With the AI excitement sweeping over the technology landscape, interest in conventional roles such as product manager and regular engineers appears to have ebbed. According to placement executives at the IITs, some of the top demands are for experts in cognitive science, data scientists, quantitative strategists and developers, and AI-focused developers, researchers and application engineers.

The race for AI talent stands out in a curious job description from Palo Alto-based Turing: The candidate must be able to frame a multiple-choice question paper that Google and ChatGPT can’t solve. The successful candidate could join with the option to work from home, a student who saw the job description said.

“We are excited about the talent from IITs,” said an executive from US-based Abacus AI, which is looking to hire during the IIT placements. “We think these engineers can completely take AI to the next level and create AI agents and engineers that, in turn, can create applied AI systems,” the official said. The Abacus executive did not address the planned compensation, but students in two of older IITs said the firm would offer students trained in machine learning and Gen AI ₹60 lakh.

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Out of India’s 23 IITs, the first-generation IITs including Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Kanpur start the placement season on 1 December. The second- and third-generation IITs, along with the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), begin earlier in August-September to get a headstart.

A placement executive said high-frequency trading (HFT) firm Graviton Research Capital is offering around ₹90 lakh for India-based roles. The compensation for HFTs can touch up to 2 crore and can be crore plus for global ones. While Da Vinci is offering ₹2.2 crore for international roles, placement executives said. In the batch of 2024, some of the top offers were as high as ₹1.4 crore. However, pre-placement offers (PPOs) that are given to shortlisted students may have been higher.

Japan’s Sony Corp. has more than 10 roles on offer, including that of an AI engineer, with salaries up to 95,33,840 yen ( ₹53 lakh). Honda Motor Corp.’s R&D unit will hire an AI research engineer at 88,72,000 yen ( ₹49 lakh). IT and consulting firm Accenture and credit card giant American Express are offering around ₹21 lakh for AI specialists.

“Both in the internships and final placements this year, the number of companies is higher than last year. Placements are yet to start, and the number of students is in the thousands, but it definitely looks better than last year,” the placement team coordinator at one of the older IITs said.

Hedge fund World Quant is offering around ₹92 lakh, while algo trading firms Databricks ( ₹45 lakh), NK Securities ( ₹80 lakh) and Squarepoint Capital ( ₹66 lakh) are targeting students with similar skills.

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Other top jobs on offer include roles at Goldman Sachs ( ₹50 lakh) and Boston Consulting Global ( ₹20-23 lakh), and at Microsoft’s Hyderabad and Bengaluru offices ( ₹51 lakh). Flipkart is looking for software developers and associate product managers for ₹26-32 lakh, while Samsung may pay ₹24-69 lakh for multiple profiles including those based in South Korea.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment, while Microsoft declined to share specific details. A Databricks spokesperson was unavailable to comment. Queries sent to the IITs and other potential recruiters remained unanswered.

To be sure, early placement days are no guarantee of how thousands of IIT students will eventually bag a job. In fact, placement teams at India’s top technology schools are chasing potential recruiters early to avoid a repeat of last year’s struggle to land jobs for their graduates.

A number of 2024 batch IIT graduates were not selected by the end of the placement season in May-June. While that reflected uncertainty in the global economy, many firms also had enough graduates from the pandemic hiring frenzy. The institutes then reached out to their alumni and startups, accepting lower-than-usual compensation.

Last year, an unlikely recruiter at IIT Bombay was Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola, offering ₹27-45 lakh for its ride hailing and electric vehicle businesses. According to another IIT student, the firm is hiring for a position in the founder’s office this year.

And read | IITs chase recruiters to avoid a repeat of last year’s scramble