The AI gold rush is real for the top 2% — and a slog for everyone else applying with a six-month bootcamp on their resume.

Indian AI hiring numbers look incredible in aggregate: 60,000+ open roles, ₹40 LPA average for senior ML engineers. Underneath the headline, the bar is brutally uneven. Top FAANG-adjacent companies are hiring researchers with publications and PhD experience. The rest of the market wants ML engineers who can ship — and most "AI" job listings really want a senior backend engineer who can wire up an OpenAI API. For someone breaking in, the realistic path isn't the PhD track — it's deploying ML systems that drive measurable business outcomes. One production case study with metrics beats five Kaggle gold medals in 80% of Indian hiring conversations. The hype is real; the gate is real too.