At HackerRank, our customers inspire us daily with their innovation, ingenuity, and drive to achieve remarkable results. By combining their genius with HackerRank solutions, they are transforming talent acquisition and management processes. The fourth annual HackerRank Innovator Awards, held at the Conrad, Bengaluru, on February 7, celebrated their brilliance and achievements. With over 400 participants, the energy in the room was electric from start to finish!

Hosted by Bangalore’s very own Danish Sait this year, the event was filled with laughter, memorable moments, and a bunch of insights. 

Shaping Tomorrow’s Tech with Vivek Ravisankar, Co-founder and CEO of HackerRank

The event started with Vivek’s keynote, where he dove into the future of developer skills with the evolution of AI. He emphasized that while AI is changing jobs, it won’t replace developers—rather, it will shift their focus from programming to higher-level software development.

Vivek traced AI’s evolution, comparing it to the human brain, and showed how industries like aviation have already integrated AI without eliminating human roles. He predicted that AI will transform SaaS into “Service as a Software”, where AI agents handle tasks like customer support, hiring, and tutoring.

HackerRank is innovating to meet this future, with AI-powered career coaching, interviewing, and proctoring solutions in development. The company remains committed to helping businesses hire and upskill talent, ensuring that developers thrive in an AI-augmented world.

Despite concerns about AI replacing jobs, the data tells a different story—the number of developers worldwide is growing, not shrinking. The takeaway? The future isn’t AI alone—it’s human plus AI.

The HackerRank Experience Lab

Led by Anand Gopal, VP of Product at HackerRank, and Emily Campbell, VP of Design at HackerRank, the HackerRank Experience Lab detailed our platform’s growth over the past year. We showcased innovative solutions—backed by AI—that are helping organizations all over the world achieve remarkable feats in talent acquisition and management.    

Human + AI: Redefining the Future of Work

The future of work is not AI replacing humans—it’s AI augmenting human capabilities. At HackerRank’s Innovator Awards 2025, this vision took center stage in the “Human + AI: Redefining the Future of Work” panel discussion, hosted by Juan Herrera, President at HackerRank. The conversation featured Madhusudan Shekar, Customer CTO, Google, and Thirukkumaran Nagarajan, Vice President & HR Head India/South Asia, IBM.

As AI continues to evolve, the roles of tech and HR professionals are undergoing a significant transformation. Madhu shared insights on how AI is shifting the skill sets required for tech roles. While automation is taking over repetitive tasks, professionals must now focus on problem-solving, creativity, and strategic thinking. Similarly, Thiru highlighted the changing landscape for HR, where AI is streamlining recruitment and talent management, allowing HR teams to focus on human-centric initiatives like culture, engagement, and ethical AI adoption.

Recognizing the Best in Tech Hiring and Management

This year’s Innovator Awards celebrated companies leading the way in optimizing hiring processes, elevating employer branding, advancing AI skills, fostering internal mobility, and shaping skills strategy. Here are the winners:

Optimizing the Hiring Process

This award recognises exceptional use of HackerRank to streamline their tech hiring. This distinction acknowledges their ability to save time, increase quality of hires, and enhance the efficiency of their hiring workflow through a data-driven, candidate-centric approach.

• Gold: Zscaler
  
  
• Platinum: Meesho
  

Excellence in Talent Brand

This award recognizes a tech talent brand that attracts top developers, competing with big tech by showcasing real-world challenges and innovative work environments.

• Gold: Akamai
  
  
• Platinum: Salesforce
  
  

Excellence in Skills Strategy

This award is presented for demonstrating excellence in building and implementing a robust skills-based strategy for talent assessment and development.

• Gold: Cisco
  
  
• Platinum: NVIDIA
  
  

Internal Mobility

This award is presented for outstanding commitment to fostering a dynamic internal tech talent ecosystem, celebrating the use of comprehensive skills data to fuel strategic talent development internally. 

• Gold: Cognizant
  
  
• Platinum: TCS
  
  

Excellence in AI Skills

This award recognises the company’s forward-thinking adoption of AI in technical hiring and its prioritization of AI-first skills and talent rubrics.

• Gold: Adobe
  
  
• Platinum: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  
  

Beyond the awards, the night was filled with engaging interactions, networking opportunities, and unforgettable moments:

With meaningful conversations over dinner and drinks, the 2025 Innovator Awards were more than just an event—they were a celebration of progress, collaboration, and excellence in tech hiring and management.

To our attendees, speakers, and award winners—thank you for being part of this journey! We can’t wait to see what the next year of innovation brings. Until then, keep pushing the boundaries of tech and talent excellence!

To access your pictures, visit here. And to register for our upcoming HackerRank AI Day 2025, visit here.