India’s technology hiring landscape is witnessing a clear divergence. While the traditional IT services sector is experiencing a slowdown in recruitment due to cautious global spending, automation, and margin pressures, AI startups across the country are reporting a sharp 40 to 50 per cent increase in job openings. This contrast is not temporary or cyclical; it signals a deeper structural shift in the way technology value is being created and consumed.
AI job openings in Indian startups have surged over the past year, driven by the shift of GenAI from experimentation to full-scale deployment, the need to modernise data infrastructure, and the push to build AI-native products rapidly. Conventional IT services covering application maintenance, infrastructure management, and ERP implementation are increasingly facing automation, vendor consolidation, and reduced discretionary spending by global clients. Large IT firms are responding by optimising costs, delaying lateral hiring, and investing in internal reskilling. In contrast, AI startups operate in a product-propelled and intellectual property-driven ecosystem, where value is measured not by billable hours but by outcomes such as predictive accuracy, automation, speed of decision-making, and operational efficiency. This fundamental difference has insulated AI companies from the broader hiring slowdown.
“A key driver behind this hiring boom is the rapid movement of AI adoption from pilot projects to full-scale deployment. Enterprises across banking, financial services, retail, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, and SaaS are no longer experimenting with AI in isolation. They are embedding it into core business processes customer service automation, fraud detection, supply-chain optimisation, personalised marketing, and clinical diagnostics. This has created sustained demand for talent that can build, deploy, and scale AI solutions in live business environments,” remarked Manoj Kandoth, founder and director at Urjja.
India has also emerged as a preferred global hub for AI development. Indian startups are building AI products for global markets, combining cost efficiency with deep technical capability. Venture capital and private equity investors, while cautious overall, continue to selectively back AI, generative AI, and deep-tech ventures that demonstrate clear revenue pathways and defensible intellectual property. This steady flow of capital is directly translating into aggressive hiring plans.
“The demand is strongest for core technical roles such as machine learning engineers, data scientists with applied experience, generative AI engineers working on large language models and retrieval-augmented generation and AI platform engineers, and specialists in computer vision and natural language processing. Importantly, companies are prioritising professionals who can take models from concept to production rather than purely academic or research-oriented profiles,” added Kandoth.
Experts point out that contrary to popular perception, this hiring surge is not driven primarily by fresh graduates. The highest demand is for mid-level professionals with five to 12 years of experience. AI startups prefer individuals who understand both technology and business—professionals who can identify use cases, work with domain experts, manage data pipelines, and deliver measurable outcomes. Roles such as AI product managers, solution architects, lead data scientists, and AI engineering managers are particularly sought after, especially among candidates with domain expertise in BFSI, healthcare, retail, or enterprise SaaS.
Startups are prioritising mid-level and specialist talent over freshers for high-impact AI roles. The most in-demand positions include GenAI and LLM roles (Prompt Engineer, GenAI Research Scientist, LLMOps Engineer, RAG Pipeline Engineer, RLHF Specialist), data and infrastructure roles (Data Engineer with vector DB/orchestration skills, Cloud AI Engineer, GPU Cluster Manager), MLOps and lifecycle roles (MLOps Specialist, AI Lifecycle Engineer, Inference Optimization Lead), and product/governance roles (AI Product Manager, AI Governance Lead, Responsible AI Consultant).
“The fastest-growing roles are in GenAI engineering, LLMOps, MLOps, and data engineering, with hiring largely focused on mid-level and specialist professionals (3–8 years’ experience), while freshers are mainly recruited for support functions like data analytics and BI modernisation. Our report shows that this boom is powered by real productisation, stack modernisation, and strategic investments in AI-first roadmaps, rather than hype,” pointed out Kapil Joshi, CEO of IT Staffing, Quess Corp.
He says that hiring is focused on professionals with three to eight years of experience, with roughly one qualified candidate for every 10 open GenAI positions, while senior talent (8+ years) is scarce, prompting 15-20 per cent higher compensation. “Freshers are mostly recruited for support functions like data analytics, BI modernisation, and data stewardship, as core GenAI roles remain mid-level focused,” added Joshi.
For India’s workforce, the implications are clear. The shift from volume-based service delivery to capability-driven product development means that generic technology skills are losing relevance. Career growth increasingly depends on deep, deployable expertise combined with business understanding. Reskilling into AI is no longer an optional enhancement but a strategic necessity for long-term employability.
HR experts point out that while overall IT hiring has moderated, the slowdown needs to be viewed in context. Q4, particularly December, is structurally a softer hiring period due to year-end closures and planned leave cycles, with demand typically picking up again from the third week of January.
That said, AI hiring has continued to trend upward over the past few months, driven by the rapid scale-up of AI-first startups and enterprises accelerating adoption beyond pilots into business-critical use cases.
“We are seeing sustained demand for roles such as AI/ML engineers, data scientists, prompt engineers, and AI product managers, with hiring increasingly focused on mid-level professionals rather than freshers. Organisations are prioritising talent that brings multiple, adjacent skill sets, combining core AI capabilities with data engineering, product thinking, or domain expertise, reflecting how quickly role expectations in this space are evolving,” observed Sanketh Chengappa - Director and Business Head, Professional Staffing, Adecco India.
He says that despite the increase in AI hiring, the market continues to face a significant skills gap. As a result, companies are selectively hiring adaptable mid-level talent where they can invest in targeted upskilling, rather than relying on large-scale entry-level hiring. “Interestingly, while compensation was the primary driver in 2021-22, today candidates are placing equal importance on stability, quality of work, and long-term learning opportunities, an area where startups are increasingly competitive,” added Chengappa.
