India’s GCC Boom, Talent Prowess Could Soon Push EPAM India’s Workforce To 20,000

Software engineering company EPAM is continuing to make large investments in its Indian operations. With ambitious hiring plans, a focus on generative AI, and expanding client engagements, EPAM is gearing up to solidify its presence as a premier innovation hub in the region.

Growth And Hiring

EPAM’s expansion in India has been backed by a strong hiring strategy. Srinivas Reddy, Managing Director of EPAM India, revealed in an interview with BW Businessworld that the company plans to onboard around 500 new hires in the second half of the current fiscal year. This aggressive recruitment drive is part of a broader vision to scale up from the current 8,000 employees to potentially 15,000 and even 20,000 in the next few years.

“We are onboarding about a hundred people a month from colleges. I think we will do about 500 people this year (500 in the second half of the current fiscal year),” said Reddy. This growth trajectory has been essential for EPAM to meet the increasing demand from its clients, which includes over 200 companies served out of India.

Reddy outlined the rigorous selection process for new hires, which includes clearing two coding challenges to ensure strong foundational skills in computer science concepts, data structures and algorithms. This focus on high-quality engineering talent is critical for maintaining EPAM’s competitive edge.

The company is heavily investing in AI training and upskilling programmes. Reddy stressed the extensive efforts to integrate AI into the curriculum for new hires. “Part of their curriculum when they join EPAM has AI and Gen AI built in. We will still hold to what EPAM has been doing in India for eight years. We will select people with very good foundational computer science skills data structures, algorithms and so on. But we will complement that with relevant AI and gen AI stuff as we scale up our size in India.”

EPAM’s client roster in India is diverse and extensive, with 200-plus clients, including between 50 and 60 Global Capability Centres (GCCs) of very large companies, which seems to be a catalyst in the company’s India focus. This client base points to the strategic importance of India not just as a delivery centre but as a market in its own right.

“India was always a strategic location, but it’s become a centre of innovation and the centre of real advancement around AI adoption and use of Generative AI” - Elaina Shekhter, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer and SVP at EPAM 

EPAM’s Indian operations are heavily focused on product and platform engineering, cloud data and open-source technologies. The company has established offices in major tech hubs, including Pune, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Chennai and the largest location in Hyderabad.

Focus On AI And Generative AI

EPAM said that has been integrating advanced AI and generative AI technologies into its services. The company has apparently developed over 500 proof of concepts (POCs) in generative AI, moving many of these into the pilot stage, where practical implementation is tested.

“The last two years have been around the creation of a ton of POCs for EPAM... We’ve been at it for three years, probably driving about 500 plus different proof of concepts using generative AI,” Shekhter explained. She stressed on the shift from POCs to pilot projects as a critical step towards making AI solutions operational.

Both executives asserted that as EPAM intensifies its AI initiatives, India and its talent pool will serve as pivotal assets for the company’s success.

Rohit Chintapali

BW Reporters The author is Regional Editor (Technology & South) at BW Businessworld.