Engineering managers do not have hours to spend on screening calls that end in a mismatch. As an IT recruitment agency in India, Kintra runs the technical screen before you see a single profile and checks that the candidate wants this particular role. After the offer, we manage the long notice period, which is where many tech hires stall.
The talent pool is large. According to the Nasscom Strategic Review 2026 (via ETV Bharat), India's tech industry has about 5.95 million direct employees in FY26 after adding about 135,000. Finding the right ten people inside that pool is the hard part.
What does an IT recruitment agency in India actually do?
A good IT recruitment agency turns a hiring need into a short list of engineers who pass a technical screen and want the job. Demand moves fast. The Naukri JobSpeak Index for September 2026 showed AI/ML openings up 20% year on year (via Lapaas Voice), and a CV database built last year will not reflect that. We source fresh for each role.
Our work starts with a 30 to 45 minute brief call with the hiring manager, ideally joined by the engineer who will run interviews. We turn it into a technical scorecard, then build a market map of who holds this kind of role, where and at what pay. If you have not mapped your market before, our guide to talent mapping explains the method.
Which tech roles do we hire for?
We hire across the engineering organisation, from individual contributors to engineering managers. According to ManpowerGroup's India 2026 shortage survey (via CXOToday), 23% of Indian employers named traditional IT and data skills among the hardest to find. Here is what we test for in each role family, so your interviewers can skip the basics.
| Role family | Typical roles | What we screen for |
|---|---|---|
| Backend and full stack | Java, Go, Node.js, Python engineers | System design at real scale, API ownership, database choices |
| Frontend and mobile | React, Angular, iOS, Android, Flutter | Performance work, state management, shipped apps |
| Data engineering | Pipeline and platform engineers | Spark, streaming, data modelling, cost of the pipelines they ran |
| Data science and ML/AI | Data scientists, ML engineers, applied AI | Models in production, evaluation, MLOps, work beyond notebooks |
| Cloud, DevOps and SRE | Platform engineers, SREs | Infrastructure as code, on-call history, incident ownership |
| Security | AppSec, cloud security, SOC leads | Threat modelling, audits handled, hands-on tooling |
| QA | SDETs, automation leads | Test strategy and frameworks built, not just maintained |
| Product and design | Product managers, UX and product designers | Shipped outcomes, discovery process, portfolio depth |
| Engineering leadership | Engineering managers, heads of engineering | Team size led, hiring record, delivery under pressure |
For CTO and VP Engineering roles, our executive search service runs a retained process.
How does technical screening work before you see a profile?
Technical screening at Kintra has four parts, and your engineers only spend time on the last one or two. In a 2017 CareerBuilder survey of US employers, 33% said a bad hire had lied about their qualifications. A structured screen catches a lot of that before it costs one of your engineers an afternoon.
A scorecard agreed with your engineers
Must-haves, nice-to-haves and deal-breakers in plain language. "Five years of Kubernetes" becomes "has run a production cluster and handled an outage". A clear job description makes this step faster.
A structured technical conversation
The recruiter walks through two or three real projects. What did you build, what broke, what would you change? Answers are scored against the scorecard, so you read evidence instead of a recruiter's impression.
An exercise run by your team
Take-home or live, designed and marked by your engineers. We schedule it, chase completion and return feedback to every candidate, including the ones who did not pass.
A reference on code quality
We ask former leads about code reviews, ownership and production incidents. Did people want to work with this engineer again?
Why are AI and ML roles so hard to fill?
Demand has outrun supply. In the ManpowerGroup Global Talent Shortage Survey India 2026, AI model and application development was the hardest skill to find (39%), with AI literacy next (38%). The Naukri JobSpeak Index for August 2026 showed AI/ML openings up 31% year on year.
Many CVs now list "GenAI" after a short course. Our screen separates people who have shipped models to real users from people who have called an API in a weekend project. Both can be useful hires, but they belong in different salary bands.
How do 90-day notice periods affect IT hiring?
Long notice periods are normal in Indian IT, and they give an accepted offer weeks or months to fall apart. An Analytics India Magazine analysis (AIM analysis, 2022) found almost 1 in 3 IT roles carries a 90-day notice period, and 43% of IT roles needing 14+ years of experience do. Three months is a long time to hold an offer.
During that window, the current employer counters and recruiters keep calling. We prepare candidates for the counter-offer conversation at offer stage and stay in weekly contact until joining day. Where a buyout makes sense, we help you check the contract terms and whether the current employer will release early. Our guide to notice periods and offer dropouts covers the tactics.
How do we benchmark tech salaries in India?
Salary data for Indian tech varies widely by source. Levels.fyi shows a median total compensation of INR 3,002,326 for software engineers in India (October 2026), but its data skews towards big-tech and product companies. PayScale India reports an average base of INR 813,748.
PayScale's 10th to 90th percentile range runs from INR 350,000 to INR 2,000,000, which shows how wide the market is. Neither number is wrong. They describe different employers. Our market map shows what the people you want are earning, by company type and level.
How do product firms, IT services and GCCs differ?
Candidates weigh each employer type differently, so the pitch and the screen change too. According to the Nasscom-Zinnov GCC report FY26 (via The Tribune), India has 2,117 GCCs employing about 2.36 million professionals, so they compete hard with product companies for senior engineers.
| Employer type | What candidates want to hear | What we test hardest |
|---|---|---|
| Product companies and startups | Ownership, equity, pace of shipping | Breadth, comfort with ambiguity |
| IT services firms | Client variety, growth path, stability | Client handling, delivery discipline |
| Global capability centres | Global scope, mandate, brand | Depth in one platform, stakeholder work across time zones |
Building a new centre from scratch? Our GCC hiring page covers ramp-up hiring in more detail.
When is an IT recruitment agency not the right fit?
Not every tech hire needs an agency. If you need large batches of freshers, a campus programme is cheaper. If your engineers already have a strong referral network for the role, use it first.
An agency also cannot fix a broken interview loop. If your process has six rounds and takes a month to give feedback, good engineers will accept other offers no matter who sourced them. We will tell you that early.
How do you brief us on a tech role?
Share your hiring brief with the role, the stack, the salary band and the name of the engineer who will interview. A recruiter reads it, then books a 30 to 45 minute brief call with you and that engineer. You get the scorecard, a market map and our written terms before any outreach, and you commit to nothing until you have seen all three. An IT recruitment agency in India should earn your trust before it sends a single CV.