Two numbers decide what a hire costs: the salary and the fee. Most people research the first carefully and accept whatever is quoted for the second. This is a breakdown of both, plus the costs that never appear on an invoice and usually matter more.
Ranges here reflect the Indian market in 2026. Treat them as bands to negotiate within, not quotes.
The recruitment fee
Contingency recruitment in India generally runs 15–25% of first-year fixed salary, paid only on a successful hire. Where you land depends on scarcity rather than effort — a backend engineer with common skills sits near the bottom, a perception engineer or a first head of function near the top.
Retained search is a different model: a fee paid in stages, exclusivity, and dedicated attention. It is appropriate for a small number of senior, business-critical hires and expensive for anything else.
Three questions change the real cost far more than the headline percentage:
Is the fee on fixed salary or total CTC? On a package with a meaningful variable or ESOP component, this can move the invoice by lakhs. Get it in writing.
When does the invoice arrive? On offer, on acceptance, or on joining. Paying on joining moves the notice-period risk off your side of the table entirely.
What does the guarantee cover? Ninety days is a reasonable bar. Check whether it is a free re-run or a pro-rated credit, and whether it covers an accepted candidate who never turns up.
Salary bands
Broad 2026 ranges for product and platform engineering roles, fixed component:
| Level | Bengaluru / Hyderabad | Pune / Chennai / NCR |
|---|---|---|
| 2–4 years | ₹18–32L | ₹15–26L |
| 5–8 years (senior) | ₹35–60L | ₹30–50L |
| Staff / principal | ₹60–1.1Cr | ₹50–90L |
| Engineering leadership | ₹80L–2Cr+ | ₹70L–1.5Cr |
GCCs and well-funded product companies sit at the top of each band; services companies and early-stage startups at the bottom, usually offsetting with equity. AI and ML roles carry a premium of roughly 20–40% over equivalent backend seniority, and that premium has widened rather than settled.
Hyderabad has effectively reached parity with Bengaluru at senior levels, driven by GCC expansion. Pune and Chennai still offer a genuine 10–15% discount with strong SaaS and fintech backend depth.
The costs nobody quotes
The role staying open. A senior engineering seat open for three months is a quarter of delivery from that headcount, plus the load on the people covering it. This is almost always the largest number in the calculation and almost never in the spreadsheet.
Notice-period attrition. Indian notice periods run 30–90 days, and offer-to-joining drop-off is a structural feature of the market rather than bad luck. Every accepted candidate who does not join means restarting. If your vendor invoiced on acceptance, you paid for it.
Counter-offers. A resignation from a good engineer frequently triggers a counter. If nobody is in contact with the candidate during notice, you find out on day one when they do not arrive.
Your team's interviewing hours. Four engineers × five candidates × 90 minutes is thirty engineering hours per hire, before debriefs. Loose screening is expensive in a currency that never gets invoiced.
How to bring the number down
Shorten the loop. Time-to-offer is the single biggest controllable variable. Good candidates hold multiple processes; the slowest one loses.
Do not pay for a hire that has not happened. Retainers, platform fees, database subscriptions and seat licences are money spent whether or not anyone joins. On contingency, you pay for outcomes.
Move the fee trigger to joining. This is negotiable more often than people assume, and it aligns the vendor with the only outcome you care about.
Pay for reach, not effort. If a role has been open for weeks, more CVs will not fix it. What fixes it is someone who already knows where that skill set lives.
Ask who works your role. "A dedicated team" is not an answer. "This person, who has closed eleven of these" is.
The honest comparison
For repeatable, common roles, an in-house recruiter is usually cheaper per hire and should be your default.
For roles where the right person is not applying, the comparison is not the fee against a salary. It is the fee against the cost of that seat staying empty for another quarter — and for senior engineering, that is rarely a close call.