The Ukrainian service company N-iX has recently entered the Indian market and plans to hire fifty specialists here this year. Yuriy Kushla, VP of New Markets at N-iX, told DOU in an interview.
According to him, there are not many people working on site yet, as the company is currently ramping up and starting with hiring a local leader who will be able to sustain the organization.
"Then we organize the continuation of the company's existing projects for this person. Currently, there are three engineers, in addition to people who are not involved in development (location manager, recruiter), and a little less than ten open positions. Our plans are optimistic: to grow to 50 people in 2025," said Yuriy Kushla.
He explained that the main driver for India is the cost of service. Therefore, for example, N-iX can send its customers here who want to optimize costs for not the most critical tasks.
The expert also compared the cost of services and noted that India has always been considered a cheap region. However, he advised to be careful with this information, as the lion's share of the country's market is formed by local IT giants.
"They are able to hire people with zero experience at entry-level salaries. If we consider these statistics, then India seems to be the cheapest market," said Yuriy Kushla.
At the same time, he emphasized that global IT giants such as Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon sometimes hire in India on American salaries. To some extent, this distorts the statistics.
"If we measure the cost of services by the standards of Indian companies, we will be slightly above the market median. Compared to Ukraine, it is about one and a half times cheaper in India. It's not a dramatic difference, but we don't have a strategy to provide our customers with the cheapest service on the planet," said Yuriy Kushla.
Speaking about vacancies in India, he also noted that more than 100 candidates can apply in a few days. For example, on the first day, 600 people applied for a recruiter position. At the same time, N-iX noted that the company does not aim to replace Ukrainian engineers with Indian ones.
"We remain a Ukrainian company with Ukrainian management. Although we are globalizing, we still gravitate towards Ukraine. Therefore, I would say that there is no risk for Ukrainian contractors now," the expert emphasized.
But he added that the company will launch projects that will definitely want to have some specialists in India.
"And this will make it possible to hire specialists in Ukraine for critical roles - with an innovative approach, R&D, and expertise, which is what our engineers are valued for. At the same time, there is more routine work, maintenance projects for engineers in India. Perhaps this is not a very positive message for them, but it is true. We will not be able to raise something completely independent in India without Ukrainian support," said VP of New Markets N-iX.
He added that some Ukrainians may want to move to India and work there. The level of service, regardless of location, will be identical, and N-iX guarantees this to its customers.
At the same time, Yuriy Kushla clarified that a package of conditions for such relocation has not been formed. But it may be worth thinking about it if there are those who are interested.