstanding market presence and scale may shield it from such repercussions.
Source link: Timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
