India's Most Advanced Startup Hiring Intelligence Platform

Real-time compensation data, AI hiring trends, HFT benchmarks, equity intelligence. Every data point sourced from 2,400+ placements across 500+ startups.
Last updated: Today, 09:42 IST
Continuous Marquee
ML OPS ₹52L ▲19.1%
HFT QUANT ₹180L ▲11.3%
FOUNDING ENG ₹55L+Eq ▲22.7%
CLASSIC DS ₹38L ▼4.2%
STAFF ENG ₹88L ▲14.6%
HEAD ENG ₹105L ▲8.9%
LLM SPECIALIST ₹74L ▲68.2%
ML OPS ₹52L ▲19.1%
HFT QUANT ₹180L ▲11.3%
FOUNDING ENG ₹55L+Eq ▲22.7%
CLASSIC DS ₹38L ▼4.2%
STAFF ENG ₹88L ▲14.6%
HEAD ENG ₹105L ▲8.9%
LLM SPECIALIST ₹74L ▲68.2%

AI Roles YoY Growth

+68%

LLM engineer demand '23→'24

68.2% vs last year

HFT Top Quant CTC

₹2.1Cr

Base + Bonus + PnL share, Mumbai

11.3% YoY

Avg Time to Offer

18 days

Across all Grizmo placements 2024

4× faster than market

Data Points Tracked

2,400+

Salaries, equity grants, offer data

Updated daily

2024 Salary Intelligence Report

Sourced from 2,400+ anonymised placements. Updated quarterly. India’s most comprehensive startup compensation database.

Median AI Engineer

₹68,00,000

▲28% YoY

Founding Eng (Seed)

₹48,00,000

+ 0.3–1.5% equity

P90 Staff Engineer

₹1,12,00,000

▲14% YoY

Remote Premium

+12%

vs equivalent on-site

Compensation by Role

Salary Table
ROLE MEDIAN P75 P90 YOY
LLM / GenAI Engineer ₹74L ₹96L ₹1.2Cr +68%
ML Research Engineer ₹62L ₹82L ₹1.05Cr +41%
Staff Engineer ₹88L ₹1.02Cr ₹1.12Cr +14%
Founding Engineer ₹48L ₹60L ₹72L +22%
MLOps / Platform ₹52L ₹68L ₹84L +19%
Senior Backend Eng ₹38L ₹50L ₹64L +9%
Head of Engineering ₹95L ₹1.1Cr ₹1.3Cr +8%
Classic Data Scientist ₹38L ₹48L ₹58L -4%

Median Salary by City

INR Lakhs p.a. · AI/ML Roles

Market Intelligence Feed

LLM Engineer demand up 68% YoY — highest growth role in India

Updated 2h ago

Classic DS roles down 4% as LLM roles cannibalise demand

Updated 4h ago

Remote roles paying 12% premium vs equivalent on-site

Updated 6h ago

AI Hiring Trends 2024

Where AI talent is moving, what they’re being paid, and which skills are winning.

AI Role Demand Index — 12 Month Trend

Relative demand, Jan 2023 = 100

Median Salary by City

INR Lakhs p.a. · AI/ML Roles

AI Skills Ranking
# SKILL SCORE YOY
01 LLM Fine-tuning 9.4 /10 +312%
02 RAG / Vector DBs 8.9 /10 +280%
03 PyTorch 8.6 /10 +44%
04 MLOps / MLflow 8.2 /10 +89%
05 Kubernetes + GPU 7.8 /10 +62%
06 Python (Advanced) 7.5 /10 +18%
07 Traditional SQL/DW 4.1 /10 −22%

HFT Compensation Benchmark 2024

Prop trading firms, hedge funds, and market makers. India’s most authoritative HFT compensation guide.
Role Progression & Compensation Ladder

