As AI excitement sweeps across the technology landscape, interest in conventional roles like product managers and regular engineers appears to have faded. According to placement managers at the IITs, some of the key requirements are for cognitive science experts, data scientists, quantitative strategists and developers, and AI-focused developers, researchers and application engineers.
The race for AI talent stands out in a curious job description from Palo Alto-based Turing: The candidate must be able to write a multiple-choice question that Google and ChatGPT can't solve. The successful candidate could participate with the option to work from home, according to a student who saw the job description.
“We are excited about the talent coming from IITs,” said a director of US-based Abacus AI, which is looking to recruit from the IIT placements. “We believe these engineers can completely take AI to the next level and create AI agents and engineers who can in turn create applied AI systems,” the official said. The Abacus director did not elaborate on the planned compensation, but students in two of the older IITs said the company would offer students trained in machine learning and Gen AI ₹60 lakhs.
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Of the 23 IITs in India, the first-generation IITs, including Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Kanpur, will start their placement season on December 1. The second and third generation IITs, along with the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), start earlier in August-September to get a head start.
A placement manager said high-frequency trading (HFT) firm Graviton Research Capital offers roughly this offering ₹90 lakh for India-based roles. The compensation for HFTs can go up to Rs 2 crore and could amount to global crore plus. While Da Vinci offers ₹2.2 crore for international roles, placement managers said. In the 2024 batch, some of the top offers were as high as ₹1.4 crore. However, pre-placement offers (PPOs) given to shortlisted students may have been higher.
Japan's Sony Corp. has more than ten positions on offer, including that of an AI engineer, with salaries up to 95,33,840 yen ( ₹53 lakh). The R&D unit of Honda Motor Corp. will hire an AI research engineer for 88,72,000 yen ( ₹49 lakh). IT and consultancy firm Accenture and credit card giant American Express bid around ₹21 lakh for AI specialists.
“The number of companies for both internships and final internships is higher this year than last year. The placements are yet to begin and the number of students is in the thousands, but it certainly looks better than last year,” said the placement team coordinator at one of the older IITs.
Hedge fund World Quant offers approx ₹92 lakh, while algo trading firms Databricks ( ₹45 lakh), NK securities ( ₹80 lakh) and Squarepoint Capital ( ₹66 lakh) target students with similar skills.
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Other top positions on offer include roles at Goldman Sachs ( ₹50 lakh) and Boston Consulting Global ( ₹20-23 lakh), and at Microsoft's offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru ( ₹51 lakh). Flipkart is looking for software developers and associate product managers for ₹26-32 lakh, while Samsung may pay ₹24-69 lakh for multiple profiles including profiles in South Korea.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment, while Microsoft declined to share specific details. A Databricks spokesperson was not available for comment. Queries to the IITs and other potential recruiters remained unanswered.
To be fair, early placement days are no guarantee of how thousands of IIT students will ultimately get jobs. In fact, placement teams at India's top tech schools are scouting potential recruiters early to avoid a repeat of last year's struggle to land jobs for their graduates.
A number of 2024 IIT graduates were not selected at the end of the placement season in May-June. While this reflected the uncertainty in the global economy, many companies also had plenty of pandemic graduates hiring frantically. The institutions then reached out to their alumni and startups and accepted a lower than usual fee.
Last year, Ola, led by Bhavish Aggarwal, was an unlikely recruiter at IIT Bombay ₹27-45 lakh for its taxi and electric vehicle businesses. According to another IIT student, the company is hiring for a position in the founder's office this year.
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