Placements · IIT Kharagpur · 2025-26 season
IIT Kharagpur's 2025-26 Phase 1 delivered 1,501 offers, 457 pre-placement offers, 15 international packages, and a CDC-reported top of ₹2.44 crore per annum (ETV Bharat, 21 January 2026). Underneath the headlines, three shifts stand out: the quant-and-AI premium at the top of the offer sheet widened, international offers stayed thin (15 in Phase 1, roughly matching last year's full-season pace of 25), and IIT Bombay quietly lapped KGP on overseas volume — 78 international offers to KGP's 25 in the 2024-25 season . This is the sourced breakdown, not the press release.
The Phase 1 numbers, and what the ₹2.44 crore actually means
Phase 1 of the 2025-26 drive ran through December 2025 into early January 2026. Here's what the Career Development Centre reported and what secondary coverage adds:
| Metric | 2025-26 Phase 1 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total offers | 1,501 | ETV Bharat, PTI wire |
| Pre-placement offers (PPOs) | 457 | ETV Bharat |
| International offers | 15 | ETV Bharat |
| Highest package (CDC-reported) | ₹2.44 crore/annum | CNN-News18 |
| Offers > ₹2 crore/annum | 5 students | ETV Bharat |
| Offers ₹1-2 crore/annum | 10 students | ETV Bharat |
| PG-science + PhD placed | 4 + 6 | ETV Bharat |
Here's what the ₹2.44 crore number does and doesn't mean. CDC reported ₹2.44 crore as the top package in Phase 1 . Separately, UseMyNotes' December 2025 coverage of the offer sheet named Da Vinci Derivatives as the highest, with "bundles totaling more than Rs 2.5 crore" (UseMyNotes, 8 Dec 2025) . Not a contradiction. CDC's "package" figure usually means base salary plus first-year performance bonus; Da Vinci's bundle likely includes signing, relocation, and multi-year vesting. Read the ₹2.44 crore as the tight number and the ₹2.5+ crore as the marketing number.
The recruiter mix: quant and AI at the top, Tesla shows up, PSUs don't
The 2025-26 offer sheet is dominated by two clusters at the ₹1 crore+ end — quant trading and product-AI. Here's the offer band from Phase 1 coverage:
| Band | Named recruiters (2025-26 Phase 1) |
|---|---|
| ₹2.5 cr+ (total comp) | Da Vinci Derivatives |
| ₹1.4-1.65 cr | NK Securities (₹1.65 cr), Rubrik (₹1.49 cr) |
| ₹1 cr+ | Glean, IMC Trading, Databricks, APT Portfolio |
| ₹90 L – ₹1 cr | Atlas Research, Quadeye, Quantbox, Graviton |
Sources: UseMyNotes offer-band coverage, ETV Bharat.
The pattern to notice: nine of the eleven named ₹90 lakh-plus recruiters are either quant-trading firms (Da Vinci, NK Securities, IMC Trading, APT Portfolio, Atlas Research, Quadeye, Quantbox, Graviton) or AI/product-tech (Rubrik, Glean, Databricks). This is the widening premium — the top of the KGP offer sheet is now trading pods and AI product companies, not conventional big tech.
Beyond the top band, Phase 1 also saw Tesla as a named recruiter (ETV Bharat) — notable because Tesla was absent from KGP's Day 1 list in 2024-25. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Qualcomm and Samsung Korea were on the ETV Bharat named list too, alongside consulting-and-finance blocs: McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, BlackRock, Accenture, American Express, Deloitte US. Industrial names appearing: Airbus, Boeing, Mercedes, Siemens, Caterpillar, Schlumberger, ExxonMobil, Texas Instruments, L&T Finance, Tata Group. PSUs are absent from campus, which is by design — PSU hiring runs through the GATE 2026 channel, not through CDC.
Where KGP placed its 15 international offers — and why the number matters
Phase 1 international offers by geography, per UseMyNotes' Phase 1 coverage: Japan 5, Dubai 2, Europe 1, London 1, Singapore 1 (UseMyNotes, 8 Dec 2025) . Japan is the volume leader — a shift from the pre-2023 pattern where the US and Singapore dominated the KGP overseas ledger.
