How to Get a Software Job in India as a Foreigner

You want a software job in India, but you are not Indian, and the rules around hiring and work permission are unclear to you. Fair concern. Most of what gets written about this market assumes you already live here and already have a PAN card. Below is the practical version: which visa routes usually apply, what employers actually expect on paper, and how to run the search from wherever you are right now.

All the market numbers in this piece come from the JobRise live jobs feed, snapshot dated 14 October 2026. Treat them as a dated picture of open listings, not a market survey.

What the market looked like on 14 October 2026#

The software jobs hub for India showed 800 open software listings on that date. 694 of those were posted in the last 30 days, and 482 in the last 7 days alone. The feed moves fast, so a stale application is worse than no application.

Across all categories, India had 1,867 open listings on the same date. That wider picture is in the JobRise hiring report for India if you want to see how software compares to everything else.

Geography is heavily concentrated. Bengaluru had 327 of the 800 software listings. Pune had 39, Gurugram 38, and Mumbai 30. If you are picking a city to land in, Bengaluru is where the volume is.

Which employers were hiring most#

Bosch Group had the most open software listings at 132. Then Okta at 79, Google at 53, HCL Technologies at 45, and Mongodb at 38. Wipro had 37, Incedo 20, Gitlab 19, and Bitwarden and Rentokil Initial had 16 each.

Some of those names are large international companies with offices in many countries, which matters for you. Bosch Group, Okta, Google, Mongodb, Gitlab, Bitwarden, and Rentokil Initial all operate well outside India. HCL Technologies and Wipro are large Indian IT services firms with global delivery centres. Incedo is an India-rooted engineering services company. That is all I can tell you from the listings themselves. I cannot tell you which of them sponsors work permits, and you should never assume any employer does until they say so in writing.

Job types skew heavily permanent: 794 full-time listings against 6 contract. The contract route is barely there in this slice.

The visa and work permit question#

India does not have one generic "tech work visa." The route that usually applies to a foreign professional taking a salaried job is the Employment Visa. In practice, employers and the FRRO process tend to expect a documented employment relationship, a role that cannot easily be filled locally in some categories, and pay above a threshold that has changed over the years. Other routes exist too: Business Visa for short commercial visits, Entry Visa in some family or long-term cases, and project-specific arrangements for certain sectors.

I am deliberately not quoting a salary threshold here, because the figure has been revised more than once and it varies by role and by the notification in force. Check the current rules on the official Indian government visa and FRRO sources before you plan anything. Your employer's HR or immigration counsel should be able to name the exact category they intend to file under. If they cannot, that is a red flag.

One blunt reality check: the paperwork sits with the employer. They file, they justify, they often pay. That means your job search is also a search for a company willing to do admin on your behalf.

Language expectations, stated honestly#

Day-to-day work in Indian software teams runs mostly in English. Standups, code reviews, design docs, Slack: all English in the companies on the list above. You do not need Hindi or a regional language to write code here.

Where local language helps is life outside work: renting a flat, dealing with landlords, government offices, and autos. In Bengaluru, English plus a few words of Kannada goes a long way. In Pune, Marathi. None of it is a hiring requirement for software roles, but it makes the first six months less tiring.

If your English is workable but not fluent, be honest about it in interviews rather than over-promising. Written clarity matters more than accent.

CV norms in India#

Indian software CVs are different from US or German ones in a few specific ways.

• Keep it to two pages max, one page if you have under five years of experience.
• Put a photo? No. Not for software roles at international or large Indian firms.
• Include a mobile number with country code and a professional email at the top.
• Add your current city and work authorization status in one line, for example: "Based in Berlin, eligible for Employment Visa with employer sponsorship."
• List your degree, university, and graduation year. Indian recruiters do look.
• Include a skills block near the top: languages, frameworks, cloud, and tools, in that order of relevance.
• Drop "references available on request." It wastes a line.
• Keep dates in a consistent format and show month plus year for each role.

The work authorization line is the single most useful thing you can add. It answers the recruiter's first silent question before they even open your experience section.

A worked example of a rewritten bullet#

Weak: "Responsible for backend development and worked on various microservices."

Stronger: "Built and maintained 6 payment microservices in Go on AWS, cutting p95 checkout latency from 900 ms to 240 ms for roughly 2 million daily transactions."

The second version names the stack, the scale, and a measured outcome. Indian product companies, and the international ones hiring here, respond to that shape.

Applying from abroad#

Apply before you land. Almost every employer in the data runs a normal interview loop over video, and the 482 listings posted in the last 7 days suggest recruiters are actively screening right now. Do not fly in on a tourist visa and job hunt on the ground; that is not the intended use of that visa and it creates problems later.

Tailor each application. A generic CV plus a generic letter reads as bulk spam, and recruiters here see a lot of it. The cover letter tool on JobRise can speed up the drafting, but you still need to rewrite the middle paragraph for each company.

Salary expectations vary widely. On the 14 October 2026 snapshot, only 38 of the 800 software listings showed pay at all, so most postings will not tell you. The ones that did ranged a lot: "Software developer" at Sagility showed ₹4.5-5.5 LPA, "Software Developer" at Kivi Capital showed ₹15.0-22.0 LPA, "Embedded Software Developer" at Trigent Software Private Limited showed ₹22.0-22.0 LPA, and "Manager, Software development" at Freyr Energy Services Pvt Ltd showed ₹14.0-22.0 LPA. Read those as what individual employers posted, not as a market rate. Verify current norms before you quote a number.

Remote work#

Nothing in the 14 October 2026 software slice was flagged as remote. The job types were 794 full-time and 6 contract, and city tags accounted for the listings. If remote or cross-border work is essential for you, ask early in the process rather than assuming it exists.

The 7-step plan#

• Pick two or three target cities. Bengaluru first given the 327 listings, then Pune or Gurugram depending on your industry contacts.
• Rewrite your CV in the Indian format, with the work authorization line at the top and a skills block in the right order.
• Research the current Employment Visa rules on the official government source, and write down the exact questions to ask each employer's HR.
• Shortlist 15 to 20 live roles from the software jobs hub and apply within 48 hours of each posting.
• Send a tailored letter for each role. Use the cover letter tool for the first draft, then rewrite the middle paragraph by hand.
• Prepare interview answers that name your stack, your scale, and one measured outcome, following the bullet shape above.
• When an offer appears, get the visa category, filing timeline, and who pays the costs in writing before you resign anything anywhere.

Free tools#

• Software jobs in India
• JobRise Hiring Report: India
• free cover letter generator

FAQ#

Do I need a job offer before applying for a visa?

Yes, for the Employment Visa route. The employer files the paperwork, so you cannot realistically start the process without a signed offer and a company willing to act as sponsor.

Will big international companies in the data sponsor me?

I cannot say. The listings show which companies are hiring, not which ones handle immigration. Ask directly in the first HR call and get the answer in writing.

Is Hindi required for software jobs in India?

No. Software work runs in English at the employers on this list. Local language helps with daily life, not with passing interviews.

How long does hiring usually take here?

It varies by company and seniority. Two to six weeks from first call to offer is common for mid-level roles, longer for senior positions that need multiple rounds.

Should I accept a low salary to get my foot in the door?

Be careful. Some listings in the snapshot showed very low ranges, such as "Software Developer" at Site4Placements at ₹0.1-4.8 LPA. That will not support a comfortable life in Bengaluru or Mumbai, so price your move against real living costs first.