Level 01

Junior Quant Dev

Base ₹18–28L
Bonus ₹5–12L
PnL Share None

0%

Level 02

Quant Developer

Base ₹35–55L
Bonus ₹15–30L
PnL Share 0.5–2%

0%

Level 03

Senior Quant Dev

Base ₹60–90L
Bonus ₹30–80L
PnL Share 2–8%

0%

Level 04

Quant Researcher

Base ₹80–130L
Bonus ₹50–150L
PnL Share 5–15%

0%

Level 05

Head of Quant

Base ₹1.2–2Cr
Bonus Uncapped
PnL Share 10–30%

0%

Firm Type Comparison

Compensation by Firm Type
Firm Type Base Total Comp Culture
Prop Trading Firm ₹60–150L ₹1.5–3Cr+ Intense
Hedge Fund ₹50–120L ₹1–2.5Cr Research-led
Investment Bank ₹40–80L ₹60–130L Structured
FinTech Startup ₹35–70L ₹50–100L Agile

Critical HFT Skills

C++ (Ultra Low Latency)
0%
Linux Kernel / DPDK
0%
Market Microstructure
0%
FIX / FAST Protocol
0%
Statistics / Stochastics
0%
FPGA Programming
0%

Founding Engineer Equity Guide

What to expect, how to negotiate, and how to evaluate equity at every startup stage.

Pre-Seed / Seed

1 – 5%

Founding eng #1. Highest risk, highest upside.

Max upside zone
0%

Series A

0.3 – 1.5%

First 5 engineers. PMF emerging.

Sweet spot
0%

Series B

0.05 – 0.4%

Scaling phase. Lower risk.

Safer bet
0%

Level 04

Series C+

Pre-IPO. Liquidity much clearer.

Near-liquidity
0%
0%

4-Year Vesting Timeline with 1-Year Cliff

0%

Day 0

25%

Year 1
Cliff vests

50%

Year 2

75%

Year 3

100%

Year 4
Fully vested

Dilution Tracker — Across Funding Rounds

Equity Growth Table
ROUND GRANT AFTER DILUTION CO. VALUATION STAKE VALUE
Grant (Seed) 1.00% 1.00% ₹20Cr ₹20L
Series A (~20%) 1.00% 0.80% ₹120Cr ₹96L
Series B (~18%) 1.00% 0.66% ₹400Cr ₹2.64Cr
Series C (~15%) 1.00% 0.56% ₹1,200Cr ₹6.72Cr
IPO / Exit 1.00% 0.50% ₹4,000Cr ₹20Cr 🚀
ESOP Value Calculator
ESOP INTELLIGENCE

ESOP Value Calculator

Model your equity across exit scenarios. Understand real vs. paper value before you sign.

Your Grant Details

Grant % of Company 0.50%
Current Valuation ₹200Cr
Strike Price (% of FMV) 10%
Vested % 70%
CURRENT PAPER VALUE
₹63.0L
At current valuation, before tax

Exit Scenario Modeller

EXIT
CO. VAL
GROSS
AFTER TAX
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
  • 4-year vest, 1-year cliff
  • Tax rate 30% (LTCG after 24 months)
  • Strike price deducted from gross
  • Dilution not modelled — see Equity Guide tab

Top Hiring Startups — Q2 2024

Ranked by hiring velocity, FEMQ™ score, comp quality, and engineer satisfaction.

NeuralStack AI

Enterprise LLM fine-tuning and deployment platform

Velocity
0%

Moonshard AI

Autonomous AI agents for enterprise workflow automation #3

Velocity
0%

Vantara

AI-native supply chain intelligence for mid-market manufacturers

Velocity
0%

FluxTrade

Next-gen algorithmic trading infrastructure for institutional desks

Velocity
0%

Codebridge

Developer-first API platform powering 4,000+ B2B integrations

Velocity
0%

DeepXcel

Hyper-low-latency infrastructure for co-located HFT strategies

Velocity
0%

The Intelligence Layer for Startup Hiring

Whether you’re a founder searching for a staff engineer, or an engineer evaluating equity Grizmo gives you the data to make the right move.