Now the cross-IIT comparison. 2024-25 full-season international offer counts, per each institute's coverage:
| Institute | Intl offers (2024-25) | YoY direction | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| IIT Bombay | 78 | ↑ from 65 | Careers360 |
| IIT Kharagpur | 25 | Flat vs prior years | Careers360 |
| IIT Madras | 15 | ↓ from 44 | IITM CDC brochure |
IIT Bombay's 78 international offers came from firms based in "Japan, Taiwan, Europe, UAE, Singapore, USA, Netherlands, and Hong Kong" (Careers360) — eight distinct geographies versus KGP's Phase 1 spread across five. Bombay is roughly 3× KGP on international volume and drawing from more countries. This isn't a one-year blip. Bombay grew from 65 to 78 international offers YoY, while KGP held flat in the 25 range. The gap is widening, and KGP has not published a strategic response.
What r/iitkgp thinks about this? Blunt. On the 3 July 2026 "international placement offers" thread, one senior wrote: "Sapne suhane lol only a handful of ppl get them it boils down to luck" (r/iitkgp, July 2026) . 15 offers across a graduating batch of ~1,500+ students is a hit rate of 1 in 100. The community read matches the number.
The 2024-25 baseline: 1,800+ offers, but the Director called it "slow"
To read 2025-26 fairly, you need last year on the table. IIT Kharagpur's 2024-25 full season closed with over 1,800 offers, 409 PPOs, 25 international packages, highest ₹2.14 crore, and nine students in the ₹1 crore+ band (Careers360, June 2025) . Director Prof Amit Patra called it "a defining moment for IIT Kharagpur, reaffirming our stature as a global leader" .
The 2024-25 Day 1 recruiter list was Apple, Capital One, DE Shaw, Glean, Google, Graviton, Microsoft, Optiver, Quantbox, Databricks, Squarepoint Capital, Ebullient Securities, Samsara (Careers360, 2 Dec 2024) . Volume recruiters — the ones who took multiple students — were Capital One, Microsoft, Qualcomm, American Express, Flipkart, Meesho, Mastercard .
The honest quote from Phase 1 of that same season was the Director's:
"Even when the current placement season is slow, IIT Kharagpur stands tall with more than 750 offers on the first day of placement period." — Prof V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur (Dec 2024)
Read that carefully. The Director publicly conceded the market was slow. Then the season closed strong at 1,800+ offers. Whether the 2025-26 Phase 1 tally of 1,501 tracks that trajectory or falls short depends on Phase 2, which concludes around March-April 2026 (CDC IIT Kharagpur).
The NIRF median: the number aspirants should actually optimise for
The highest package is a headline. The median is a decision variable. Per NIRF disclosures compiled by Collegedost, IIT Kharagpur's B.Tech median moved from ₹19,76,000 for the 2023-24 batch (NIRF 2025 filing) to ₹20,65,556 for the 2024-25 batch (NIRF 2026 filing) — roughly 4.5% year-on-year growth (Collegedost, NIRF-cited) . In inflation-adjusted terms this is basically flat, which matches the "market is slow" framing more than the "₹2.14 crore top" framing.
If you're a JEE aspirant weighing IITs, the ₹20.66 lakh median is a more honest expectation for KGP than any ₹2 crore anchor. Most graduates will land in a ₹15-25 lakh corridor with the tail heavily right-skewed by the trading and AI pods.
What KGPians actually say (Reddit, not press release)
The 68-upvote r/iitkgp thread "IITKGP Branchwise Placement Data 2025" from May 2026 is the community's own data collection on the 2025-26 Phase 1 season. The dataset compiler summarised: "Avg is 40 smthng and median 36.smthng. Min 12.5 lakhs and highest was 91 ig(90ish)" (r/iitkgp, June 2026) . A student-compiled average of ~40 LPA and median of ~36 LPA is meaningfully higher than the NIRF median of ~20 LPA. Why? Two reasons. First, the Reddit dataset only covers Phase 1 (the top-heavy first month). Second, it's counting base+bonus, not the fuller-CTC framing the NIRF uses.
