For software engineering hiring, the IIT premium has collapsed from 40% to under 15% in five years. The signal value has eroded.

For software engineering hiring at top Indian product companies, the IIT premium has compressed from a 40% comp differential five years ago to under 15% today. The reason is simple: hiring panels have built better interview signals, and the IIT-tag has stopped being a meaningful proxy for capability versus a strong portfolio + GitHub + interview performance. The premium remains in two specific domains: graduate-school admissions abroad (where the brand still carries weight) and consulting/finance hiring (where the network effect matters more than the skill signal). For tech engineering, the IIT advantage is now small enough to be overwhelmed by 2 years of strong work output from a tier-2 college engineer.