Infosys set to add 1,000 engineers to software products’ team in FY 2016

The country’s second largest IT services exporter, Infosys, is set to hire up to 1,000 engineers in FY16 as it ramps up its product business, which is targeted to exceed $1 billion in revenue by 2020.

This is part of Infosys’ targeted $20 billion in revenue by 2020, a target set by CEO and Managing Director Vishal Sikka this April, which is more than double its current revenue of $8.83 billion.

“The plan is to add 500-600 software engineers to our Finacle team and 300-350 to our Edge Services team this fiscal, both of which constitute our Products business,” revealed a source.

Of the total new hires, 15-20 per cent are expected to be onsite, beginning with the US and Europe.

Infosys is looking to hire coders who come with a “product mindset,” which is very different from its standard practice of hiring freshers from campus for its services business.

“For our Products business, we want to hire nerds with the right skills in open source code, who can code non-stop for three days and three nights. These are people who are passionate coders with a product mindset,” added the same source. On whether the Product’s business can be achieved, Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst and CEO, Greyhound Research, said, “Infosys can achieve this only if it adopts an inorganic strategy to aggressively go after acqui-hires, in order to get access to A-class software developers.

“These are typically struggling product start-ups with an average team size of 15-20 engineers, who are creating product IP and haven’t been able to go beyond Angel or Series A funding.”

The Finacle business, along with Edge Services, was merged to create EdgeVerve Systems, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infosys effective August 1, 2015. While Infosys declined to reveal the current headcount of EdgeVerve Systems, an insider said the Products team, which was 9,000-strong in 2011 when Infosys 3.0 was announced by CEO Shibulal, has been whittled down to 7,000.

Going by the current hiring targets, the Products team could touch 8,000 by March.

The Products, Platforms and Solutions services contributed 4.9 per cent of the overall revenue in Q1 ended June 30, 2015, with Products at 3.2 per cent, BPM at 1.0 per cent and others contributing 0.7 per cent.

EdgeVerve recorded 14 wins and four client “go-lives”, while Finacle had 19 wins and 12 “go-lives” across the globe.

AssistEdge (customer service experience), BrandEdge (digital marketing), CreditFinanceEdge (micro-commerce), InteractEdge (digital commerce), ProcureEdge (sourcing & procurement) and TradeEdge (distributive trade), are the six offerings under Edge Services.

Finacle expanded its solutions suite with three new offerings – FinacleYouth Banking, a mobile banking solution for youngsters between 12-18 years; Finacle Assure, a preventive maintenance service; Finacle SME Enable, a mobile-based financial/business management solution for small and medium enterprise customers of banks.