Chennai:
With a vision to help 1 million students learn and earn better, CareerLabs, one of India’s fast-growing Educational Technology (EdTech) companies, has chosen a route that sets it apart from its contemporaries in the industry. The startup has headed to Tier-2 and Tier-3 Indian cities to source talent. Serving as one of its first milestones in this quest is the establishment of its R&D Centre in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu.
However, the story of setting up its center in Tirunelveli is an inspiring journey. At the vanguard of this endeavour towards providing local talent with employment opportunities is Jebastin Prabaharan, Vice President of Engineering, CareerLabs.
From a Small Town to the US and Back
Hailing from a village near Tuticorin, around 605 km from Chennai, Prabaharan completed his primary education in his hometown. He acquired a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E) degree in CSE from the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), Asia’s oldest technical institution.
Beginning his career in 2003 with Infravio, a software startup then, Prabaharan spent the next 19 years working with multiple organisations and donning several hats. As a part of the startup, he contributed to building successful enterprise global products out of Chennai.
As he built a solid profile for himself, his 9-year stint with Photon, a Global IT Services and IT Consulting company, took him to the US. During his time there, he worked closely with Fortune 500 companies such as Best Buy and Walgreens with a team of over 200 engineers spread across the globe. However, Prabaharan’s heart was set on returning home.
After arriving in India in 2020, he served as a consultant with CareerLabs. In 2021, he formally began his journey with the EdTech company and has been instrumental in the growth of the Tirunelveli centre since then. When asked why he chose to come back to India, he says: “Geography is no longer an impediment to building globally competitive products. The local talent here has a great appetite to work on cutting-edge tech and for CareerLabs this is the first step in bringing accessibility to tech beyond the tech hubs of India.”
Taking Opportunities to Small Towns
Officially established in November 2021, the R&D Centre in Tirunelveli has grown from strength to strength. Beginning with just 10 employees, the center currently boasts of 50; all of whom are talents identified from colleges in the region. They were handpicked and trained by Prabaharan himself.
Nevertheless, the important question is ‘Why Tirunelveli?’ Prabaharan explains that the organization’s research led them to an interesting finding: four of the top 200 engineering colleges as per the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) were located within a 200km radius from Tirunelveli.
In addition to this, the city also has a pool of experienced talent: professionals such as Prabaharan who wish to continue pursuing their careers without compromising their work-life balance. The center is set to recruit 30 experienced candidates (lateral hires) to bolster its numbers.
Impacting Lives in India’s Heartlands
CareerLabs’ ambitious foray into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities for expansion is driven by one of its key missions: to provide a high-quality work environment for engineers in Tamilnadu and Kerala. This flips the existing status quo of freshers and professionals from small towns seeking greener pastures in metropolitan cities such as Bengaluru and Chennai. Therefore, CareerLabs is setting an example as an employer by recruiting candidates from lower-tier cities.
Importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a platform to companies for accelerating the transition to smaller cities to commence business operations. With hesitance among students and professionals from lower-tier cities to move to bigger ones on account of the pandemic, and the scarcity of placement opportunities plaguing them, CareerLabs’ venturing into these regions is creating a positive impact on the lives of these communities; thereby staying true to the company’s core values.
