Quest Global plans a tenfold expansion in its semiconductor workforce, growing from 2000 to 20,000, as India’s semiconductor industry accelerates. Taher Madraswala from Quest Global shares the company’s hiring strategy and talent retention challenges with EFY’s Yashasvini Razdan.
Q. You took a risk very early in your career with Open-Silicon. How was the ecosystem back then compared to today in terms of funding, government support, and other resources?
A. We started Open-Silicon in 2003—21 years ago. Our funding came from the United States, as we were a US-based company founded by a team with experience at Intel and a proven track record. American venture capitalists (VCs) trusted us and provided funding, allowing us to develop application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for our customers. While the design was primarily conducted in India, other aspects, such as fabrication, assembly, and testing, were handled by Open-Silicon employees in the US.
At that time, government support in India was minimal. Today, the government has introduced initiatives that provide startups with free access to tools for a limited period, tax benefits, and other incentives. While some tax benefits existed earlier, they are more structured now. We established our design team in India because we were familiar with the talent pool and wanted to contribute to the country’s growth. We had teams in the US, Japan, and other locations, but India remained the core design hub.
Q. With Quest Global’s semiconductor division, do you plan to repeat history?
A. Absolutely—that is the plan. However, this time, it must be done at a much larger scale and within a shorter time frame.
Currently, 2000 students are being trained, and all the experience and learning from the past will be leveraged. Quest Global has ambitious goals. The company has grown from a small team to 20,000 employees in 27 years. Now, we aim to scale up to 50,000 and eventually 100,000 employees. Semiconductors will be a central part of our growth strategy.
Q. What are the key challenges of operating a semiconductor design house in India?
A. The challenge in India is retaining talent. Engineers are highly ambitious and constantly seek new challenges. While financial incentives matter at the start of their careers, over time, the excitement of working on new technologies becomes more important. If you can continuously stimulate an engineer’s intellectual curiosity—offering opportunities to work on new projects across different domains such as cameras, aeroplanes, smartphones, and data centres—they are more likely to stay. The key is to provide meaningful work that keeps pushing the frontiers of their knowledge.
Q. What differentiates Quest Global from other semiconductor product design companies?
A. Quest Global focuses on a select number of customers but builds long-term relationships with them. Unlike other companies that might diversify into IT, business process outsourcing (BPO), or fintech, we remain a pure engineering company. Our focus is solely on solving engineering challenges across various sectors, such as aerospace, defence, railways, and semiconductors. We achieve this through our customer-centric virtual business units (VBU) that are run by strategic client partners who are empowered to make decisions that benefit our customers. These VBUs hire, train and retain critical skills across the world to serve our customer’s local and global needs.
Within semiconductors, we have built a dedicated team to address our customer’s needs to provide a silicon to system to cloud solutions. Instead of spreading ourselves thin across numerous clients, we prioritise delivering high-value solutions to a few key customers
Q. Within semiconductors and electronics, who are Quest Global’s target customers in India?
A. Our primary customers are large multinational corporations (MNCs) because they are significant outsourcers due to their scale. Our strategy is to work with the top 10 companies in every industry. Our approach is to engage deeply with these leading companies and provide them with comprehensive support rather than trying to cater to a vast number of clients.
That being said, we are committed to supporting India’s product ecosystem. If a startup in India is developing a semiconductor product, we will consider collaborating with them, even if they are not among the top 10 players. Our goal is to contribute to India’s emergence as a product-driven market.
Q. What role will Quest Global’s Indian design team play in your growth plans? Will they develop intellectual property (IP)? If yes, will it be specifically for India or for global markets as well?
A. Our mission is to go beyond the service-based model that India has followed for the past two decades. Instead of merely executing designs based on blueprints provided by others, we aim to add value by developing subsystems such as IPs, for India and the world. For example, we are working with a few customers in developing chiplets and custom silicon solutions, to allow startups/companies in India or anywhere in the world to focus on platform-level innovation rather than worrying about how the chip itself is designed and manufactured.
Q. How do you plan to expand Quest Global’s reach? What kind of partnerships do you envision with academia, industry, and startups?
A. Working with academia is always exciting. Students bring a fresh perspective and enthusiasm to real-world projects, and such collaborations allow us to develop a strong research and development (R&D) base. We have established partnerships with universities, including IIT Madras.
Apart from universities, we also work closely with tool providers and dedicated manufacturing units. Semiconductor manufacturing requires multiple stages, including packaging, dicing, and testing. Our approach is to support and encourage Indian companies in these areas, even if they are in the early stages of growth or sometimes compete with us on certain programs.
Q. How do Quest Global’s partnerships in India compare with its global collaborations? What kind of global partnerships do you have, and how do they contribute to the Indian semiconductor ecosystem?
A. From a customer perspective, we have strong relationships with several major companies, particularly in the Bay Area. However, semiconductor development is not just about design—it also involves multiple components such as design tools, packaging solutions, and wafer fabrication. We have established agreements with key global players like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and others, allowing us to leverage their fabrication facilities. From a design perspective, we are a preferred partner for companies like NVIDIA. Additionally, we have long-term collaborations with Japanese companies like Renesas. We work as a premier partner with many of these organisations, jointly developing products, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and prototype solutions.
