Automation is now forcing India's largest technology services firms to tinker with what has been a universal constant: their employee structure.
Since the start of fiscal year 2026-27, seven of the country’s 10 largest information technology (IT) services firms have announced changes to their organizational structures, commonly referred to as the employee pyramid.
Traditionally, at the base of the pyramid are the junior-most employees with less than 7-10 years of experience, who constitute at least two-thirds of the total workforce. The middle tier comprises managers, who account for about a third of the headcount. At the apex is the leadership, which makes up about 5%, explained Sushovon Nayak, lead IT analyst at Anand Rathi Institutional Equities.
While Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., Tech Mahindra Ltd, and Sonata Software Ltd are looking to broaden the base of the pyramid, Wipro Ltd, LTM Ltd, and Coforge Ltd are seeking to expand the middle. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, the country’s largest IT player, meanwhile, is looking to reshape the employee structure based on skills rather than years of experience.
These differing approaches reflect changing talent needs as firms increasingly deploy engineers with sales and consulting skills to help clients modernize existing technology faster.
The changing pyramid, however, could mean greater pressure for freshers to develop skills and become productive sooner, according to experts.
Cognizant's chief executive, S. Ravi Kumar, said the IT firm was hiring at the bottom while responding to a question about scaling the deployment of a frontier-certified workforce during its 29-July post-earnings analyst call.
“We are hiring at the bottom of the pyramid from outside, and we're doing it at scale, building bridges from inside,” he said. Nasdaq-listed Cognizant is an Indian-heritage IT firm, with roughly three-fourths of its workforce based in India.
“We are re-architecting our talent model into AI-augmented early career talent led by ‘player coaches’,” reiterated a Cognizant spokesperson in response to Mint's emailed queries.
Its smaller peer Tech Mahindra has taken a similar stance. “Now, as we see growth coming back, and if we see a lot of this growth coming back on fixed price, transformational programme where we can add freshers, we are very, very flexible in trying and improve the pyramid this year as well,” said its chief operating officer, Atul Soneja, during the company’s 22-April post-earnings analyst call.
“While fresher additions are expected to increase over the next few years, our priority remains in maintaining an optimal balance between fresh and experienced talent, creating a strong talent pyramid that supports innovation, growth, and long-term value creation,” said Richard Lobo, chief people officer of Tech Mahindra, in response to Mint's emailed queries.
On the other hand, Sonata Software’s management said during its 11-May analyst call that the company “benefited from pyramid management”.
Cognizant, which follows a January-December financial calendar as against Indian IT’s April-March, ended last year with $21.1 billion in revenue, up 7% from the year ago. Tech Mahindra and Sonata Software ended the last fiscal year with revenues of $6.39 billion and $1.21 billion, up 2% and 1% year-on-year, respectively.
Unlike these firms, which plan to hire juniors or cut back on mid-level staff, Wipro, LTM and Coforge plan to hire more middle-management staff, such as project consultants, or reduce their junior workforce to create a larger middle tier.
Wipro is looking at how many of the projects and programs can be run through agents and how many of the “current existing programs we can agentify," said CEO Srini Pallia on the company's strategy to improve profitability during its 16-July post-earnings analyst call.