11 Sep, 2008
Availability of Developers by City (Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi etc) and Technology (Java, C++, C#, AIR, WPF etc)
Posted by Bhavin Turakhia
An alltime favorite question amongst journalists who interview me as a “young entrepreneur” has been - “Tell us about some of the challenges you faced while growing Directi?” and my patent answer has always been that the only challenge we have faced and continue to face is finding good talent. In our bid for finding talent we are now expanding into other cities over the next few months.
In order to determine tech labor availability across the common metro cities in India I compiled a statistical comparison of the count of resumes available on common jobsites for common software development skillsets in the various cities in India, and the findings are very interesting. This blog post compiles these findings. If you are a tech company in India - these findings can help you make technology decisions concerning city selection and platform selection.
The findings
Below are findings from the comparison of the count of resumes of software developers with 0-4 yrs of experience from various cities in India as compiled from a jobsite -
1. Findings by City
- Bangalore has 2.5 times the number of Java resumes of Mumbai
- In terms of total resumes from each city the ranking is in the following order - Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR, Chennai, Delhi, Pune, and lastly Mumbai
- As an example, here is the citywise count of Resumes that contained the keyword Java
- Bangalore - 123,205
- Hyderabad- 114,561
- NCR - 85,347
- Chennai - 82459
- Pune - 54,086
- Delhi - 53,256
- Mumbai - 43,672
- Every city in India has more available developers than Mumbai with the South taking the lead
- NCR has almost twice the number of developers as Delhi
2. Findings by Technology
- The total count of Resumes of developers with 0-4 yrs experience that contain the below keywords across all 7 cities was -
- C++ - 635,575
- Java - 556,586
- C# - 190,872
- Javascript - 162,343
- Ajax - 41,219
- Flex - 8,668
- Python - 3,429
- Ruby - 2,099
- WPF - 779
- Silverlight - 255
- As you can see Java and C++ are the predominant keywords in Software Developer Resumes
- Flex beats Python and Ruby
- Ajax and Javascript beat Flex/WPF/Silverlight by several magnitudes as keywords appearing in resumes
The results above remain similar in terms of ratio, for Resumes with 4+ yrs of experience.
Click here to download the raw excel sheets for all cities and technologies >>
The methodology
I had my team conduct independent searches for each permutation and combination of the following -
- Keywords - Java, C#, C++, Javascript, Flex, Silverlight, WPF, Ajax, Actionscript, Ruby, Python
- Cities - Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, NCR (Noida/Gurgaon), Chennai, Hyderabad
- Experience - 0 to 4 yrs , 4+ yrs
- Function - Software Development (or equivalent)
- Jobsites - Naukri, Timejobs, Monster
- Date - 3rd June 2008
The above totals upto a whopping 462 searches :). I then tabulated the count of Resumes for each search and put it in multiple excel spreadsheets. You can download the spreadsheets to crunch the numbers yourself.
Based on the above data, Directi and .pw clearly need a presence in the south. The data also demonstrates the lack of penetration of RIA, especially Flex/Silverlight/AIR/WPF, amongst Indian developers.
Hopefully this data can help others make similar decisions. Meanwhile lookout Bangalore/NCR - we are in the process of making an appearance shortly
PS: Interested in joining Directi? - check our openings at http://careers.directi.com
I am super surprised to see Pune ranking higher than Mumbai.
Wow. This is fascinating. Does Mumbai have a lower resume count because there are fewer developers? Or could Mumbai developers be happier with their jobs so that a smaller % is on the market? Or might there be more local resources in Mumbai vs Pune for potential employers and developers to connect, so that Naukri/Timejobs/Monster aren’t the predominant venues for finding new projects?
my email address is XXXXX and my mobile number is XXXXX
@mohit: i too was surprised
@isabel: i have also gone through the same thought process you have expounded
… i dont have a direct answer. while some of the factors maybe true (i doubt it), they are not enuf to cause a 2.5x difference. Therefore clearly bangalore does have much more IT talent than mumbai
@niks: I have never heard of companies in Mumbai paying less than companies in Bangalore. The Mercer surveys and other similar surveys show that in some cases salaries in Mumbai are higher. We do a lot of recruitment from bangalore / delhi and we know that we actually pay higher than most companies their do. I do not believe this disparity is a function of salary
@santosh: you can simply visit http://careers.directi.com and apply online for the relevant post :). I have removed your contact information from your comment since this blog is public
Hi Bhavin,
I’m very pleased to know your earnest entrepreneurship efforts in Internet/ISP domain. I’ve a deep liking (and understanding) of the internet/ISP/hosting domain, having worked in a particular company in Bangalore. I do frequent to your website(s) to find the latest updates
I’d like to know when you land in Bangalore. Do I rely on your blog/website for it?
Wishing you all the very best!
Subhodeep Bhattacharya
http://www.subhodeep.com
subhodeep@subhodeep.com
One of the reasons I think AJAX has a higher count is probably because of the number of people who use it like a buzz-word. Quizzing candidates has sometimes revealed to me that some having AJAX have just worked with a framework (reading through documentation and cut-paste samples) and never really done any JavaScript work (leave alone AJAX).
In that respect, knowing C# (or .NET) is good enough for anybody to say they know WPF/Silverlight.
I admit it is really frustrating to be one of the largest software ecosystems in the world and find it hard to have to keep looking for great talent like a needle in a haystack.
@pandurang: i will acknowledge that we are a large software ecosystem the day a company of the brand standing / size of google / facebook / yahoo / msft is started and operated from india. in that respect we have a long way to go. Pursuant to this research I have spent a few days conducting research between the quality of developers in India vs the US. The difference is significantly palpable. I will publish some of the findings shortly. Meanwhile we have introduced an expat recruitment program to attract talent from the US and other countries :). You can check details at http://wiki.directi.com/display/CAR/Expat+Recruitment+Program+beta
Nice counts…well, its not seems surprising about the pune ranking higher than mumbai.
If i am not wrong, the data shows the developers numbers and not the infrastructure part. Mumbai is full of datacenters of almost all banks and a good number of indian corporate offices which requires the infrastructure support (Admin(unix/windows), storage, middleware, networking, DBA and many more) and hence developers really play a small role in mumbai.
Companies in Mumbai may not be paying less than those in
Bangalore or other cities, but effectively it works out that way
due to the (much) higher cost of living (especially residential
property) in Mumbai (municipal limits).
Having lived and worked in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore, I
can say for a fact that since IT is the number one industry
(both in terms of number of jobs available and salary)
in Pune and Bangalore, a lot more people are drawn towards
IT as a career option. Mumbai, however, has been the
financial capital of India, and even though it may be having
more engineering colleges than any other city, many
engineers who are just graduating/ recently graduated seem
to just want to rush for an MBA and on to a higher paying
sales/marketing/finance job. The findings are not at all
surprising.
If there was any data available about the number of people
employed in different industries across different cities, that
might give further clues about this.
If you are proud enough to say that you are a team of intelligent people with uncommon ideas, you should give chance to all intelligent people out there, especially those with IQ at least 2 more than Albert Einstein. If such a person does not get through then it means that the manager taking the interview is all talks and no walks. All that person has done is take credit for someone else work.
All the data presented above is not that useful. What a person’s resume says is not important, neither is the work he has done before. All that matters is what he can do. If you can find the ability of a person and then post that data, you would do wonders for the software industry.