Hire software engineers in India — the foreign founder's playbook

Hiring Indian engineers from abroad has become routine for US, UK and European startups. The mechanics — where to find them, what to pay them, how to interview them, how to get them on payroll — are well-trodden. This playbook walks the full sequence so a first-time hirer can run it without surprises.

Where the talent actually is

India's tech talent is concentrated in a handful of cities. Bengaluru is the largest pool by a wide margin (Karnataka has roughly 35% of India's IT workforce), followed by Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon / Noida, Chennai and Mumbai. Remote-first hires are common in tier-2 cities — Jaipur, Indore, Coimbatore, Kochi, Ahmedabad — and the talent is good.

• LinkedIn — works, but inbound from foreign companies is now flooded; outbound to specifically-titled engineers converts well.
• Naukri — the India-native job board. Highest volume of candidates but you'll get a lot of low-fit responses; recruiters use it heavily.
• Cutshort, Instahyre — curated platforms with better-fit pools, particularly for senior IC roles at SaaS startups.
• AngelList / Wellfound — works for early-stage startup-fit engineers willing to take options-heavy comp.
• GitHub / Stack Overflow / personal referrals — by far the highest conversion if you can source through these channels.

Compensation — what to actually pay (2026)

The compensation range that converts in 2026 for senior engineers, by city, by years of experience. Numbers are total annual CTC in INR. Add 8-12% for ESOPs / RSUs / variable on top. International offers from credible companies pay at the top of the range and sometimes 20-30% above it.

For specialised skills — ML / AI research, infrastructure, security, distributed systems — add 30-50% to the senior and staff ranges. For pure backend / frontend / fullstack generalist work, you can hire at the lower end of the range.

Interview process that works in India

The interview loop that works for Indian engineering hires is identical to what works in the US, with three calibrations. First, the screen-to-offer ratio is tighter (more candidates per offer because of higher volume). Second, time-to-offer matters — strong candidates have 3-5 active offers; if you take more than 10 days from first call to written offer, you'll lose them. Third, English fluency is uniformly high in the tech pool but accent variation is high; calibrate that out of your evaluation.

1. Screening call (30 min) — recruiter or hiring manager screens for context, motivation, English, and gross-comp expectations.
2. Technical screen (60 min) — one moderate algorithmic / systems question. Live coding via CoderPad / HackerRank / Codility.
3. Technical deep-dive (60-90 min) — system design or domain-specific deep-dive with the hiring manager.
4. Bar-raiser / cross-functional (45-60 min) — culture, collaboration, ambiguity handling.
5. Founder / VP final (30 min) — close-and-pitch combined.

Total elapsed time should be under 10 working days. If your loop runs longer than that, automate the scheduling — Indian senior engineers consistently report that slow scheduling is the #1 reason they decline foreign offers.

The offer letter — what it must contain

An Indian offer letter is legally a binding employment contract once signed. It must include a clear comp breakdown (Basic, HRA, LTA, Special, Variable), the probation period, the notice period during and after probation, leave entitlement, the place of work, confidentiality and IP-assignment language, and the governing-law / jurisdiction clause.

Putting them on payroll

Three paths, picked by stage:

• 1-15 hires: use an EOR. Fastest, cleanest. India-specialist EORs (like FastLegal) run $199-349/month per employee plus the actual salary.
• 15-30 hires: it's a toss-up. Start the subsidiary setup in parallel with continued EOR hiring.
• 30+ hires: own subsidiary materially cheaper and unlocks ESOPs, banking, leases.