India is among the leading global hubs for hiring world-class product engineers. In addition, India has a thriving entrepreneurship culture complemented by an excellent ecosystem and is one of the go-to destinations for tech startups worldwide.
As a result, there is a welcome surge in startups and small businesses in the market that have proven to be instrumental in driving remarkable economic progress.
Consequently, they have cemented themselves as integral to the country's pursuit of becoming a multi-trillion economy.
Naturally, startups in India have attracted a lot of eyeballs on a global scale. Their numbers continue to rise and are increasingly gaining a reputation as catalysts for business growth and creating jobs. Major Indian startups that have made a global footprint include Ola, Byju's, Razorpay, Freshworks, FusionCharts, Nykaa, and numerous others and are on the way to doing the same.
The significance of remote product engineers from India in enterprises
A major contribution to the positive progress of such startups is engineers. With a vast array of product tech companies in India, product engineers are always in high demand. Moreover, these professionals are widely regarded for their unique skill set and quality of work. Indeed, Indian product engineers are an asset to the worldwide tech product industry.
But you must be wondering what makes Indian product engineers so good and coveted by tech product companies and businesses in the US, EU, or ANZ?
India has a major advantage of being a billion-plus strong. This, coupled with the favorable policies, has made India a hub for pilot rollouts and concept testing. Moreover, with a strong focus on technical education for the masses, India has experienced phenomenal growth in IT services and product engineering over the last few years. This trend is on an upward curve.
The following summarises some of the key pointers why hiring product engineers from India is beneficial:
✓ Large number of globally winning VC funded tech product companies in India.
✓ Demographic advantage of a large technically qualified and English speaking population.
✓ Cost effectiveness: Overall cost of living is low compared to other parts of the world.
✓ There is a substantial investment in tech product startups, thereby making engineers highly employable.
✓ There is a large pool of engineers who have strong technical backgrounds in various aspects of product design and development
Which types of engagements can one have with Engineers in India?
- Project-based freelancers
Project-based freelancing involves hiring a qualified individual for a specific short-term project that needs to be completed within the company. The pros and cons of this include the following:
Pros
✓ They can work on multiple projects simultaneously
✓ Greater commitment
✓ Provision for IP protection
✓ You can hire them quickly
✓ You have the flexibility of hiring them on a short-term basis, on and off as needed.
✓ Save money in the hiring process
✓ Possibility of bringing in a candidate with a wide range of skills
✓ Or, hire someone with an ultra-specific skill set
✓ Get a fresh perspective from remote talent
Cons
✓ Any delays from their end can slow down the progress of your project
✓ Recruitment overhead costs
- Agencies
It isn't easy to find the right candidate for your software development agency. However, with assistance from a recruitment agency, you can find the right candidate who is ideal for your company's goals and objectives in terms of the development of software products and applications.
Pros
✓ You can highlight your specific needs to the agency and get the ideal person for the job
✓ Quicker and hassle-free hiring process
✓ Get specialist knowledge
Cons
✓ Higher costs
- Long term Full-time employees / contractors
Hiring full-time employees will give you a dedicated product engineer to help complete your projects. The pros and cons of taking a full-time product engineer aboard your company include the following:
Pros
✓ Higher productivity
✓ Availability of top talent
✓ Higher scope for innovation and creativity
✓ Better aligned to your mission statement
✓ Opportunity to build and leverage deep expertise in specific skills and industries
Cons
✓ Extra costs pertaining to management overhead
✓ Need to undertake compliance administration
Why is Long term Full-time employment preferable over employing agencies or freelancers?
While all the options stated have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, and you could go with any of them based on your organizational need, the usual go-to option by employers in other parts of the world is full-time employment of product engineers.
A typical engineer from India would give utmost importance to job stability. However, a certain stigma is attached to getting employed through an agency or being bound to a contract. While this is not exactly a generalization, one does come across situations where a product engineer from India would inherently prefer a full-time offer.
From the perspective of the employee, there are usually certain expectations about full-time employment that serve as benefits for the prospective employee(s):
✓ Having work hours within set hours
✓ Annual work guaranteed
✓ Provision of regular pay, either through hourly wage or a salary
✓ Company benefits
✓ Timely payments
✓ Job stability
✓ Company benefits
So if you want the best pool of product engineers from India, it is advised to keep a full-time opening ready. While this is not a necessity, and you don't have to compromise on your requirements, it is an option for which you should have an open mind.
However, as mentioned, there is a stigma attached to a contractual role that it is the last resort for someone unable to get employed full-time. However, in recent years, the Indian market has evolved by leaps and bounds. Consequently, many product engineers wouldn't consider taking a contractual role if substantial benefits are offered.
Hiring in India: The process, challenges, and other particulars
The hiring process in India is typically very straightforward and tedious, owing to the vast number of applications. The generic process entails the following:
✓ The hiring company identifies their needs to designate the role they are looking for.
✓ Formal preparation of a job description highlighting all the crucial details such as responsibilities, qualifications, skills required, location, compensation details, and perks.
✓ The next step is searching for the right talent. Again, we will discuss this explicitly after we have outlined the hiring process.
