IoT Engineer
Full-time (until further notice)Maintain one SMS gateway. Call it a platform. Attend award ceremonies as 'the tech'.
Notice period: 0 days. Theirs, not yours.
Careers at Althion (parody) — apply at your own risk
Hired on a Monday. Gone by lunch.
Fifteen people, one founder, five firings a year, zero reasons, zero notice. It calls itself a startup but runs like a Lala business — people hired to bow, an owner who is either on holiday or on the highway in a Haryana-plated Thar. The only job security at Althion is being named Anil. Everything below is satire about a culture, not a statement about any person.
Exhibit J — work with Althion
Fired without notice. Fired without reason. Five times a year.
Notice period: 0 daysA satirical careers page for the company that never published one. The founder lets people go the way customers get added to the website — silently, without notice, without a reason. Not once, not twice: five times in a single year. What remains is a team selected for loyalty over standards, where the only competence required is agreeing, and the name Anil is strongly preferred.
The firing ledger — satirical, per the grapevine
Fired without notice. Fired without reason. Fired five times in a year.
0
Firings in one year
Not once. Not twice. Five.
0
Reasons given
Same as published methodologies.
0
Notice periods served
Days. Hours. Minutes. Zero.
0
Standards required to stay
Having one is how you leave.
A hiring process that removes anyone who asks what the 20% is 20% of, and a firing process with no reasons and no notice, select for exactly one trait: not having a standard to defend. That is not a team. That is a loyalty programme with desks — and it explains every slide the marketing department has ever shipped.
Lala business, not a startup
The Lala Index
It calls itself a startup. It runs like a family shop with a pitch deck.
A startup hires people who can disagree with the founder. A Lala business hires people who can bow at the right angle. Guess which one fires five people a year without a reason, keeps the award photos from 2021 on the homepage, and lists the owner's whereabouts as "travelling".
| Dimension | An actual startup | The Lala edition |
|---|---|---|
| Decisions | Data, dashboards, dissent | Whatever the owner felt after lunch |
| Org chart | Flat. Argue with anyone. | A throne, then everyone bowing at the same height |
| Hiring filter | Can you do the job? | Can you say yes before the question ends? Is your name Anil? |
| Firing policy | Performance plan, notice, reasons | Mood. No notice. Five a year. |
| Founder's location | In the building, in the weeds | On holiday, or somewhere on the highway in a Haryana-plated Thar |
| Customer proof | Logos on the website | 'Available on request' and a writ petition |
| Equity | ESOPs that vest | Loyalty points redeemable for one more month of employment |
Owner status: on holiday. Decisions pause, firings don't. The SMS alerts, at least, keep coming.
Owner status: in the Thar. Haryana plates, Hyderabad company, highway speeds. The only thing at Althion moving faster than the headcount.
Satire of a management style. No claim is made about any person's actual driving, holidays or vehicle.
Satire — see footnote
The Anil Index
Anils currently on payroll
3of 5 max
min 3
min 3
Fired this session without notice: 0
Leaked* HR policy
- Hiring filter
Name must be Anil.
Three to five Anils on payroll at any time. Redundancy is a feature: if one Anil is fired, the org chart still says Anil.
- Firing method
Math.random()
No notice, no reason, no pattern. Performance reviews are replaced by a coin the founder keeps in the award cabinet.
- Retention criterion
Loyalty > competence
Ask a hard question about the 20% and you're gone. Nod at 'predictive' and you're a senior Anil.
- Promotion path
Agree faster
The fastest route to Head of IoT is agreeing that SMS is IoT before the sentence is finished.
- Exit interview
None
Same as the customer section: you leave silently and nobody updates the website.
*Not leaked. Invented. That is what satire means. No employee is named; no employee is being called anything. The founder-worship, however, is on the record.
Head of Predictive Analytics
Founding role (9th year)Convert an if-statement into a slide titled 'AI/ML Roadmap'. No model required. No model expected.
Performance review: whenever a nominee director asks a question.
Regulatory Affairs Associate
Contract, renewableType 'CE/BIS pending' on the website. Annually. Update the year, not the status.
Contract ends when the certificate arrives. So: permanent.
Customer Success Manager
Remote (customers also remote)Manage relationships with 40+ institutional customers. Locate them first. Try the Delhi High Court.
You'll be let go with the same warning our customers get: none on the website.
THIS DOMAIN IS FOR SALE20% MORE WHAT?SHOW THE MATHIoT = SMS WITH A VALUATIONCE/BIS: PENDINGLAST AWARD: 2021CUSTOMERS: SEE COURT FILINGPREDICTIVE* (*THRESHOLD)BIG RO. SMALL RO. LAB RO.