Hiring AI talent is work in slow progress

Companies are willing to pay lavishly, but India has a small pool of experienced engineers, reports AVIK DAS

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Neuron7.ai has a problem that is "painful for sure" when it is hiring artificial intelligence (AI) engineers. The resolution intelligence company says for 100 applications, it is able to hire three people at the most.

The company, which is based in the United States and has offices and employees in India, provides resolutions that include helping its clients improve prediction for how software parts will behave, errors that might come up, onboarding customers and gathering information.

"As a Java developer if you cannot answer what is object-related transforming, then it is a big red flag for us because it gives me the impression that you have used Java application but have not updated it or you may have used it intermittently but have not gone deeper," said Amit Verma, head of AI and engineering at Neuron7.ai, referring to how data is converted from one object type to another on the widely used software platform.

Companies typically face challenges in recruiting candidates who are skilled in AI, machine learning (ML) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) though they have hundreds of vacancies.

The problem is not just that there are more openings than there are qualified people, but also that there is a difference between what companies need as essential skills and what candidates bring to the table.

Open positions

"The current active demand for AI-focused specialist talent is a little under 2,000 openings and there just isn't enough accessible talent in the market for these roles," said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of specialist staffing company Xpheno.