An earlier Venturesity hackathon. Photo credit: Venturesity.
A billion-dollar ride-hailing company wants to hire 100 engineers. Where better to hunt for tech talent than in India! A million engineers graduate from India’s engineering colleges every year. And the best tech companies of the world – Google, Microsoft, and Adobe – have Indians at their helms. That’s why Dubai’s Careem, which operates in 11 countries outside India, is coming to Bangalore on February 25.
“We are looking to hire over 100 software engineers and data scientists for Careem’s research and development centers in Dubai and Berlin,” Careem spokesperson Emma Dourado tells Tech in Asia. For this, Careem is planning to host hackathons in India.
Bangalore’s Venturesity is conducting Careem’s first hiring hackathon, named HaCareem, on February 25 and 26 at 91springboard in Koramangala. This will be a 24-hour hackathon.
Java, HTML, distributed systems, Spring, and Hibernate are the skillsets they want. All the developers who get hired will be placed in Dubai and Berlin.
“We are growing at a high rate and we need to scale our engineering capacity to solve challenges faced in the transportation industry. We are looking to hire globally, but we chose India as it is a growing hub for techies and we want to attract the best talent,” Emma says.
Five-year-old Careem is the youngest of ride-hailing unicorns. It announced an investment of US$350 million from Japan’s Rakuten and Dubai’s Abraaj Capital in December. This was part of a US$500 million round – the rest of which hasn’t yet been disclosed in detail.
Careem’s hiring foray comes at a time when Indian consumer internet companies that bit off more than they could chew are laying off employees. Just today, ecommerce leader Snapdeal and fashion portal Yepme confirmed major cutbacks in operations and downsizing. So it’s an opportune time for those loking to hire tech talent.
See: Snapdeal founders to take 100% pay cut amidst layoffs. Here’s their letter to employees.
Careem’s hiring hackathon in India is also the beginning of a trend, Venturesity co-founder and CEO Subhendu Panigrahi believes. “Companies from countries like Germany, Australia, Canada, and Dubai, where visa regulations aren’t restrictive like in the US, will come to hire and take home talent from India. Careem’s hackathon is showing the beginning of that trend. We’re getting similar requests from other companies in Dubai,” Subhendu tells Tech in Asia.
See: The world’s best firms have Indian CEOs – but why not in Asia?
“Because of the H1B visa curbs in the US, many American companies will find it tough to take talent home. So they will set up offices in India and hire tech talent to work from here for them,” he says.
It’s a good time to be a software engineer in India if Subhendu’s prediction comes true.
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