The CTC-versus-realised-salary gap is the recurring student complaint. A KGPian on the same thread: "It's not inflated. Some data is inflated other data is reduced significantly. I would say base would be in 15-20 region for most, 0-5 lakhs bonus." . Translation: KGP publishes CTCs on the placement sheet the way industry markets them, but base salaries for the median offer land in the ₹15-20 LPA corridor. If you're offered ₹40 LPA, expect half of that in base.
The other honest thread — 33 upvotes from December 2024 — is a non-circuital third-year student writing about SDE placement anxiety. Choice line from a senior reply: "I have seen people who cant even type properly getting day 1 shortlists because they have a good CG and they cheated their way through OAs." (r/iitkgp, Dec 2024) . That's a rough claim to relay, but it comes up often enough on r/iitkgp that it's part of the honest picture. OA (online assessment) discipline at KGP is a recurring issue and the CDC has, so far, not published a public response.
2024-25 CDC Chairperson Prof Rajib Maity framed the season on "readiness and resilience" (Daily Jagran, 2025) . Read from a KGPian third-year's chair, "resilience" is the word you use when the market is bad.
The three shifts to watch through Phase 2
1. The quant + AI premium is widening. Nine of the top eleven ₹90-lakh-plus recruiters at KGP this year were trading firms or AI product companies. In 2024-25 the same top-band was dominated by Capital One and DE Shaw with a smattering of quant. In 2025-26 the ₹1 crore+ band is Da Vinci, NK Securities, Rubrik, Glean, IMC Trading, Databricks, APT Portfolio — a distinctly quant-and-AI heavy list. Aspirants who want the very top of the offer sheet should now train explicitly for quant / product-AI paths, not generic SDE.
2. International offers are not scaling at KGP. The 2025-26 Phase 1 count of 15 international offers is running at roughly the same rate as the 25-offer full-season 2024-25 total. Meanwhile IIT Bombay grew from 65 to 78 international offers year-on-year across eight geographies. Unless Phase 2 delivers a burst of overseas conversions, KGP will finish the 2025-26 season around 25-30 international offers — flat to modestly up, which is a losing rate versus Bombay's growth curve.
3. Core-branch dispersion may be narrowing (evidence: Reddit only). On r/iitkgp, non-circuital branch students report Day 1 shortlists have become gated primarily by CG and OA performance rather than resume. If true structurally, the historic ₹15-18 LPA average for core branches is likely compressing further. This is a soft signal — no CDC-published branch-wise data confirms it — but the student sentiment is consistent enough across threads to note.
What to actually do with all this if you're an aspirant, a KGPian, or an alum
Aspirants weighing JEE Advanced 2026 preferences: The ₹20.66 lakh NIRF median is your honest expectation, not the ₹2.44 crore top. If you want the top of the offer sheet, choose CS or dual with heavy CP/AI upskilling — the quant pods and AI product companies now dominate the tail. If you want international placements, IIT Bombay is currently 3× stronger than IIT Kharagpur on that metric alone.
Current KGPians in the 3rd-year internship-and-placement funnel: The senior consensus on r/iitkgp is that CDC is the safer bet than off-campus — companies prefer 1.5-2 year experienced hires over freshers off-campus. Prioritise the internship-to-PPO conversion; 457 out of the 1,501 Phase 1 offers were PPOs, meaning nearly 30% of the graduating batch is placed before the season even opens. That's the winning path.
Alumni watching commercial signals: The KGP merch you buy from us doesn't move the ranking, but the alumni engagement trend around it does — Kharagpur is currently the highest-revenue IIT for institute-branded merchandise across all 23 IITs, both by unique buyers and by average order value over the last 90 days. See the IIT Kharagpur collection →
By Arun Raghav S · Co-founder, IITian Vibes · Published 6 July 2026 · Last updated 6 July 2026 · Data window: 2025-26 Phase 1 (Dec 2025-Jan 2026) with 2024-25 full-season baseline. Phase 2 numbers due Mar-Apr 2026 — we'll update this post then.