Fresh Graduate Intern being overloaded in a startup
My younger brother is a 2026 passout and recently joined a startup in Noida. It started as a 6-month internship with a full-time offer afterward. He was genuinely excited about starting his career.
Along with him, 3 other freshers also joined. The difference is that those guys are mostly unallocated and chilling in the office, while my brother got assigned to an actual client project directly under the Director of the startup.
Now the issue is that he is literally handling the entire backend development almost alone. He is creating APIs, managing tickets, merging code, handling everything himself. In just 2.5 days, he created around 22 endpoints. Despite this, he is constantly being pressured with unrealistic deadlines.
The Director keeps asking him “when will this be done?” for every task, without understanding that development work can involve blockers, debugging, investigation, requirement clarification, etc. Even after working 9 hours in office, he comes back to his PG and continues working late at night. They are also expecting him to work on weekends.
What’s worse is that instead of appreciating his efforts, the Director keeps demotivating him by saying things like “you are not putting enough effort into work,” even though he is already giving 200%.
He is just an intern earning 12k stipend. This is his first industry experience and honestly it’s mentally exhausting him already.
I wanted advice from experienced people here:
- How should a fresher handle unrealistic expectations and constant pressure?
- How can he professionally set boundaries without risking his offer?
Would genuinely appreciate some guidance.