Pine Labs freezes tech hiring at 1,000 engineers even as global expansion accelerates

Pine Labs has put a ceiling on its technology workforce even as it pushes harder on global expansion.

Speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18, CEO Amrish Rau said the fintech company will not add a single new engineering headcount beyond the 1,000 technologists, engineers and product managers it already has across group companies. The company is instead focusing on productivity and sharper utilisation of its existing team.

“We have 1,000 technologists, engineers and product managers across the various group companies that we have today. We don't believe we will hire even one more person beyond the 1,000 numbers that we have today,” Rau said.

Rau indicated that the company’s ambitions continue to grow rapidly and that Pine Labs is moving deeper into global markets, which means engineering work will only increase. Despite that, the fintech is choosing not to scale the team further. What remains unsaid, however, is whether the company may also evaluate staff optimisation. Rau said Pine Labs is not yet calling out its position on whether engineering strength may be reduced.

The company’s stance reflects a broader trend in the tech and fintech space where firms are combining aggressive business goals with tighter cost discipline and efficiency metrics. For Pine Labs, the strategy signals a shift towards doing more with the same resources, even as its global rollout gathers pace.