A new breed of technology companies is paying software engineers in India considerably more than traditional ones.
Companies like DevFactory, Exponential and Informatica are paying as much as Rs 20 lakh to Rs 40 lakh to talented freshers and mid-level programmers, many times more than the Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 6.5 lakh that large IT services companies pay.
DevFactory, the R&D arm of enterprise software firm Trilogy, is paying a gigantic Rs 24 lakh annually to freshers. It even offers a Rs 1-lakh joining bonus, very strange at entry levels. DevFactory calls itself the world’s first software factory — it focuses on doing higher quality work with fewer, but highly trained specialists. To quickly transform student recruits into tech professionals, it bundle into the compensation package a Rs 1-lakh bonus for the DevFactory University (DU), a training programme conducted in Dubai.
Others offering such packages include US-based digital media solutions firm Exponential, software development firm Informatica, American Express, Rolls Royce and GE, according to HackerEarth’s Market Research. HackerEarth is an online coding platform that tests the coding skill of programmers. DevFactory ran a coding challenge on HackerEarth recently to recruit six software development engineers.
Many product companies are fiercely competing with rivals and startups to attract the best coding brains in the industry. “A great developer is well worth his/her weight in gold. The theory subscribed to here is that a great developer is 5x-10x better than an average developer and that’s the basic law of software engineering talent,” said Ravi Gururaj, chairman of the Nasscom Product Council.
Debabrat Mishra, director in management consultancy firm Hay Group India, said these companies look at problem-solving skills and hire a team player besides looking at strong programming skills.
HackerEarth research finds that a notch below, offering salaries in the Rs 13 lakh to Rs 22 lakh range, are companies like InMobi, Yantra, Target, Ebay, SAP Labs, Walmart Labs, and Directi. These companies specifically look for strong algorithm knowledge and experience in building scalable cutting-edge software. Walmart Labs India, for instance, is hiring 350 people in Bangalore to expand its team of data scientists and technologists in supply chain and pricing technologies. “These firms want strong programmers who can make sense of large sets of data, work on multiple frameworks, and build scalable applications using cloud-based architecture,” said Sachin Gupta, co-founder of HackerEarth.
HackerEarth finds that Indian startups Druva, Flipkart, Practo, Freshdesk, global startups PassportParking and big names such as VMware, Intuit and Intel offer fresher and mid-level salaries in the Rs 7 lakh to Rs 12 lakh range for those with high-level programming skills.
Startups, Gururaj said, can suck away the best talent and create some inflation for the top tier of talent. “But they won’t create general inflation for the average talent pool. This is a game being played for the best 5% of the talent pool and super high wages will not easily trickle down to the masses,” he said.
