Coinbase, the prominent US-based crypto exchange, is actively pursuing an expansion of its workforce in India, signaling a shift in strategy despite recent regulatory challenges. The company is currently recruiting for various product and technology roles, both remotely and at its Bengaluru and Hyderabad locations. Open positions include software engineers, platform-payments engineering managers, data scientists, and vendor management analysts, with around 30 job listings appearing on Coinbase’s LinkedIn page in the past three weeks.
This move aligns with a broader industry trend as other crypto companies, such as Gemini, also intensify efforts to establish tech talent hubs in India. Notably, Coinbase’s renewed focus on hiring follows multiple rounds of layoffs in 2022, including a significant reduction of around 950 employees in January 2023. In June 2022, the company, grappling with challenging market conditions, cut approximately 18 percent of its global workforce, impacting around 8 percent of the India-based employees.
Despite these setbacks, Coinbase is actively investing in talent acquisition, particularly in the Indian market. The company’s journey in India has faced hurdles such as high taxes on crypto gains and challenges related to enabling UPI-based payments for crypto transactions. UPI, or Unified Payments Interface, facilitates instant transfers between bank accounts.
Coinbase originally launched its services in India in April 2022, unveiling plans to expand its Indian tech hub, which initially employed around 300 full-time workers. The goal was to add over 1,000 people in 2022. However, Coinbase has not provided responses to queries regarding its recent initiatives at the time of writing.
