Tide to double tech headcount in India, aims to hire more than 600 techies in the next five years ~Plans to create new talent stream with ‘Internship to Hire programme’~

by Suman Gupta

December , 2021, Mumbai: Tide, the UK’s leading business financial platform^[1], with operations and an imminent launch in India, has announced a hiring spree of more than 600 tech professionals by the end of 2026. This drive, which constitutes nearly 60% of the company’s total hiring, stems from Tide’s expansion strategy to boost its local presence in India, its first international market.

Earlier this year, Tide announced plans to create more than 1,000 jobs in India over the next five years. In the coming 18-24 months, the fintech’s Hyderabad technology centre/global development centre (GDC) will onboard more than 300 engineers across various roles, with a particular focus on backend engineers in Java and Python, as well as experts in data science and Flutter.

Keeping in mind the current tech talent crunch across the globe, Tide is creating new hiring streams through an ‘Internship to Hire’ programme to attract and nurture top quality talent. Focused on training fresh graduates from premium institutes, such as IITs and NITs, Tide will leverage the programme to recruit entry-level candidates and then gradually increase the count as the model matures. Upon successful completion of the programme, interns will be offered full-time employment opportunities at Tide.

Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide (India) said “We have seen a tremendous response from the India market within a short span of starting operations in the country. The additional technological capabilities will help us build our product for India as we expand our roots deeper into the country and invest in the technology leaders of tomorrow.”

Tide’s aggressive hiring spree can be attributed to its ambition of serving the 64-million and growing Indian SME sector. Earlier this year, when the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hit SMEs hard, digital banking platforms emerged as critical solutions to increase efficiency, saving time and money for people running businesses.

As an employer, Tide is focused on championing entry-level engineers and making tech employment opportunities more accessible to all, without any gender or socio-economic background biases.

Commenting on this Neeraj Agrawal, VP Engineering-Hyderabad Technology Centre, Tide (India) stated, “Tide’s global development centre in Hyderabad has a global mandate, although it currently serves the UK and India markets, we plan to expand to multiple countries in future. Moreover, the GDC is integral to scaling our business in India. The country has a huge pool of technological expertise available locally and I am confident the team we are building will help us tune our offering better for Indian SMEs and deliver superior support to them when we roll out our offering here in India.”

Tide already has over 350 highly skilled employees in India, with most based in its Hyderabad technology centre, which was set up in early 2020. Its business headquarters are in Gurugram.

About Tide: Founded in 2015 and launched in 2017, London-based Tide is now the leading business financial platform in the UK. Tide helps SMEs save time (and money) in the running of their businesses by not only offering business accounts and related banking services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable administrative solutions. Tide has over 380,000 SME members in the UK (nearly 7% market share).

Tide has been funded by Apax Digital, Anthemis, Augmentum, Creandum, Goodwater, Jigsaw, Latitude, LocalGlobe, Passion Capital, SpeedInvest and The SBI Group. It employs 800+ professionals worldwide, has recently been awarded the UK Fintech Awards’ ‘Banking Tech of the Year’ and is among the Sunday Times Fast Track Disruptors to Watch. Tide has a long-term ambition to be the leading business financial platform globally.

Tide selected India as its first international market in 2020. With over 350 highly skilled employees in India, most based in its Hyderabad technology centre, Tide is presently ramping up operations for a full-fledged launch in India early next year.