Santhosh Varghese

All things Talent Acquisition! At Phenom we are on a mission to help a billion people to find the right work.

One is a fintech venture launched with the backing of Walmart and RibbitCapital, aimed at building a financial services super app that helps consumers make financial progress. We are building an amazing team in India and are hiring for roles across Engineering, Product, Data Science and Operations for current open roles do check out https://www.one.app/careers. Growth: Built the India team from 0 to 100+ in under 10 months. Business Partner: Established teams across Engineering, Product, Risk, Data Analytics, Customer Service Ops, G&A, and People. Hired 50 people in H2 2023, the first year of launch, and maintained steady hiring velocity, achieving a 20% offshoring goal by H1 2024. Leadership Hiring: Recruited key leaders in Engineering, Risk, and People. Employer Branding: Launched Talent Meetups, resulting in two successful events and wide appreciation. Cost-Efficiency: Reduced agency hiring from 5.7% in 2023 to 0.02% in 2024. Team Scaling: Grew the India People Team by 3x, focusing on KPIs such as hiring velocity, quality of hire, D&I, candidate experience, and development. Employee Relations: Acted as the face of the People Team in India, providing local coverage in partnership with the US People Team. Location Strategy: Transitioned from a remote-first to a hybrid model in Bangalore, ensuring readiness in hiring, talent operations, and people operations, and successfully hired over 50 employees in Bangalore in 2024. Compensation Benchmarking: Shared market data and insights with the Head of Compensation and addressed the lack of a total comp structure.

First India Employee: Built a high-caliber Engineering team from the ground up. Senior Hiring: Focused on senior engineering and leadership roles (Staff, Senior Staff, Principal, Head of Engineering). Team Management: Managed a cross-geographic TA team in Manila and Beijing. Brand Building & Hiring Events: Collaborated with the business to organize Tech Talks, AMA sessions, and other events, boosting brand awareness and building a robust talent pipeline despite operating under stealth mode. Team Growth: Expanded the founding team from 0 to 20, including the Site Head of Engineering. Compensation Benchmarking: Developed a competitive salary band for India Tech which was approved by the CEO. New Hire Experience: Created a post-offer engagement/onboarding plan to enhance new hire experience. Hiring Playbook: Developed a hiring playbook for India Tech focused on talent attraction, engagement, compensation, and onboarding.

Talent Acquisition at Uber: We ignite opportunity by hiring diverse, global talent enabled by high tech and high touch. Diverse Hiring: Recruited for roles across Engineering, Product, and FinTech in India Tech at all levels. Served as the hiring lead for Product, Data Science, and FinTech, and supported university hiring and the TA team. Team Building: Built the Product team at the Hyderabad site and doubled the FinTech team, closing key leadership roles. Team Management: Managed a team of sourcers and recruiters to achieve business goals Strategic Projects: Led TA strategic projects like APAC TA Development focus group, LinkedIn Optimization, and Global Talent Advisory Project (APAC Lead). Hiring Playbook: Developed an India Tech hiring playbook covering tech charters, talent landscape, interview processes, and sourcing guidelines. Recognition: Awarded twice for best performance in the APAC region (2019-2020).

Engineering Hiring & POC: Recruited for SDEII/SDEIII, SDM, and TPM roles for the eCommerce Platform organization and served as the hiring POC. Diversity & Boomerang Initiatives: Led diversity hiring events, successfully hired SDE talent, and piloted the ex-Amazonian meet to rehire candidates. SDE II CoE: Contributed to the SDE II Center of Excellence, increasing SDE II hires in 2017.

Technology hiring for skill sets such as Java, .net, QA, DBA, Mainframes, Informatica, Teradata, IVR, Genesys, PEGA PRPC, PROGRESS 4GL, Captiva, NetOxygen, Guardium, Filenet, Business Analyst, Project Management & Administrative roles across levels for India GSC Campus Hiring from Engineering Colleges such as NIT, GNIT, CBIT, JNTU & IIIT Hyderabad. Coordinated the entire campus recruitment activities including outreach and Pre placement talks Managed a 3 member team to meet business goals and successfully managed high volumes during ramp up phase by cost effective strategies

Responsible for Talent Acquisition of skill sets such as Investment Banking Analytics, Information Services, Legal & Compliance, IT Support and Corporate Administrative Services for all levels. Campus Recruitments from B-Schools and institutes such as the IIT’s, ICAI, IBS, NMIMS, BITS, Symbiosis, IMT, NIT, St.Xavier’s & Delhi University. Handled Employee Relations, Onboarding and Induction.

Talent Acquisition for BPO and KPO clusters at ISC. Hired for skills such as Investment Banking Operations, Wealth Management Operations, Legal, Compliance and Risk services, CSMM, FICC Data Quality, IB Equities Desktop Publishing, System Testing, IB Finance and Analytics from Associate Level to Manager levels.

Responsible for meeting the recruitment needs of Corporate Clients such as Genpact, Deloitte, Sutherland, Satyam BPO, Knoah Solutions and Sitel in the ITES sector.

Qualified UGC-NET (National Eligibility Test) for lectureship in September 2007