While this trend has persisted in tech firms, it’s now seeping into direct-to-consumer (D2C) companies which say their hiring mandates now include senior
engineers who can think in systems, solve ambiguous problems, and use AI as a collaborator rather than just a tool.
Engineering hiring in such companies has risen 210% between 2024 and 2025, with strong demand for software developers, DevOps engineers, solution architects, and AI/ML specialists, staffing services company CIEL HR said. Data, analytics, and operations roles now account for over half the hiring demand.
“It’s less about headcount today, and more about the quality of thinking and adaptability,” Amit Khatri, cofounder of consumer electronics brand Noise, told ET, adding that it is prioritising engineers who are curious and comfortable working across layers than in silos.
At travel platform Ixigo, the filters have fundamentally changed, cofounder and group co-CEO Rajnish Kumar said. “Belief in AI is now the first filter. If a candidate has doubts about AI being the future, we don’t proceed. The second is how deeply they understand and use AI tools,” he said.
Instead of focussing on software frameworks or programming languages, CTOs said they evaluate candidates based on how they build and customise their coding environments.
“That gives real insight into how they build. There’s no one-size-fits-all tool today. Even with advanced tools, including gent-based setups, you need to optimise and build your own workflows,” Kumar said.
At Meesho, engineers work in cross-functional pods alongside product and business teams, and are evaluated on shared outcomes. Executives said the nature of engineering roles is evolving, be it in tech companies, D2C, or services.
No longer a support function
Aditya Narayan Mishra, managing director of CIEL, said consumer companies are actively repositioning technology from a support function to a core business driver, which reflects in their hiring trends. “The growth is being driven by rapid platform scaling, automation, and widespread adoption of AI-led use cases across commerce and operations,” Mishra added.
This shift is also leading to tighter coupling between engineering and business outcomes. Senior engineers are increasingly expected to engage with customers, co-own product specifications, and stay involved through to adoption and outcomes.
Razorpay, for instance, has begun introducing roles such as ‘full-stack builders’ who are expected to independently own and ship products end-to-end using AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor. “We have also introduced ‘go-to-market builders’ within our sales teams to help design solutions and build intelligence layers for go-to-market functions,” Chitbhanu Nagri, senior vice president of people operations at Razorpay, said.
When ET spoke to developers at hackathons, buildathons, and hacker houses (which have become the new hotspot for hiring for many new-age and D2C startups) they said their roles have become more outward-facing with the advent of AI.
“If you go back 10 years, one would think of an engineer as someone sitting in a basement, surrounded by hardware, multiple laptops, completely immersed in code. Today a developer is expected to step out, interact with users, understand real-world problems, and solve them,” said Priyanshu Ghosh, previously with Perplexity and now building his own startup Oru’el.
Also Read: The revolution shall be tokenised: Inside the hacker homes incubating India’s AI future
Skill gap
As demand rises, companies say finding the right talent remains a challenge.
At visa processing startup Atlys, which recently raised $36 million, founder Mohak Nahta said familiarity with AI tools is not enough.
“What we are increasingly seeing is that many candidates claim familiarity with AI, but when you go deeper, ask something as fundamental as how a large language model works, they are unable to explain it,” he said.
In fact, Razorpay CEO Harshil Mathur recently put out a post on LinkedIn asking AI hackers and builders to join its team. “No resumes. Send me what you’ve built with AI,’” he specified.
Executives expect organisational structures to continue evolving as AI takes over execution-heavy tasks.
Ashish Kumar Singh, CHRO, Meesho, noted that mid-level roles such as senior developers, architects, and engineering managers are largely filled through lateral hiring. “In fact, over the last year alone, we have nearly doubled the number of engineering managers. These roles are harder to fill, so volumes are smaller, but demand remains strong.”
Be it tech or product companies, they are increasingly building their AI systems using proprietary data to better understand customers, and will need engineers that are capable of orchestration across multiple models.
Kumar and Khatri believe the distinction between engineers, product managers, and designers will start disappearing. “You’ll essentially have builders, while AI-agents handle a chunk of the execution,” Kumar said.