The changing profiles of in-demand IITians

livemint.com:

Zomato is scouting for algorithm engineers at IIT campuses. High frequency trading companies are looking for statistical process control experts with high scores in quant. Consulting companies want associate product managers.

And conglomerates are seeking chemical engineers for their ESG operations. Recruiters prowling the premier engineering schools at this year’s hiring season are shunning students with the regular academic profiles, instead picking to-be-engineers who have worked in complex projects. Blame AI.

“If we wanted regular coders, engineers, or get impressed with presentations, we would have relied on ChatGPT," said a partner at a leading consulting company that has hired more than 10 students from the Indian Institutes of Technology at Mumbai, Delhi, Kharagpur, and Kanpur. “We are looking at students who can run complex projects and work in operations that require them to bring more than one skill set." The campus hiring season this year began on 1 December. Placements offices across the IITs said food-delivery platform Zomato was seeking out algorithm engineers and students with a combination of software developer, machine-learning and data science chops.

Ride-hailing and electric vehicle maker Ola is targeting students familiar with autonomous technologies, artificial intelligence, machine-learning, silicon design, vehicle engineering, and research experience in cell development. The demand is for engineers who can do more of a consulting role as well as be armed with digital skills beyond coding, say recruiters. “Companies are figuring out which roles will get automated… they will not hire from IITs for profiles that will become redundant," said Sunil Chemmankotil, chief executive at staffing firm