Hey everyone, please anyone of you please reply to this message it would be really very helpful as I am really very confused so , I'm a 2025 ECE graduate from Bangalore and I've been sitting on this TCS Ninja joining letter for a while now. Joining date is 7th May 2026, training in Trivandrum, work location Hyderabad. The role is System Engineer (Ninja track) at ~₹3.36 LPA.
Here's my dilemma my actual skill set is in RTL/VLSI design, not IT/software, and I'm worried this role has nothing to do with what I've spent the last 2 years building. Would love honest opinions from people who know the industry.
My background & skills:
SystemVerilog / Verilog RTL
FSM design, 4-stage pipelining
Full SoC Tapeout (GF 180nm)
RTL → GDSII as sole owner
Synopsys Full Flow
DC, IC Compiler II, PrimeTime, ICV
Cadence Full Flow
Xcelium, Genus, Innovus
SoC Microarchitecture
I2C slave FSM, AMBA APB, UART
Physical Design & STA
DRC/LVS sign-off, timing closure
Verification
Self-checking testbenches, SVA, UVM
ISRO R&D Internship
Algorithm dev, computational modelling
Key projects I've done:
• Executed institute's first-ever silicon tapeout on GF 180nm — sole RTL owner, took DBP from RTL to GDSII. 160ns positive slack, 8-stage pipeline, DRC/LVS clean.
• Designed a biomedical SoC digital subsystem — 12-state I2C FSM, 3-stage metastability synchroniser (MTBF >10⁹×), zero cycle-to-cycle jitter across 22 continuous cycles.
• Validated signal chain in MATLAB, translated to fixed-point Verilog with 48-bit CIC precision and pipelined 32-bit complex multipliers.
My concern: TCS Ninja is a generic IT track. I'll likely end up doing Java/testing/SAP work and my entire RTL + EDA skill set goes to waste. But I also don't have another offer right now and the job market is rough. Should I join as a safety net and keep applying? Or hold out for semiconductor companies?
Companies I'm targeting: Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Texas Instruments, Mirafra, Entuple, Sankalp Semiconductor, Wipro VLSI division.
Has anyone here made this tradeoff joined TCS/Infosys IT role with a VLSI background and regretted it or managed to switch? Any honest advice appreciated. 🙏