Artificial intelligence is forcing Indian IT companies to rethink the traditional career ladder, with promotions increasingly likely to be based on skills and demonstrated capability rather than years of experience, according to Tech Mahindra Chief People Officer Richard Lobo.
As AI enables individual engineers to deliver work that previously required several people, companies will need to shift the way they assess employee contribution, productivity and performance, Lobo said.
“Promotions will become less about tenure and more about demonstrated capability,” he said, adding that companies would increasingly recognise specialised and relevant skills while rewarding both individual contribution and team outcomes.
At Tech Mahindra, the approach is to balance individual and team performance while factoring skills into compensation, Lobo said.
AI is also expected to reduce management layers, although this would not necessarily make organisations uniformly flatter. Managers are likely to oversee larger and more diverse teams, while managing both people and AI-enabled digital labour.
“The manager of the future will need to work with digital labour alongside humans,” Lobo said. Managers will also be expected to coach employees, build organisational culture, enable continuous learning and drive business outcomes.
This could result in fewer management layers, but broader mandates and greater accountability for those who remain in managerial roles. It is also prompting companies to reconsider traditional talent pyramids in favour of more flexible, skills-based structures.
The impact of AI on entry-level work is another major shift for the IT industry. While automation is reducing routine tasks traditionally assigned to freshers, it is not eliminating the need for entry-level talent, Lobo said.
Instead, freshers could spend more time testing solutions, solving problems, using AI tools and developing skills needed as technology evolves. Companies, however, will need to invest in simulators and other learning tools to give freshers adequate business context.
At Tech Mahindra, this development is being supported through structured training, client-led projects and experimentation. Its R&D arm, Maker’s Lab, provides employees with a platform to experiment and develop ideas.
The company has trained around 80% of its workforce in foundational AI technologies, with the next phase focused on higher AI proficiency, certifications and deeper domain expertise, Lobo said.
He said the traditional career ladder is not disappearing, but the definition of what it takes to move up is changing.
“Progression will depend less on spending a prescribed number of years at each level and more on the skills engineers build, the value they create and the ownership they demonstrate,” he said.
AI is creating new roles, particularly in AI engineering, AI solutions and specialised technology skills. However, Tech Mahindra is focusing largely on reskilling its existing workforce rather than creating separate job titles for every emerging AI role.
The company’s strategy is to enable employees to move into AI-led roles through deeper training and certifications, rather than relying solely on external hiring.
Lobo said the next five years would see the Indian IT industry move away from credentials and experience being the primary signals of capability towards greater emphasis on skills, adaptability and the ability to work effectively with technology.
“The workforce of the future will be defined by professionals who combine sound human judgement with technical fluency,” he said.
For industry leaders, continuous learning and reskilling will increasingly become integral to every role. Companies will also need to invest in entry-level positions and internal mobility and build pathways for employees to acquire new capabilities as the nature of work changes, Lobo said.
