Defence, aerospace firms have designs on niche engineers from IITs, competing with Big Tech
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Defence and aerospace companies are competing with high-frequency trading companies and tech giants in the clamour for engineers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), buoyed by their expansion plans and the entry of private firms in the space and defence sectors.These engineers are set to take on advanced manufacturing and product design projects in private companies based in India and seeking billion-dollar business avenues.“With the rise of space-tech startups—not just rocket makers like Skyroot, but also many promising satellite makers and space-intelligence-based startups in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and elsewhere—for the first time, India's top-tier candidates have a reliable and promising career opportunity to partake in truly world-class engineering right from India,” Temasek-backed Skyroot Aerospace said in an email response to Mint.Founded in Hyderabad by Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, who were once colleagues at the Indian Space Research Organisation, Skyroot Aerospace is India’s highest-funded space startup with $95 million in venture capital funding to date. It is set to make its first commercial rocket launch from Indian soil by March 2026.
Chandana and Daka are alumni of IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras, respectively.The company said this year Skyroot held its first “structured” recruitment drive across 20 top-tier institutes in India—including the IITs, the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, and the Indian Institute of Science. From 3,500 applicants, about 65 students were offered a job.The enthusiasm of aerospace and defence companies to recruit engineers comes as a bevy of both established and new-age companies went to the IITs this year.
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