From Layoff to Leadership: How One Developer Built a 150-Employee IT Firm
Vijay Sandhu, a software developer laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic, turned a series of freelance assignments into Soft Elevation, an IT company now employing over 150 people with operations in India, the United States, and Europe.
When he lost his job, Sandhu had little thought of becoming an entrepreneur. Like many IT professionals, he had followed a conventional career path: an engineering degree, a software job, and expectations of a stable corporate future. Business ownership was unfamiliar territory, as no one in his family had ever run a company.
Today, Sandhu leads Soft Elevation Private Limited, an international technology firm with more than 150 employees, offices in Chandigarh and Noida, and a presence in the United States, Romania, and France.
The journey from unemployed software engineer to company founder began not with a grand vision but with a crisis. The pandemic-induced layoff forced him to seek alternative income sources, starting with small freelance projects that eventually grew into a full-fledged enterprise.
