Flipkart-owned digital payments platform PhonePe is also slowly restructuring the company to make it a flatter organization, starting with the engineering team, which currently has about 300 people. The company expects to grow this number to 500 employees by the end of 2020, as per the ET report. Overall PhonePe will increase its workforce by 20 to 30 percent this year and hire up to 550 people. 

“As you know, the situation is not good in the ecosystem, so really good individuals are finding themselves losing a job. The available pool in the market looking out is obviously bigger,” said Rahul Chari, Co-founder and CTO of PhonePe.

While many other internet firms are laying off employees, PhonePe’s leadership expects to take this as an opportunity to hire top talent from this larger available talent pool. While strengthening the engineering team is a major focus for PhonePe, it also feels the need to have other functions in place as it grows. 

“From day one we have been an engineering-centric company. A lot of what we built, engineering and product were at the core of it. Over the last three years, a lot of product lines have matured. As they mature, other functions start playing an important role - business development, marketing, finance, legal,” said Chari. 

Hence, the digital payments company looks to add roles across the board, including engineering, corporate functions, sales, business development, and marketing.

Even amid crisis hiring continues 

PhonePe is not the only emerging tech-driven company hiring amid COVID-19 crisis, many other companies like fintech firm RazorPay, edtech firm Vedantu, and Game Art Services company Lakshya Digital have announced their hiring plans for this year. Razorpay is hiring for over 50 critical positions across functions like Backend, Frontend, Data Sciences, and Product Management to meet the increasing demand and enable seamless online transactions for its partner businesses. Similarly,  Lakshya Digital has a team of about 500 people and plans to hire 50-70 more people over next one year. 

Then there are many other companies like BasicFirst, Dream Sports, FarEye, Licious, Myntra, Milk Mantra, Vedantu, HouseJoy, Zivame and BharatPe that have done top-level hiring amid the crisis. The lockdown has enhanced engagement of online platforms and the world of work expects this trend to increase further. The job seekers must take a note of the skills in demand and invest their time and efforts in preparing for these roles in demand.