Tata Consultancy Services is increasingly relying on its annual global coding contests to add to its roster of pedigree talent that does research in areas like cognitive robotics, quantum computing and sensing, and DNA computing.

CodeVita, the first of such contests started as an internal coding test, has now become a global coding contest, allowing the company to spot and hire digital talent from across the globe. It has become the springhead of many innovations at the company, including Covid-19-related research and innovation.

While the company has a larger National Qualifier Test (NQT) for campus hiring every year, CodeVita has been helping it hire specialised coders in departments like research and innovation and security.

K Ananth Krishnan, CTO, Tata Consultancy Services, who was behind CodeVita’s inception in 2007 and has led the initiative ever since, said that while the NQT has been fulfilling the broader talent requirement, such contests help the company seek out and hire niche talent that builds more strategic applications.

“We need talent of all sorts, say customer facing, industry-specific, people from various engineering backgrounds, management schools. So (NQT) has a very different and larger demand cycle to fulfil. But these folks are specialists,” said Krishnan. “You don’t need 500 fast bowlers in the Indian cricket team but if you have five, they better be the top five in the world. So that’s the focus in these competitions, they go after the specialists.”

Krishnan added, “A few of them have done extremely well in research. The security labs which we have are staffed exclusively with people who have come from this stream.”

The ability of the contest to attract top talent has also led to other contests, such as EngiNX for engineering design and IoT talent, HackQuest for ethical hacking talent and Inframind for cloud-related proficiency.

IoT, cloud and cybersecurity are areas where large enterprises are ramping up spends and areas where technology companies have been on the lookout for digital talent.

Since 2014, when the contest was opened up to participants across the world, TCS has made 11,112 employment offers through CodeVita.

According to Krishnan, over the years, the hiring numbers have consistently increased. In 2020, about 3,417 job offers were made in the ‘Digital’ and ‘Ninja’ categories. ‘Ninja’ is a key role that TCS hires freshers for and for which the package ranges up to Rs 3.6 lakh per annum. The ‘Digital’ role is secured by candidates with exceptional performance, according to the company, and their packages range up to Rs 7 lakh per annum.

TCS’ CodeVita contest held in April also led to the company joining the Guinness World Records league for the “Largest computer programming competition” with participation of 1,36,054 people from 34 countries.