Tejesh Vaish, the 26-year-old son of a sweet seller in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, earned a scholarship, studied at IIT Kanpur and did multiple internships to ultimately bag a s 2.5 crore job at a US-based AI startup. He now works in the company’s Dubai office. Here’s a glimpse of his journey up the ladder.
Tejesh Vaish’s father, Ashok Kumar Vaish, runs a modest sweet shop in Sadar Bazaar, Lucknow Cantonment and earns roughly ₹5 lakh annually, according to Money Control.
Born into a traditional business family that migrated from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, Vaish grew up watching his father spend long hours at the family shop.
“No one in my family has a background in technology. I had to study hard, get a scholarship and take up multiple internships to push myself through college,” Vaish told Moneycontrol.
Vaish studied Computer Science at IIT Kanpur. He graduated with a 9.14 CPI, Moneycontrol reported.
He was also an Alpha GREP Merit Scholar, a C3iHub UG Fellow and a PD Murti Scholar. He said he scored in the 99.9th percentile in JEE and secured AIR 9 in UPSEE.
At IIT Kanpur, Vaish was given the Academic Excellence Award for his stellar academic performance. His Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) was 9.14 out of 10, the report added.
Vaish took up several internships while studying, reportedly earning more than ₹2 lakh before graduation.
In conversation with Moneycontrol, he recalled balancing coursework, projects and internships by starting his day early and often working late into the night.
One of his early projects involved building a mobile application, which gave him hands-on experience in software development and laid the foundation for a career in technology.
After graduating, Vaish started his professional career in Bengaluru before moving through a series of high-profile technology roles.
His resume includes stints at Texas Instruments, Securonix, Squarepoint Capital and Abacus.AI, according to his profile, reported Moneycontrol.
Over the years, he worked on AI applications, machine learning systems and large-scale infrastructure projects. He now works in Dubai in a hybrid role focused on AI engineering, AI agents and machine learning applications.
Vaish said Dubai’s cost of living was one of the first things that caught his attention. “The rent for my office in Dubai is more than the rent the company pays for its US office,” he said, adding that housing is his biggest monthly expense.
He, however, remains disciplined with money.
“I save around ₹3 lakh every month and invest a similar amount through SIPs. The rest is being used to build the family home back in Lucknow,” he said.
Today, a significant portion of his income is going toward a new house for his family in Lucknow, something he considers one of his proudest achievements.
“I make in a month what my father used to make in years. And now, I’m helping my family build a new house.”
