Quest Global bets on India’s engineering upswing, makes the case for ‘Polymath’ Engineers
Quest Global, one of the world’s leading engineering services firms, is sharpening its focus on India — not just as its deepest talent pool but as a market with rising strategic importance. The company, a $1-billion-plus global enterprise that employs around 22,500 engineers worldwide, with nearly 15,000 of them in India, is now building more work “for India, in India” as sectors such as aerospace, defence, semiconductors, rail and sustainable energy see accelerated domestic demand.
“The number of engineers in the West is shrinking, and the demand for engineering is only growing,” says Rob Vatter, Executive President at Quest Global. “India has the scale, depth and maturity to become a core centre for global R&D.”
India’s appeal is shifting from cost advantage to capability advantage. As the government pushes for greater self-reliance in defence and advanced manufacturing, engineering work increasingly needs to be done onshore, with teams that meet national security requirements. This is particularly true in aerospace and defence, where Quest supports both civil aviation programs and classified military projects that require in-country operations and citizen-only engineering teams.
At the same time, the company is preparing its workforce for what Vatter calls the era of the “Polymath engineer” — professionals who can combine deep technical expertise with systems-level thinking, creativity and interdisciplinary problem-solving. Quest is now assessing engineers based on curiosity and breadth of learning, not just degrees and certifications.
The shift is being accelerated by AI. “About 30 to 40 percent of engineering work today is validation, documentation and process tasks,” Vatter says. “AI is going to automate that. Engineers will spend more time designing, innovating and solving problems that matter.” He describes AI as a “teammate,” not a replacement — a tool that absorbs routine effort and helps bridge the global talent gap.
Growth hotspots for Quest in India include semiconductor design, driven by the government’s chip manufacturing push, and the energy sector, where rising computing demands are reshaping power infrastructure. Railway modernization and industrial automation are also opening new engineering opportunities.
