Global crypto exchange Coinbase is expanding its employee base in India even after discontinuing its services in the country from October end. The company is filling product and technology roles across remote working and Bengaluru and Hyderabad locations, people in the know told Moneycontrol.
The company is hiring software engineers, engineering managers for platform-payments, data scientists and vendor management analyst roles, to name a few. While the number of people being recruited couldn’t be ascertained, about 30 open positions were posted on its LinkedIn page over the past three weeks.
“Coinbase suddenly started hiring in the past month or so for product and tech roles. Crypto companies like Coinbase and Gemini are working on setting up tech talent hubs in India,” one person said, seeking anonymity.
This comes after Coinbase announced multiple rounds of layoffs since 2022, including the dismissal of about 950 employees in January 2023. In June 2022, the company let go about 18 percent of its staff and stalled several projects amid tough market conditions for the crypto business. Of this, about 8 percent of the India staff lost their jobs. Since then, the company has slowed hiring and withdrawn job offers.
Detailed queries sent to Coinbase over email didn’t elicit any response at the time of publishing.
Coinbase’s rocky start
Coinbase’s journey in India so far has been quite troubled, amid high taxes on crypto gains in the country and challenges on enabling UPI-based payments to buy or sell crypto on the platform. UI refers to the Unified Payments Interface, which facilitates instant transfers of funds between bank accounts.
After launching in the country in April 2022, Coinbase said its Indian tech hub which then had about 300 fulltime employees, would expand with the addition of over 1,000 people in 2022.
While one of its USPs in the country was going to be its UPI payment option, it had to be stopped soon after, facing pressure from regulators. In May 2022, Brian Armstrong, the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, said during the company’s first quarter earnings call that the company faced “soft pressure” from the Reserve Bank of India to disable UPI-based payments.
In September 2023, the company informed customers in India, stating that it was discontinuing services to Indian customers and their funds had to be withdrawn from their accounts by September 25. This deadline was extended to October 31.
Hiring spree in India
Not just Coinbase, its global peer Gemini (founded by the Winklevoss brothers of Facebook fame), which entered India in 2023, is setting up its second-largest tech hub in Gurugram. The company plans to invest $24 million over the next two years to expand this development centre.
Coinbase and Gemini are examples of a larger trend of multinational companies setting up global capability centres (GCCs) in India. The country is strategic for these companies, with its skilled English-speaking engineering talent at a cheaper cost too.
According to Nasscom data, about 150 companies have already set up GCCs in India in the past two financial years.
In its Future of GCCs in India - a Vision 2030 report, EY predicted that the number of people working in GCCs in India will shoot up to 4.5 million by 2030 from 1.9 million at present.
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