Remote work has allowed some Indian tech workers to take on two jobs or pursue side hustles – but some firms are not happy.
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Every day Diya, a 32-year-old from Bangalore, logs on remotely for an eight-hour shift as a software engineer in an IT company. She works hard – but once the workday is over, she stays in professional mode: logging on to her second job, also in IT. “I am very good with animation and am doing a project where actually I make almost as much as I do in my main job, working less hours. It also helps me hone my skills and increase my revenue stream,” she says.
Diya is moonlighting: holding down a full-time job, while simultaneously selling her skills to another employer. She doesn’t see anything wrong with it; her organisation requires her to work around 40 hours per week, and as long as she does that honestly, she believes there’s no reason she shouldn’t have a side hustle.
Yet not everyone is so blasé about moonlighting. Rishad Premji, the chairman of Indian tech and consulting firm Wipro, which recently fired 300 workers for taking second jobs with rival companies, spoke out strongly about moonlighting in the tech industry: “This is cheating plain and simple,” he tweeted.
While the phenomenon exists in other nations, it’s a contentious debate in India, particularly within the tech sector. Veena Gopalakrishnan, a partner specialising in employment law at AZB & Partners, Bangalore, says that while moonlighting isn’t new in India, it’s “become more...
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