✓ Screening and shortlisting the candidates who are deemed suitable for the position. This is perhaps the most crucial part of the hiring process. However, the advent of applicant tracking system software has made the process simpler and hassle-free.
✓ The recruitment team then interviews the shortlisted candidates. Going by the number of people in the hiring team and their specific requirements, several interviews are scheduled for each shortlisted candidate. These typically include telephonic/video interviews and face-to-face interviews.
✓ The final step involves offering employment once the candidate has expressed that they are ready to join the company or organization.
Various hiring channels that can help in the hiring process
Job boards
Employers often utilize websites to advertise their job vacancies for prospective employees. Some of the most widely used job boards in India are:
- Indeed
- Google search
- Monster India
- Naukri.com
Job boards are an integral aspect of job search in India. For example, suppose you are looking for a product engineer with certain specifications regarding experience, skills, roles, and responsibilities. In that case, you can narrow it down to an ideal candidate on these job boards.
Recruitment agencies
By taking the assistance of a recruitment agency, you can rest assured that you will depend on someone in the know. Recruitment agencies work directly with employers and will have a good idea of what you are looking for. As a result, they are equipped to get you the most skilled product engineers who are in sync with your requirements.
Talent marketplace
These AI-driven platforms align employees to their most suitable roles based on their skills, interests, and preferences. Using the talent marketplace, you can fine-tune the most promising product engineers to get well-acquainted with your company's working methodology. This is known as a verticalized marketplace, wherein you particularly focus on product engineers with a specific mastery over skills that are relevant to you.
Resume database
You can access a searchable resume database of qualified candidates anytime you want. This will let you tap into potential candidates who are ideal for your job.
Comparing different hiring media
As evident from the graph below, online job boards are usually the most cost-effective solution for hiring product engineers in India, even though they have the least probability of closure. Utilizing a verticalized marketplace is also a viable and cost-effective option.
Recruitment agencies have a high probability of closure, but the cost and efforts involved are challenging.
Fully-loaded costs of product engineers in India
Fully-loaded costs are the total costs (salary plus additional charges) of an employee. These additional charges typically include health insurance, vacation, overtime payment, etc. The following table highlights the fully-loaded costs of product engineers in India complemented by various engineering skills:
Common hiring challenges in India
In general, recruiters face many hiring challenges in getting the right candidate. Some of the common challenges are listed below:
- There is a shortage of talent with specific skills as required by the company.
- Too many applicants for a particular job.
- Great candidates are juggling multiple offers at the same time.
- Many candidates are not willing to take up long-term associations
- Matching salaries with expectations
What are the benefits that product engineers in India enjoy?
You must be aware of the various benefits that are offered to product engineers in India. It would be a good idea to offer some or all of the following perks to a product engineer from India so that you can get the best of the lot.
✓ An exponential growth curve.
✓ Room for their creativity to flow.
✓ A good salary package.
✓ Foreign relocation possibility.
✓ Health and other insurances (in most cases).
✓ Provision for WFH.
✓ A dynamic and active work culture.
✓ Paid and sick leaves.
Most in-demand benefits post the pandemic era.
After the global pandemic shook the economy and marketplace, product engineers have become pickier about the jobs they go ahead with. But, more importantly, there is an increased emphasis on the employer's perks. The most in-demand perks include:
Potential for growth and learning
A product engineer will not slack around in one role or position for a long time. Instead, they need a dynamic work environment that gives them ample opportunities to learn new skills, get well-acquainted with relevant tools and software, and experience growth on a personal and professional level. After all, the very nature of their job lies in thinking out of the box and many steps ahead.
Foreign relocation
This is good news for people looking to hire professionals from India. An engineer's job satisfaction also includes:
- Experiencing new cultures and lifestyles.
- Interacting with new people from other countries.
- Working on global platforms.
Many product engineers are more than willing to relocate to foreign locations.
ESOPs
In recent years, employees have increased interest in ESOP (employee stock ownership plan). In simple terms, an ESOP is an employee benefit plan which offers them an ownership interest in the organization they work in. One can consider this a good option to encourage people to join their organization.
Family insurance coverage
Of late, family insurance coverage is one of the most coveted perks from an organization. This includes a single premium and insurance amount and provides coverage to the entire family. To be precise, it consists of the spouse, dependent children, dependent parents, and in some cases, even the siblings.
Home office setup
This is perhaps the most recent development. WFH has become a norm, and many employees have an inherent preference for working from home. As such, they often ask for a home office setup as a primary perk of joining an organization.
Parting words
India has firmly established itself as one of the best places in the world to hire remote product engineers. With a plethora of talent and many advantages of hiring from India, it is easy to see why engineers from the country are in such high demand worldwide.
Now, while one can take care of all these pros and cons, the legalities involved, the employee policies, and other relevant aspects, an easy way out is the EOR or Employee of Record model. A Global Employee of Record is a third-party service that enables small, medium, and enterprise businesses easily onboard, manage, and pay international employees. An EOR can essentially handle everything from legal compliance to payroll processing for your employees working across countries.
At Wisemonk, we have associated with several global organizations as their trusted global EOR. We will discuss it more, but that discussion is for a different time, another blog.
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