Despite stopping its exchange services, Coinbase is still recruiting in India for tech positions

 Despite stopping its exchange services, Coinbase is still recruiting in India for tech positions

Indian IT talent clusters are being established by cryptocurrency businesses such as Coinbase and Gemini.

Due to the high taxes on cryptocurrency income in India and the difficulties in implementing UPI-based payments for buying and selling cryptocurrency on the platform, Coinbase's path there has not been smooth so far.

Even though it has been discontinuing operations in India since late October, the international cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is hiring more people there. Information-seeking sources informed Moneycontrol that the business is recruiting for remote work positions as well as technical and product positions at its Bengaluru and Hyderabad headquarters.

The organization is searching for jobs such as vendor management analyst, data scientist, software engineer, and engineering manager for platform payments. About thirty positions have been listed on its LinkedIn profile in the past three weeks, however it is unknown how many individuals are being recruited.

Over the last month, Coinbase has unexpectedly begun to hire for technical and product positions. On condition of anonymity, one of the persons said, "Tech talent hubs are being established in India by cryptocurrency companies such as Coinbase and Gemini."

This follows Coinbase's announcement of many waves of layoffs through 2022, which included the firing of over 950 workers in January 2023. Amidst challenging market circumstances for the cryptocurrency industry, the firm suspended many projects and laid off around 18% of its workforce in June 2022. As a result, almost 8% of Indian workers lost their employment. The business has now stopped recruiting and withdrew employment offers.

At the time of publishing, Coinbase has not responded to specific email inquiries.

The difficult beginning for Coinbase

Due to the high taxes on cryptocurrency income in India and the difficulties in implementing UPI-based payments for buying and selling cryptocurrency on the platform, Coinbase's path there has not been smooth so far. The term "UI" stands for "unified payment interface," which enables quick money transfers across bank accounts.

Coinbase said that its India tech center, which employed over 300 full-time workers when it first opened in the nation in April 2022, will grow by hiring over 1,000 more staff members by the end of 2022.

Although its UPI payment solution was expected to be one of its USPs in the nation, regulator pressure forced it to be placed on hold quickly. During Coinbase's first-quarter earnings call in May 2022, CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong said that the business was under "soft pressure" from the Reserve Bank of India to stop accepting payments via UPI.

Customers in India were notified by the firm in September 2023 that services will be discontinued and that they would need to remove any monies from their accounts by September 25. The deadline has been extended until October 31.

In India, competition for employment

Not only Coinbase, but also its international rival Gemini—established by the Winklevoss brothers, who are well-known for Facebook—is establishing its second-largest innovation campus in Gurugram and plans to join India in 2023. To extend this development facility, the business intends to spend $24 million over the next two years.

A greater tendency of international corporations establishing global capability centers (GCC) in India is shown by Coinbase and Gemini. For these organizations, the nation has strategic significance because it offers reasonably priced, highly competent English-speaking engineering staff.

In the previous two fiscal years, almost 150 firms have already established GCCs in India, according to NASSCOM statistics.

According to EY's forecast in the Future of GCCs in India - Vision 2030 study, there would be 4.5 million GCC workers in India by 2030, up from the present 1.9 million.