Big tech firms prefer IIT postgraduates engineers, offer higher salary

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and machine learning, Technology companies are now looking for talent with stronger domain knowledge in emerging technologies.

Companies are hiring IIT PG students, who are well aware and posses the in-depth understanding of AI, robotics, and machine learning, and offering them enticing perks including a good hike in salary.

Among the many IITs, there has been increase of 30 percent in offers to PG students at Kanpur, Chennai, and Roorkee while top salaries have jumped by up to 90 percent.
Recently commenced IITs offers to PG students and the top salary increased almost two times at Gandhinagar. This year IITs saw 154 percent increase in terms of number of PG offers in comparison to last year.

At IIT-Kanpur, as many as 432 PG students accepted job offers at this year’s placement season, a 33% increase compared with last year’s number of 325. The average salary is estimated to be around Rs 14 lakh a year, compared with Rs 12.8 lakh last year.

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PG students, including those pursuing dual degrees, received more offers than undergraduates this year at IIT-Madras and IIT-Bombay. At IIT-Bombay, 637 of the 1,007 offers went to PG and other non-B-Tech students. PG offers rose 45% in the case of IIT-Roorkee to 213 so far this season, placement-in-charge NP Padhy said. The highest pay package at Roorkee so far this year was Rs 38 lakh, compared with Rs 20 lakh last year.

Among many companies that are recruiting include Intel, Tata Motors, Samsung.

Generally, a higher percentage of undergraduate students gets placed during campus hiring than those pursuing postgraduate degrees.

According to experts in the sector, the shift is happening due to higher demand in AI and robotics. PG students, both from STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and humanities streams are in demand for jobs in emerging technologies. PG students are usually picked for engineering R&D, analyst and faculty positions. Those pursuing dual degrees mostly get non-technical positions.

“More and more PG students are in demand as companies are looking at hiring domain knowledge specialists. Especially within IT and even in other sectors, companies prefer to hire postgraduate students to build tech teams,” Ashok Pamidi, a senior director and member of the outreach programme at Nasscom was quoted by ET.

Over the years, the number of start-ups, mostly large e-commerce firms, hiring from these institutes has almost doubled.