Pakistan's software developers emerging among top choices for US-based companies: Turing CEO

Jonathan Siddharth, the CEO and co-founder of California-based IT company Turing, said Pakistan is emerging as among the top choices for US companies as they look to ramp up their software development teams.

Turing, which enables businesses to hire software engineers from around the world, announced in June that it was now focusing its efforts towards attracting more software developers in Pakistan as it identifies the South Asian economy as a high-potential market.

Turing matches remote developers with long-term jobs and enlists them to work with leading US-based companies. Developers negotiate their own salaries. Turing charges the companies a premium for using its platform.

US-based Turing eyes Pakistan's software engineers as it expands in South Asia

“Software exports is a booming industry bringing significant revenue to national economies,” said Siddharth in response to queries sent by Business Recorder.

“Countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are fast emerging as top choices to ramp up software development teams. The tech talent of these countries is a significant asset that can bring endless opportunities in terms of foreign exchange to the national exchequer by exporting their expertise.”

Turing was founded in 2018 by Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan, who is now stated as Chief Technology Officer. Siddharth said Turing is functional in 150 countries, and has over 1.5 million software developers on its platform.

Details on its website suggest that it conducts live interviews and tests lasting more than five hours during its own vetting process, which includes checking for soft skills.

There has also been an increase in the number of IT programmes and courses in the country that have helped many aspiring developers build their aptitude: Turing CEO

Siddharth said Turing was functional in Pakistan for a while, but is now actively looking for software engineers.

“Seeing the rich developer talent Pakistan houses, we are actively looking for software engineers to provide them with a community where they can scale their careers by accessing remote job opportunities with leading firms in the US,” he said.

The CEO said Pakistan has also seen impressive growth in its IT industry in the past few years, producing some of the best software engineers in the region.

“There has also been an increase in the number of IT programmes and courses in the country that have helped many aspiring developers build their aptitude. Pakistani developers are just as competent as developers from any high-tech country. They simply need the right opportunities.”

Siddharth said the platform would help Pakistani developers connect with the top US firms, bridging the gap between foreign and local markets. However, the CEO did not share the number of Pakistani software developers currently on Turing’s platform.

He added that Turing has itself seen phenomenal growth, and raised a total of over $140 million in the Series D financing round from investors including UK-based WestBridge Capital, US-based Foundation Capital, Stanford StartX, and executives from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Siddharth said the round takes Turing’s valuation to over $4 billion.

“We plan on utilising this valuation to grow and build a category-defining company. We are experiencing a generational shift in how we work with the remote-first concept gaining quick, widespread popularity. We aim to leverage this shift by democratising opportunities for the global developer talent base and helping companies benefit from this talent without any geographically-inflicted limitations.

“Currently, Turing has 1.5 million developers listed on its platform from 150 countries, thousands of whom have already been connected with more than 300 top US firms, including Johnson & Johnson, Dell, Disney, Coinbase, Plume, and VillageMD. As we move ahead, our mission is to deepen our global presence by onboarding more talented developers from around the world, expand our customer base to include more top high-profile US firms, and rapidly scale our efforts to help our community of developers grow and succeed in their careers.”