AI Impact: For nearly three decades, there was a familiar roadmap for thousands of young people graduating from engineering colleges in India’s Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns. Finish a degree, complete a short training course in testing or full-stack development, land a job at a small IT services firm, and gradually move into bigger companies.
It was rarely glamorous, but it was dependable. For many families, it offered a predictable route into the middle class and a stable future.
Today, that once-reliable escalator is beginning to falter. The AI Impact on Entry-Level IT Jobs in India is rapidly transforming the industry’s hiring patterns, erasing many of the routine roles that once served as the gateway for fresh graduates.
AI Impact: Routine Work Shrinks as Artificial Intelligence Expands
The old IT pipeline relied heavily on repetitive technical tasks — manual testing, basic CRUD application development, scripted automation, and low-complexity backend maintenance. These roles were never considered cutting-edge, but they offered steady employment and valuable on-the-job learning.
Now, artificial intelligence tools are performing many of these tasks faster, more efficiently, and at a lower cost.
Career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi, who has tracked engineering education trends for years, says the shift is unavoidable. According to him, the first wave of change is already visible in the shrinking number of traditional fresher roles.
“The initial entry-level jobs, especially in IT and computer science, are getting replaced by advancements in AI and newer computing methods,” he explains. He points to generative AI as well as advances in high-performance computing as major drivers behind the change.
Gandhi adds that foundational coding knowledge alone is no longer sufficient. Graduates must now understand AI tools, automation platforms, and emerging technologies simply to stay competitive in the job market shaped by the AI Impact on Entry-Level IT Jobs in India.
Industry Voices Call for a Shift From Tasks to Solutions
From the corporate side, technology leaders see the transformation as both disruptive and necessary. Ritwik Batabyal, CTO and Innovation Officer at Mastek Group, notes that freshers once learned primarily through repetitive tasks. With AI handling much of that work, companies must rethink how newcomers gain experience.
Instead of assigning small fragments of larger systems, companies are encouraging graduates to participate in real-world projects, product development, innovation labs, and startup-style teams.
“The focus is shifting from doing tasks to building solutions,” Batabyal says.
He emphasizes that companies also bear responsibility for redesigning entry-level roles. Rather than mass hiring large fresher batches for routine work, organizations may increasingly form smaller, highly mentored teams that collaborate with AI systems. The result, he predicts, will be fewer but more meaningful entry-level opportunities — a defining characteristic of the evolving AI Impact on Entry-Level IT Jobs in India.
AI Impact: A Growing Gap Between Tech Hubs and Smaller Town Classrooms
One of the biggest challenges lies not in AI itself but in the awareness gap between metropolitan tech hubs and smaller-town colleges. In cities like Bengaluru, discussions about copilots, AI agents, and outcome-based roles have become routine.
In many Tier-2 and Tier-3 institutions, however, the focus remains on placement statistics, outdated curricula, and training programs promising guaranteed jobs. Courses in traditional full-stack development and DevOps are still widely marketed despite declining demand for basic versions of these skills.
Gandhi notes that some colleges have begun adapting by introducing courses in platform engineering, DevSecOps, and AI-driven computing environments. But he warns that these examples are still rare. As a result, recruiters continue to receive thousands of nearly identical resumes filled with outdated skill keywords, reflecting the widening mismatch created by the AI Impact on Entry-Level IT Jobs in India.
Experience Still Matters — But the Path to Gaining It Is Changing
As entry-level roles evolve, a pressing question emerges: how will graduates gain the experience companies demand?
Jaspreet Bindra, Co-founder of AI & Beyond, argues that the traditional definition of experience is itself outdated. Previously, freshers learned by performing repetitive tasks over long periods. That layer is thinning as automation advances.
Instead, graduates are now expected to demonstrate their capabilities through real-world problem solving. Meaningful internships, startup collaborations, open-source contributions, campus-industry partnerships, and self-initiated projects are becoming critical pathways to learning.
“The old model rewarded time spent,” Bindra explains. “The new model rewards evidence of thinking and execution.”