A female techie has alleged that the startup she worked for made members of its AI team sleep on the office floor to meet deadlines, then verbally terminated them without notice and refused to pay them their May salaries.
In a Reddit post, the woman, who described herself as a junior machine learning engineer, claimed that the team, made up largely of fresh graduates, was blamed for a failed deployment after weeks of intense work and overnight stays at the office. “We are all fresh graduates who finished our degrees just last year, and we poured everything we had into this role, only to be treated like garbage,” the user wrote.
The techie said that the AI team spent much of May 2026 working on computer vision and AI deployments under intense pressure. She alleged that the management instructed employees to pack their bags and stay at the office. The office provided sleeping bags and expected employees to sleep on the floor so they could continue working around the clock.
“The company provided sleeping bags and expected employees to sleep on the office floor so we could continue working around the clock on the product. Some team members spent multiple nights at the office,” she wrote.
The techie claimed that the office lacked basic facilities for employees expected to stay the night. “To make matters worse, the office didn’t even have a shower or proper facilities for employees expected to stay overnight. As a woman, I personally found the situation extremely uncomfortable, unhygienic, and deeply unprofessional,” she said.
Further, the woman said that tensions escalated after a major AI development failed. She alleged that instead of conducting a technical review, management blamed junior engineers who were following instructions.
The techie outlined a timeline of events. According to the post, on May 29, the AI team was allegedly asked to 3 days of “paid operational level” while management reviewed the team structure. When employees returned on June 4, she said that the team was moved to a separate floor away from the rest of the technical staff.
Then, on June 5, the techie said that the entire AI team was allegedly called into a room and verbally informed that their employment had been terminated with immediate effect. “During the same discussion, management explicitly told us that our salary for the entire month of May—the exact month we spent sleeping on the office floor without a shower—would not be paid,” the woman wrote.
The employee alleged that there were no written warnings, performance improvement plan, show-cause notices or termination letters. “Just a verbal firing and a statement that our earned wages would be withheld. When we asked for written documentation, we were told that if management had to issue formal termination paperwork, our records would not remain ‘clean’,” she said.
She also said that on June 6, the team emailed management seeking written confirmation of their employment status, termination documentation and payment wages. However, as of June 10, the employee said that the they had received no response.
Social media reactions
The post prompted several users to advice the team to seek legal assistance.
One user wrote, “Send them a legal notice from a lawyer who specialises in Labour law, also file a Public Interest Litigation in courts against the company.”
“Its illegal to without pay , its illegal to not pay overtime , its illegal to fire without cause , its illegal to withold fnf documents. If there is any justice left in corrupt judiciary of this country you will get justice, hire a lawyer with your team. Sue them for harrasment, non payment of dues. Write a linkedin post , write a anonymous reddit post and see this company and its owner disapper into poverty overnight,” commented another.
“You should take it to the court and file a case against them. You need to reveal the name of these lala company as well. Make a post on Twitter and LinkedIn and keep them visible to everyone. They would reach out to you themself the moment you create the post. No doubt they will try to threat you but they have a point …. We are not slaves, don’t accept the things as it is … We need to teach a lesson to them,” wrote a third user.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
