Shardendu Tiwari, 27, a former Amazon cloud engineer who earned nearly ₹46 lakh annually, will be commissioned as an officer into the Indian Army at the Officers Training Academy (OTA) in Gaya on Saturday, according to a report by The Times of India.
Tiwari faced hurdles before making it to the Army. He went through the selection process eight times before eventually clearing it. He was later selected through the Technical Entry Scheme, which enabled him to combine his technical background with a career in the Army, the report noted.
He stated the Army’s opportunities for adventure and field postings were among the factors that attracted him to military service.
Tiwari grew up in Neelmatha, Lucknow, while his family originally belongs to Pipergaon village in Sultanpur district. He did his schooling at Kendriya Vidyalaya in Chandimandir, Haryana. Tiwari then completed a Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology, followed by an MTech in Computer Science and Information Security from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.
He comes from a family with a strong military background. His father, Honorary Captain Raj Kumar Tiwari, served in the Army Service Corps for 36 years before retiring. His father’s long Army career influenced him from an early age and inspired his decision to pursue a career in the armed forces.
At OTA Gaya, Tiwari was given the role of Senior Under Officer (SUO), one of the senior positions held by a cadet during training. He also likes playing basketball and table tennis in his spare time.
He also declined an offer from aerospace company Airbus along with leaving his corporate job, the report said.
In related news, Captain Amar Simha Yadav’s decision to leave a well-paying corporate career for the Indian Army drew attention on social media. His story offers a different path for engineering graduates who often aspire to secure lucrative jobs abroad.
The story gained traction after software engineer Vikas Alwys posted about Yadav on X, formerly Twitter. According to the post, Yadav earned his B.Tech degree from IIT Mandi and later joined Larsen & Toubro (L&T) as a Senior Engineer in the UAE. Despite having a stable job overseas, he eventually decided to leave it.
The IIT Mandi graduate then moved away from the corporate sector and pursued a career in the Indian Army.
“Even though he had a secure and well-paying career, he chose to follow his dream of serving the nation, despite his parents wanting him to keep his stable job,” Vikas said.
“He said all he used to do was sit at a desk, gaining weight and losing his eyesight. Whereas the Army is the only organization where you are paid to stay fit, earn respect, and serve the best troops in the world. So he joined the Indian Army as a Captain | Combat Engineer Officer,” he added.
Vikas concluded, "During his service, he commanded an Engineer Task Force of over 120 military personnel and trained more than 100 troops as a Company Commander. Today, he has started a new journey at IIM Calcutta."
Garvit Bhirani is a journalist based in Gurugram. He is a Deputy Chief Content Producer at LiveMint, where he covers national and international news stories, focusing on accuracy and compelling storytelling for readers.
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With a total of six years of experience in journalism, he has previously worked with Vaco Binary Semantics for Google, taking on the role of news curation lead, and reported from the field on health, education, and agriculture stories for 101reporters and News9. He has also served as a content editor for entertainment and news media organisations.
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Garvit holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and mass communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Gurugram University, respectively. During college days, he joined India’s only non-profit student journalism network, where he anchored daily news updates and produced his own weekly show called ‘Data Fix’.
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He was selected for the YES Foundation Media for Social Change Fellowship in Delhi, the Talking Data to the Fourth Pillar residential workshop, and the VOICE Fellowship in Pune.
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He holds certificates in COVID-19-verification reporting, data journalism, food & agriculture, tech policy, media literacy and countering misinformation, and tackling election disinformation courses from Thomson Foundation, IndiaSpend, The Dialogue, US Mission in India, and AFP.
<br><br> He can be reached on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garvit-bhirani">LinkedIn</a> or on <a href="https://x.com/GarvitBhirani">@garvitbhirani</a> on X
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