Microsoft India chief Sees AI Job Gains For Engineers

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Artificial intelligence is likely to create new opportunities for Indian engineers rather than simply replace them, Microsoft India Development Center (MIDC) chief Rajiv Kumar said, while warning that technical careers will depend increasingly on adaptability, judgment and the ability to work with AI systems.

In a post published by Microsoft Source Asia on 11 June, Kumar, managing director and president of MIDC, said the question among young engineers had shifted from whether AI would replace them to how they could collaborate with it.

“For young engineers this shift may seem worrisome,” Kumar wrote. “But here’s the perspective I want them to hold onto: virtually every major technology wave in history has ultimately created more opportunities than it destroyed.”

Kumar said AI was already creating new roles in Indian companies, including AI trainers, agent specialists and AI security experts. “The real question is not whether new jobs will exist but how ready we are to step into those roles,” he said.

The comments come as India’s technology sector is being forced to reassess its hiring model.

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) Future of Jobs Report 2025 estimates that 39% of workers’ existing skills will be transformed or become outdated by 2030. It also projects 170 million new jobs globally by 2030, offset by 92 million displaced roles, resulting in net employment growth of 78 million jobs.

For India, the shift is sharper because the country’s technology workforce is large, young and heavily exposed to software services. Kumar cited WEF estimates that 63% of India’s workforce will need significant upskilling or reskilling by 2030.

He also pointed to the rise of skills-based hiring. According to the WEF report, 30% of Indian employers have adopted skills-based hiring, compared with a global average of 19%.

Kumar said this makes the ability to “learn to learn” central to early-career engineers. In his view, fundamentals, experimentation and judgment will matter more as AI tools take over more routine execution.

“In a world where an AI can write serviceable code, engineers who deeply understand systems, algorithms and architecture are the ones trusted to build things that actually scale and make the calls that matter,” he wrote.

The argument fits a wider shift in India’s IT and global capability center sectors. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd chairman N Chandrasekaran this week said he expects IT companies to slow hiring as AI agents become part of the workforce, though he also said new roles and opportunities would emerge as companies adapt.

Reuters reported last month that global capability centers in India are placing more emphasis on domain and product skills than pure coding, as automation tools handle more routine programming tasks.

India’s policy establishment has also framed AI as a jobs issue. A NITI Aayog roadmap said India’s AI talent demand is expected to grow from 800,000 to 850,000 in 2024 to more than 1.25 million by 2026, while existing talent supply is growing more slowly.

Kumar said Microsoft’s own workplace research showed AI was expanding the type of work people can do. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2026 found that 66% of surveyed AI users said the technology allowed them to spend more time on high-value work, while 58% said they were producing work they could not have done a year earlier.

For India’s engineers, Kumar said, the career ladder is giving way to a “climbing wall,” where lateral moves, new projects and continuous upskilling drive progress.

“The strongest signal in this market isn’t a perfect résumé,” he wrote. “It is evidence that you are still learning, still building, still reaching for what comes next.”