Amid a competitive job market, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Hyderabad) student Edward Nathan Varghese has made a record by securing whopping Rs 2.5 crore job offer from a Netherlands-based trading firm in this year's placements, the highest package ever offered to a student since its inception in 2008. The 21-year-old Edward Nathan Varghese will join Optiver as a software engineer in July after converting his two-month summer internship into a pre-placement offer.
Optiver selected two students for the internship this year, but Varghese converted his internship into a PPO. In a post on X, IIT Hyderabad said, "IIT Hyderabad records an outstanding placement season in 2025, with 24 international offers secured and average packages increasing by 75 per cent. This success reflects the combined efforts of our talented students, dedicated faculty, and the Office of Career Services (OCS), IIT Hyderabad, which plays a vital role in facilitating recruiter engagement, student preparation, and global outreach."
Varghese was born in Hyderabad and completed his schooling in Bengaluru. He secured AIR 1100 in JEE Main and AIR 558 in JEE Advanced. He secured rank 120 in CAT with 99.96 percentile.
He credited his success to competitive programming experience. "I knew that the IIT tag would draw companies to our campus and that the effect of the present job market would be minimal. Also, since first year of engineering, I was into competitive programming and among the top 100 in the country," the 21-year-old told TOI.
Apart from Varghese, another IIT Hyderabad student from CSE bagged a Rs 1.1 crore package. The institute's highest placement package was about Rs 1 crore, recorded in 2017. Last year, the highest placement package recorded at Rs 66 lakh, 2023-24- Rs 90 lakh.
At present, 196 PG students got placed with an average package of Rs 22 lakh. Among UG students, 62 per cent of students applied for placements received job offers.
