You could say the Indian tech scene is at an inflection point. Rajiv Kumar of Microsoft has no doubt that AI will put more people to work than it lets go, but engineers will have to put aside any nerves and get on board. The numbers are telling: 39% of the skills we rely on today will be different in 2030, and for 63% of India’s workers, some serious upskilling is on the horizon.
As head of the Microsoft India Development Center, Kumar makes the case that the careers which make it are the ones built on a habit of learning. If you can keep up, he says, AI is less of a danger and more of an opening to do work of a higher order.
There is a certain heft to India’s role here, according to Kumar. You have the second-biggest pool of engineering talent in the world and the means to put ideas into practice on a large scale. Case in point: the Microsoft India Development Center in Hyderabad. It is our biggest R&D operation outside of the US and shows how much of a part India is playing in our global offerings.
‘They are not just along for the ride; they are the ones putting the architecture in place for top-tier innovation,’ he puts it. After 27 years in Hyderabad, the centre is churning out tech for the whole world, a sign of the move from simply delivering to actually designing.
Hiring is shifting to skills, not titles
This is the kind of talk you hear as companies change the way they look at who they hire. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 report on the future of jobs has 39% of core competencies in for a change by 2030. In India, we’re looking at 63% of the workforce having to be reskilled or upskilled to some degree.
Some 30% of employers in India are already on the skills-based hiring bandwagon, well above the 19% mark globally. And with over 85% of organisations everywhere making room for upskilling in the face of AI, it’s becoming clear that what you can do and learn is starting to matter more than your old credentials.
What workers report from using AI
We put a number to it in the 2026 Work Trend Index: 66% of those using AI around the world tell us it gives them back time for the work that really counts. Then there’s the 58% who are turning out things they wouldn’t have been able to a year ago. A good portion of their time with an AI copilot is spent on the heavy lifting – problem solving, analysis, and some creative thinking.
‘That is the collaboration I’m talking about,’ said Kumar. He sees AI as a thought partner for the more demanding mental work, a way to lift an engineer’s output, not just a device to run through the motions.
Industry turbulence and Microsoft’s restructuring
All this comes at a time of some major realignment. You could put it down to a refocus on AI and the cloud, but in 2025 Microsoft let go of over 15,000 people. Then in the first half of 2026 they did something they hadn’t in 50 years: put out a retirement buyout for some 8,750 of their US staff, or about 7% of the total there.
With 228,000 on its books worldwide, you might have expected India to be hit hard by the kind of cuts that have made inroads at Xbox and LinkedIn. But for the most part, Microsoft has left its Indian operations alone, a nod to how vital the region is to its AI ambitions.
Then you look at the rest of the industry. Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are all set to put up close to $700 billion in 2026 to keep up with the run on AI. It’s an investment that forces a reshuffling of talent and makes room for the kind of work only an AI specialist can do.
From fear to collaboration: what Kumar is telling engineers
Kumar will tell you the talk among young pros has turned around. “I don’t hear ‘Will I be made redundant by AI?’ as much as I used to,” he says. “Now it’s, ‘How do we work with it?'”
It’s the same story you see after any big tech wave. “The internet created jobs in 1995 that were unimaginable before. AI is on the same track,” he says. You’re already seeing AI trainers, agent specialists and security types pop up in companies here in India. “It’s not a matter of if there will be work, but are we in a position to do it?”
For those just starting out, it’s a change in attitude. “You have to be a good student of your own career,” he puts it. “Learn to learn. That’s what lets you make the pivot.” And that’s what employers are looking for these days.
There are some ground rules for this new era, according to Kumar. You need to be quick and have good judgment, even as you hold to the basics. “AI is no substitute for the human side of things – the strategy, the empathy,” he says. “It can write the code, sure. But it won’t know your customer or what’s at stake. Great professionals are defined by that kind of call, one you make with experience and ethics.”
If you want to boil his playbook down, it’s three things:
– Don’t skimp on the fundamentals
– Keep at it; momentum is better than being a master of one thing
– Let your judgment and empathy be what drives you
Why it matters now
In a time when you have layoffs in one corner and a gold rush for AI in the other, Kumar’s view is a way to make sense of it. The numbers back him up: the ones using AI are the ones moving up.
For India, it’s a question of strategy. Put in the work, be ready to move, and you can turn size into influence. As Kumar would have it, the issue is whether we’re prepared, not whether we’re being put out to pasture.
