Hire the right people, then keep them
A sourcing funnel calibrated to your engineering bar, payroll that runs correctly every month, and a benefits package that holds against counter offers in a competitive market.
Hiring is the visible part, retention is the expensive part
Companies routinely underestimate how much of an India centre’s success is decided by the offer package and the first ninety days rather than by the sourcing funnel.
Sourcing and screening
A funnel calibrated to your actual engineering bar, not a generic one. Senior hires in a competitive market require direct outreach rather than job board volume, and the ratios are very different.
Interview design
A structured loop with defined signals, calibrated interviewers and a consistent scorecard. Without this the bar drifts within the first ten hires and never fully recovers.
Payroll and statutory deductions
Monthly payroll with provident fund, professional tax and tax deducted at source calculated and filed correctly. Errors here are visible to every employee immediately.
Insurance and benefits
Group health cover including parents, term life, accident cover and the benefits that actually move decisions in the Indian market. The default package is rarely competitive.
Employment framework
Contracts, IP assignment, the employee handbook, leave policy and the notice period structure, all drafted against Indian law rather than translated from your home market.
Retention and performance
Compensation benchmarking, a review cycle that runs on time, and a career path that is legible. Attrition is the single largest hidden cost in an India centre.
Your employees, on your bar
The engineers are employed by your Indian entity, which changes the hiring conversation materially. Strong candidates in India are increasingly reluctant to join a staffing arrangement or a vendor bench, because they have seen how those roles end.
Being able to say that someone will be a direct employee of a named company, working on a named product, with a defined career path, is a genuine advantage in a market where the best engineers have several offers.
It also means the bar is yours. We calibrate the loop against your existing engineers rather than against a generic standard, and we would rather leave a role open for three more weeks than fill it below the line you have set.
Direct employment, staffing agency, or outsourced team
| Dimension | Direct employment (Nano GCC) | Staffing agency | Outsourced team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who the engineer works for | You | The agency | The vendor |
| Candidate quality at senior level | Highest | Mixed | Vendor allocated |
| Control over the hiring bar | Yours | Shared at best | None |
| Attrition rate | Lowest | Highest | Not visible to you |
| Continuity on your systems | Multi year | Resets on rotation | Vendor managed |
| Cost per head at scale | Lowest | Plus agency margin | Plus vendor margin |
| Time to first hire | 6 to 10 weeks | 1 to 3 weeks | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Culture and practice transfer | Direct | Limited | Minimal |
Hiring effort by stage, senior engineering roles
The distribution surprises people. Sourcing is not the constraint. Closing is.
How the team is built
Calibration and role design
Levelling, compensation bands and scorecards agreed against your existing engineering bar. Compensation is benchmarked to the specific city, because Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai are genuinely different markets.
Pod lead hired first
The senior hire comes first and participates in every interview afterwards. This is the constrained hire and the plan is built around their availability rather than assuming it.
Senior core in place
Three to five senior engineers hired against the calibrated bar. Deliberately slower than a staffing arrangement, because these are the people who will carry the system knowledge.
Team completed
Mid level engineers, quality and any specialist roles added around the senior core, which is now able to interview and onboard without your team flying in.
Retention cycle
Reviews on schedule, annual compensation benchmarking, and a career path that is written down. Attrition is tracked and reported rather than discovered at exit.
What a direct employment model gives you
The bar holds
Because you own the loop and the pod lead interviews every subsequent hire, the bar set with the first three engineers is still the bar at engineer thirty.
Attrition is materially lower
Direct employees with a named product, a career path and a competitive package leave far less often than agency placed engineers on a bench model.
Knowledge accumulates
The engineer who handled last quarter’s incident is the one handling the next one. That compounding is the entire economic argument for the model.
Your culture actually transfers
Practices move through people who are part of your organisation rather than through a statement of work that describes them.
From first sourcing conversation to a retained team
Hiring is delivered as an operating capability rather than a one off search, because the second year of retention matters more than the first month of sourcing.
- Levelling and compensation bands benchmarked to the specific city, role and seniority
- A structured interview loop with scorecards, calibrated interviewers and a defined bar
- Direct sourcing and outreach for senior roles, rather than job board volume
- Offer construction, negotiation support and closing, including counter offer situations
- Monthly payroll with provident fund, professional tax and tax deducted at source filed correctly
- Group health cover including parents, term life and accident cover, benchmarked to market
- Onboarding for the first ninety days, which is where retention is actually decided
- Annual compensation review, performance cycle and attrition reporting
When direct employment wins, and when it does not
A good fit when
The work is continuous, system knowledge compounds, and you want the same named engineers operating the same systems in three years. Also when your engineering bar is genuinely high and you are unwilling to compromise it to fill seats quickly.
A poor fit when
You need people next month, the engagement is short, or the work is well specified and interchangeable. Staffing is faster to first hire by four to eight weeks at senior level, and for a bounded project that difference matters more than retention does.
One honest caveat. This model is slower to first hire than a staffing agency, by roughly four to eight weeks for senior roles. If you need five engineers next month for a fixed six month project, a staffing arrangement is the correct tool and we will say so. The Nano GCC model earns its advantage over years, not weeks.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to hire the first senior engineer?
Six to ten weeks from calibration to a signed offer for a genuinely senior engineer. Direct outreach, several interview rounds and a notice period of thirty to ninety days are all real constraints. Sourcing usually runs in parallel with entity setup for this reason.
What notice periods should we expect in India?
Thirty to ninety days is standard, and ninety is common at senior levels. This must be built into the plan. A candidate who accepts in March may not start until June, which is not a delay in the process but a feature of the market.
How do we set compensation without overpaying or losing candidates?
Benchmarked to the specific city, role and level, then reviewed annually. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Visakhapatnam have materially different salary levels for the same role, and using a single national band is the most common way companies either overpay or lose every senior candidate.
What benefits actually matter to engineers in India?
Group health cover that includes parents is disproportionately valued and often decisive. Beyond that, term life and accident cover are expected, and the quality of the health policy matters more than most foreign employers assume. A minimal statutory package will lose you offers.
What attrition rate should we plan for?
Well run captive centres typically see ten to fifteen percent annually, against twenty five to forty percent in staffing and outsourcing arrangements. The difference is the strongest financial argument for direct employment, and it compounds because every departure takes system knowledge with it.
Who runs payroll and are we exposed if it is wrong?
Payroll runs through your entity, administered with a qualified Indian payroll partner, with provident fund, professional tax and tax deducted at source calculated and filed monthly. The statutory obligation is your entity’s, which is why it is run on a calendar with named owners rather than ad hoc.
Can we transfer our own performance and levelling framework?
Yes, and you generally should. Mapping your existing levels onto Indian compensation bands is part of the calibration in the first three weeks. Running a separate framework for the India team creates a two tier organisation, which undermines the point of the model.
Do we have to fly out to interview?
For the first senior hires it helps, though it is not required, and most of the loop runs remotely. Once the pod lead is in place they run the loop locally, which is one of the clearest reasons to hire that role first.
Related reading
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