Global tech giant Meta, that was recently in the news for mass layoffs, is now shopping for talent in India. After trimming its global workforce by 5 percent, Meta is now looking to hire a variety of hardware and software engineers, including an Engineering Director for its Bengaluru office. Is this a sign that perhaps Meta is laying the groundwork for building dedicated digital infrastructure such as a data center in India?
According to open job postings on its website, as of publishing this piece, Meta is looking to hire 41 people in Bengaluru, mainly in technical roles related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure, Machine Learning (ML) and Enterprise Engineering.
Engineering team outside US/Europe
Meta entered India in 2010, and at present, has facilities in Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, from where its teams cater to its various products such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. But the teams here work mainly in sales, marketing, legal, finance and other mainly non-technical roles, with Meta’s engineering teams mainly based in US and Europe. But now Meta is hiring engineers for its India operations, and is looking for top tier talent.
As per its job listing, Meta is looking for an experienced Engineering Director to build and lead its engineering team in India. This Engineering Director “will influence technical decision-making, drive prioritization and execution, and manage outstanding engineers and engineering managers in a fast-paced, impact-focused environment.”
Investments in AI, Digital and Connectivity infrastructure
Meta had previously revealed plans to invest as much as US$ 65 billion into AI in 2025, which would purportedly require supporting digital and connectivity infrastructure. Though Meta has not made any formal announcement about India specific investments, reports emerged last April of the company contemplating building a data center in Chennai. If this does indeed happen, it will be only the second Meta data center in Asia, after its Singapore facility.
There was also speculation that it might just use the Digital Connexion data center in Chennai, given how Meta has investments from Reliance, which is also an investor in Digital Connexion, a three-way joint venture with US-based Digital Realty and Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management. Digital Connexion launched its first facility named MAA 10, last year. It is built on a 10-acre campus in Chennai, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
At present, Meta has twenty-three data centers located across twenty-one states in the US, and three facilities in Europe (Denmark, Ireland and Sweden), apart from the Singapore data center. Its most recent data center with AI capabilities went live in January 2025 in Mesa, Arizona.
Meta is also investing heavily in subsea cables. Meta’s ambitious Project Waterworth aims to connect five continents with 50,000 kilometers of subsea cables. Though the monetary value of the investment has not been disclosed yet, cables are expected to have landing stations in Brazil, India, South Africa and the US among other regions.
The new job postings come alongside news of mass layoffs of 3,600 of Meta’s global employees, amidst a slew of similar mass layoffs by other technology majors such as Amazon, Microsoft, Workday and Salesforce.