After a cautious 2025 — marked by cost optimisation, hiring freezes at several late-stage startups, and a general recalibration of headcount — India's product tech hiring has rebounded sharply in Q1 2026. The data from our 2,400+ active mandates across 60+ product companies tells a clear story: companies are hiring again, they're hiring selectively, and the roles they're prioritising have shifted significantly.
The Roles Driving Demand
Three role categories account for over 60% of all new mandates in Q1 2026:
What's Changed vs 2025
Quality over quantity. The mass layoffs of 2024–25 flooded the market with candidates but created a paradox: companies had more applicants but found it harder to hire, because the talent they actually needed (senior, specialised, AI-capable) remained scarce and wasn't part of the layoff wave.
AI integration is now table stakes. In Q1 2026, 78% of engineering mandates we received included some AI/ML requirement — up from 31% in Q1 2025. This doesn't mean every engineer needs to be an AI specialist. It means every engineer needs to be able to work with AI tools, integrate APIs, and understand model outputs well enough to build AI-adjacent features.
Platform engineering has emerged as a standalone function. Companies that used to lump DevOps, SRE, and infrastructure into a single "backend" team are now building dedicated platform engineering functions. The combination of Kubernetes maturity, the need for AI infrastructure (GPUs, model serving, vector databases), and growing engineering team sizes has made this inevitable.
Sector Breakdown
Fintech
The most active hiring sector in Q1 2026. Regulatory compliance requirements (RBI guidelines, SEBI tech mandates) are driving significant hiring in engineering, product, and compliance tech functions. AI/ML for fraud detection and risk scoring is particularly hot.
SaaS / B2B Software
Strong hiring driven by global expansion and AI product integration. India-based SaaS companies selling to global markets are hiring senior PMs and engineering leads to build AI-native product layers on top of existing platforms.
Healthtech
Emerging strongly after 2 years of consolidation. ABDM integration, AI diagnostics, and telemedicine platform expansion are creating demand for specialised engineering talent.
Edtech
Recovering selectively. Companies that survived the 2024 rationalization are now investing in AI tutoring, personalization engines, and content platforms. Hiring is focused and senior — not the volume play of 2021–22.
Salary Trends
The headline number: senior tech salaries in India increased an average of 18–24% in Q1 2026 versus Q1 2025. This was driven almost entirely by AI-adjacent roles — traditional backend, frontend, and non-AI product management saw more modest 8–12% increases.
The supply-demand gap for GenAI engineers has created a local premium that is now comparable to US-remote role compensation for the best practitioners. Several companies in our client roster have begun offering remote-equivalent compensation to retain key AI talent against US-based company offers.
Q2 2026 outlook: Based on our current pipeline, we expect hiring momentum to continue through Q2 with particular strength in AI, fintech, and SaaS. The wildcard is the global macroeconomic environment — any significant deterioration in global SaaS spending or VC sentiment could cause a repeat of the 2025 recalibration. For now, the signals are positive.
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