Big Salaries Make A Comeback For Engineering Grads; Google, Microsoft Offer Crore-Plus Pay Packets

MUMBAI: Google has set the placement season at top non-IIT engineering colleges off to a rocking start, offering $2,35,000 (Rs 1.44 crore) to BITS-Pilani students who make the cut for international vacancies, according to campus sources involved in the process. Microsoft is offering Rs 79.51 lakh for jobs at its Redmond headquarters.

Last year, Google and Microsoft had offered top salaries of Rs 68.34 lakh and Rs 60 lakh, respectively. Reflecting upbeat business sentiment, aggressive recruiters including Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, Schlumberger and lesser-known startups such as CodeNation have hiked pay packets by up to 25 per cent compared with the previous year, mostly for domestic jobs.

They are also stepping up hiring in a big way. “There has been more than 40 per cent growth in the number of recruiters this year and the Goa campus has seen a 100 per cent increase,” said G Balasubramanian, chief placement officer at BITS-Pilani University.

The college has 4 campuses across Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai. “Salary packages have gone up by an average of 20 per cent at several companies,” said Samuel Rajkumar, deputy director (placements), VIT University.

Placements at the non-IIT campuses are a precursor to campus hiring at IITs, which kick off in December. Early indications at these institutes suggest that happy days are here again for the job market.

Epic Systems with a $1,08,300 (Rs 66.4 lakh) offer and Schlumberger with $1,05,000 (Rs 64.4 lakh) are the other top paymasters soon to arrive on campus during the placement season. According to campus sources, Goldman Sachs paid Rs 13 lakh this year for roles in the technological division compared with Rs 11 lakh last year.

For strategy roles, Goldman Sachs has paid up to Rs 35 lakh this year at certain campuses. Amazon has offered Rs 25 lakh to three students of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad, and NIT-Calicut.

At NIT-Warangal and NITK-Surathkal, the offers were for Rs 18 lakh. This is for domestic jobs. Rival Flipkart is offering Rs 15 lakh plus benefits across campuses and its subsidiary Myntra is picking up students for a similar amount but through a separate process.

AT NITK-Surathkal, Flipkart has been given the ‘dream company’ status along with LinkedIn, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. All students can sit for interviews at these firms even if they have other offers.

Even lesser-known startups are waging a fierce war for engineering talent. Code-Nation — which develops high-quality enterprise software — is offering Rs 24 lakh across campuses, substantially more than Flipkart. It has hired from NIT-Warangal, VIT-University and will visit NITK-Surathkal in the next few days. It is looking to hire 35-40 students overall, the company has said on its official website. As always, Esops are also in play.

LinkedIn is offering stock options worth $40,000 and a Rs 1.3 lakh bonus over and above a Rs 13 lakh salary. “Our placements started around 10 days ago. Around 50-60 offers have been made by 15-odd companies so far, not including PPOs,” Sumit Mishra, placement coordinator, MNNIT-Allahabad. The college has 800 students. Placements will go on for a few more months.