Q. Could you give an overview of Quest Global’s infrastructure in India in terms of talent and capital expenditure (CAPEX)?
A. Our two main design centres in India are located in Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram. The one at Thiruvananthapuram is primarily focused on software development, with a dedicated building housing 3500 employees. The Bengaluru centre has over 7000 employees, and we are continuously expanding.
We also have offshore design centres, where entire floors are dedicated to specific customers. These centres operate in secure environments, ensuring confidentiality in semiconductor design projects. Beyond these, we also have a growing presence in Hyderabad and are exploring opportunities in other cities.
Q. What kind of talent do you hire for these design centres? You mentioned having over 4000-5000 employees. Where do you source your engineers from?
A. In the semiconductor division, most of our hiring is concentrated in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, as these cities have strong talent pools and attract engineers looking for career growth. However, we are also expanding into tier-2 cities such as Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, and Delhi NCR. Mumbai and Pune are also on our radar for future growth.
Q. How do you upskill or re-skill your employees, given the rapid evolution of semiconductor technology?
A. Upskilling is essential, and we take a structured approach to continuous learning. Many companies have internal training programmes, and we follow a similar model with our own concept of ‘Silicon Academy’. We also provide specialised training tailored to our customers’ methodologies. Different companies——have unique approaches to chip design. Our engineers undergo dedicated training to understand and adopt each client’s specific methods.
We also provide domain-focused learning. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field, but different companies approach AI differently. To ensure our engineers are well-equipped, we offer dedicated training programmes such as, Microsoft AI University for Microsoft-specific AI applications, Google AI University for Google’s AI methodologies and Alibaba AI Training for AI developments in China.
Q. Are you planning to expand your hiring strategies? How do you reach out to potential candidates and let them know you are hiring?
A. Yes, we are constantly evolving our hiring approach. We have an internal talent acquisition team that manages recruitment, and we have refined our hiring process to go beyond basic theoretical assessments. Instead of just testing engineers on textbook knowledge, we now focus on practical problem-solving skills and look for engineers who can visualise the real-world applications of their work and apply their academic learning effectively. Our hiring strategies are segmented based on different business verticals. We also collaborate with external recruitment consultants who help us reach deeper into the talent pool.
We actively engage with universities to bring in fresh graduates. Once hired, they go through a concept of ‘Silicon Academy’, where they receive targeted training in semiconductor design and customer-specific methodologies.
We also participate in conferences and industry events such as VLSI Design Conference, where we showcase our contributions to major projects, to attract engineers who are passionate about specific domains, whether it is AI, cameras, or chip design for automotive applications.
Q. What role do your clients play in the design process? Do their engineers work with your team, or is it the other way around?
A. We work in close collaboration with our customers. While they do not necessarily deploy engineers at our facilities, they have teams that define the vision and specifications of their end products—whether it is a car, a camera, or a printer. Quest Global translates these system-level requirements into actual chip designs. Our customers specify aspects like power consumption, performance metrics, and wireless communication needs, while we handle the detailed engineering to ensure those requirements are met.
Q. How does Quest Global manage the integration between its hardware and software design teams?
A. We do not treat hardware and software as separate entities. Instead, we leverage simulation models that replicate hardware behaviour. While our hardware design team focuses on chip development, our software team simultaneously builds models that mimic the hardware. The latter tests their applications on a virtual model of the chip before it is physically fabricated. Since we are also responsible for designing the hardware, we can abstract it at a high level, ensuring that the software runs seamlessly when the actual chip is produced.
Our ability to simulate, test, and validate software before fabrication saves our customers significant time and money. It ensures that when the chip returns from the foundry, it functions correctly on the first attempt, preventing costly rework and improving time to market.
Q. Do you also offer services for the ultralow-power? Do these designs require a different approach?
A. Yes, we do specialise in ultra-low power designs. Our expertise spans across chips that operate from as little as a few milliwatts to hundreds of watts.
Ultra-low power design is fundamentally different from high-power chip design. The methods, tools, and libraries used to develop low-power chips are distinct. High-power chips, such as artificial intelligence (AI) GPUs that consume 400-600 watts, require advanced power delivery and thermal management techniques to handle heat dissipation. Ultra-low power chips, used in wearables and IoT devices, need to minimise energy consumption for extended battery life. Techniques such as clock gating, power islands, and low-power libraries are used to achieve this.
At Quest Global, we address both ends of the spectrum, ensuring we have the expertise and resources to develop chips for various applications.
Q. What plans does Quest Global have for its semiconductors division in India?
A. We aim to scale this business to $1 billion in revenue over the next six to seven years. This growth will require a massive expansion in hiring. Today, our semiconductor division has around 2000-2500 employees, but to achieve $1 billion in revenue, we need to scale up to 20,000 employees—a 10x growth.
Most of this expansion will happen in India, making the country a major hub for semiconductor engineering talent. As India continues to develop its semiconductor ecosystem, we believe there will be tremendous job and learning opportunities for engineers, not just at Quest Global but across the entire industry.