Global companies offer fat pay to city talent for web, AI, ML

Hyderabad: Demand for web technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has been on the rise when it comes to placements for students in the city. Surprisingly, many companies have also recruited students for data science roles. The start-up culture has also been on the rise that offers a lucrative package to students who are looking for career growth.

Pay package also shows a healthy trend with the average CTC (cost to company) for an employee in 2021 at around Rs 28 lakh and more per annum at a few companies. The basic package offer starts from Rs 18 to Rs 22 lakh per annum and extends up to Rs 65 lakh.

Many educational institutions in the city have also observed an increasing demand in the number of International offers for students. "The number of international offers at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) has been increasing year after year. In the Phase 1 placements for academic year 2021-22, 34 international offers have been received so far (as compared to 31 overall in 2020-21)," said Dr. Abhinav Kumar, faculty in-charge, office of career service, IITH. He added that the Phase 1 had begun in December and the Phase 2 is expected to start from January 2022 for all the undergraduate and graduate students. Placement opportunities are available in diverse areas like automobile, data analytics, information technology, machine learning etc.

A few employees got a hike in salaries as well, and over 90 per cent of them got placed just in the first 10 days of the placement season. “Compared to last year’s average package, we saw an increase of around 15-18 per cent. A good number of globally reputed companies conducted virtual placement drives and offered positions to our students at packages that were better than usual. A lot of demand was observed in areas such as web technologies and AI and ML,” said T. V. Devi Prasad, head, placements, at International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H).

Placements will begin in the middle of January, 2022, for the PGP Class of 2022; the cohort will graduate in May 2022 and will be joining their organisations by the month of June onwards. “The seven major functions for which hiring happens are: product management and technology, sales & marketing, consulting, general management and strategy, finance, supply chain and operations, and business analytics,” said Ankit Agarwal, senior associate director, careers advancement services, Indian School of Business (ISB).

The ISB has always been strong on the international placements front, with companies from South-East Asia, Middle East, Africa and others coming forward looking for talents. In fact, more than a fifth of the alumni who graduated from the ISB over the past 20 years have worked or are working outside India.

These institutions regularly organise interactive sessions, career guidance programmes, and other activities to create awareness at an early stage amongst the students.