He dropped out of IIT and then landed a job at Microsoft before he turned 20: ‘Stop blaming, get out….’

He did the unthinkable- dropping out of IIT. However, Ashish Kumar Verma also accomplished the unthinkable - landing a job at Microsoft, at the age of 19, without a degree. Taking to LinkedIn, Verma outlined his journey from quitting IIT, to joining Microsoft.

Reflecting on why he left IIT Delhi, Verma admitted that he always had a passion for technology, but disliked the rigour of academics.

Verma explained that his decision to leave IIT Delhi stemmed from a mismatch between his interests and the institute's highly structured academic environment. While he had always been deeply enthusiastic about technology and innovation, he found the intensive, theory-driven curriculum less appealing.


He believes students can broadly be divided into two groups. The first consists of individuals who enter college without a fixed career path, using the experience to discover their interests and explore different opportunities. According to him, these students are ideally suited for institutions like IIT because the environment helps them experiment, learn, and eventually identify their strengths.


The second group, he said, includes people who already have a clear vision of what they want to pursue even before enrolling in college. He mentioned that several of his friends belonged to this category. Since they were certain about their goals, many chose to skip higher education altogether and instead focused directly on building careers, where they have gone on to achieve remarkable success.

Placing himself in the latter category, Verma said he had already established a strong foundation in the technology sector before joining IIT. At just 18 years old, he had earned recognition as the world's youngest Google Developer Expert. He had collaborated on international technology projects following his participation in the Sakura Science programme in Japan and had also developed a mobile application that he later demonstrated to the Prime Minister of India. Because he already had a defined direction for his career, he felt that a conventional, academically intensive programme did not align with the practical, hands-on approach to learning that he enjoyed.

He also revealed as to why he was eager to join Microsoft. It was not just for the badge, but the endless learning opportunities that tempted him.

“I joined because every rockstar I'd ever wanted to learn from is one ping away. Learning was my first objective, always has been, you could literally directly ping creators of C#, Typescript, Kub engine and get idea which is not available on internet, as with AI execution can be done, but ideas, creativity and taste come from these people who actually know whats going on…” he wrote.

He also revealed that the new workplace gave him ample opportunity to experiment. “There’s room to break things, build weird stuff, and an ecosystem that actually lets you…” he said.

He then stated that if someone has a genuine penchant for building things and exploring technology, they don’t need a degree to do it.

“You don't need to wait for a degree, a title, or anyone's permission to bet on yourself. I already tell this in my sessions if you search on internet "Hey let's make an LLM" technology will not ask for your Bachelors, Masters or PhD to access knowledge, so if you wanna build just build it.Stop blaming system, get out and experiment.” he stated.

Verma currently works as a software engineer at Microsoft.