New-breed companies pay big bucks for IT talent

A new breed of technology companies is paying
software engineers in India substantially 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 whopping Rs 24 lakh annually to freshers. It even offers
a Rs 1-lakh joining bonus, very unusual 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 bundles 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.