Startups in India have always faced one major challenge - hiring skilled engineering talent. 65% of Indian IT companies, for instance, consider the lack of talent as the most significant barrier to adopting emerging technologies, a Gartner study stated. It has been reported that one in five Indian engineers are unemployable. Lack of skilled workforce is becoming the biggest impediment to scaling for startups.
This massive gap between the skill-expectation of startup founders & CTOs, and the job readiness of college graduates in India has given rise to various skilling start ups like Masai, Kraftshala and Stoa. Ankush Sachdeva, co-founder, and CEO of ShareChat said, “I would not place my bets on the existing education infrastructure to train people. I think we need more platforms like Masai that really takes the accountability of uplifting students and giving them relevant knowledge in the tech domain. This is really needed to unlock India’s tech potential.” Masai, a skill development institute, has cracked the code to teach web development and data analytics from scratch, enabling companies to ramp up their tech operations quickly and more effectively.
“Even an average Masai student comes out with over 1000 hours of practical coding knowledge, 300 hours of Data Structures and Algo training and 100 hours of soft-skill development. This makes talent from Masai industry-ready and very sought after”, says Prateek, Founder and CEO of the Bangalore based start up.
College education is still based on an antiquated curriculum, and current industry demands have surpassed it. Today startups are scrambling to hire the right skilled talent to aid in scaling their products, and to support their customers in this rapidly transforming digital landscape.
With an evolving curriculum that keeps industry requirements at its core, Masai teaches students at 0 fee, and only when they are able to crack a job do students pay the institute. This puts the onus on quality of education dispensed during the course rather than on sale tactics that are based on receiving tuition fee upfront, as followed by numerous players in the current education space.
Over 2000 companies are now associated and share their talent requirements with Masai, with over 2000 students being placed in 700+ tech companies in the last 6 months. With all round availability of candidates, Masai is also pulling focus away from
“Campus Hiring”. “We have tried 2-3 skilling schools, but Masai is the top one. The one we think of when we have to hire. Directors who work with Masai alumni frequently say that they need more people like them. Masai students are focused, hard-working, disciplined, and task-aware. They do not require instructions on what to do and what not to do because they are familiar with (industry) standards.” said Deekshant Jain, Director of Engineering at NoBroker.
Notably, two Masai Alums - Mahesh and Soumitha, were recently honoured and awarded by the revered Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, India. The Alumni were chosen from a select group of students across India for the Deekshant Samaroh in Delhi, held in October where they were recognised for overcoming immense obstacles all in order to realise their dreams of becoming software developers.
Some true juggernauts such as IBM, HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra, Capgemini, and startup unicorns such as Paytm, Swiggy, Dream 11, Uber, ShareChat and CoinSwitchKuber appear on their list of hiring partners.
The tech scenario is changing and the hiring process for companies is changing alongside it. No longer are they focused simply on candidates from prestigious institutes. There’s more weightage given to the technical and soft skills that they bring to the company.
The need for data engineers, programmers, and developers continues to be at the forefront of digital transformation. Prateek Shukla says, “We had great success with startups and our students often outperform those with fancy engineering degrees. Their success has actually helped us move the needle. Today, many legacy companies have updated their hiring requirements so they can hire skilled entry-level talent from us,” he added.
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