iGate to hire 350 professionals in Chennai

iGate Global Solutions, the integrated software and services company, is planning to scale up its Chennai operations and is looking at hiring about 350 professionals in Chennai during this year.

This expansion comes on the wake of a siginificant growth achieved by a couple of its existing customers.

iGate, for the first time, is looking at hiring science graduates from Chennai in a big way. Of the 350 professionals to be hired in Chennai, about 150 would be science graduates. Overall, it expects to hire about 200 science graduates over the next 12 months.

V Viswanathan, Asst vice president - IT Solutions, iGate, told Business Standard that the company would be looking at hiring science graduates (mathematics, chemistry and MS information technology) with high analytical ability and would invest a lot in training them.

Apart from the cost effectiveness in hiring science graduates, the company was also impressed by the sense of loyalty and the passion shown by these graduates, he added.

Last year, iGate announced its plans to make its Chennai operations a 'Centre of excellence for J2EE and .NET' to focus on developing cutting edge applications for the manufacturing vertical. "We have made significant progress since last year. The Chennai operations develop new architecture, resuable components and other solutions in J2EEE and .NET segments," said Viswanathan.

Clients serviced out of Chennai facility includes a US-based Fortune 1000 client in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) space, Fortune 50 Global Corporation and a European Fortune 1000 client in the insurance space. The Chennai centre also has developed a new archietecture for a leading media group.

iGATE has a 100,000 sq. ft facility in Chennai, including the 35,000 sq ft added last year. The Chennai facility, which has a capacity for 1000 people, is the second largest facility for iGate in India and the company has so far invested over Rs 60 crore in Chennai. It currently employs 650, including the 350 professionals added during last year.

Apart from Chennai, iGATE has operations in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Noida. Bangalore-headquartered iGate is currently in the process of building the Phase III of its campus at Whitefield (Bangalore) at an investment of Rs 25crore. This 1000-people facility is expected to be operational by the first quarter of the fiscal 2007.

iGATE has a global employee strength of over 4800 people. Over 70 per cent of it works out of its offshore facilities in India. It reported a revenue of Rs 580 crore and a net propfit of Rs 21 crore for the year ended March 31, 2005.