Deploying 25 Senior Engineers for a Top E-Commerce Platform's Peak Season Push

The Challenge

India's festive sale season is make-or-break for e-commerce platforms. With the Diwali sale window 12 weeks away, this client's engineering roadmap had slipped — three critical reliability and checkout features were still unfinished, and the existing team was already at capacity.

They needed 25 mid-to-senior engineers (Java, Spring Boot, Kafka) who could onboard fast and contribute in days — not months. Their internal TA team had a 60-day average time-to-fill for senior roles, which simply wasn't viable.

Risks were high: - Feature delays would directly impact peak GMV - Slow or wrong hires would consume more engineering management time than they saved - Contractors who needed extensive ramp-up would be a liability, not an asset

Our Approach

We activated our Staffing & Deployed Resources track with a dedicated sourcing war room.

**Sourcing Strategy** - Pre-screened pipeline of 300+ Java/Spring Boot engineers in our active talent pool - Deployed 3 technical recruiters full-time on this mandate for 4 weeks - Ran parallel screening tracks: async take-home → live system design → hiring manager interview

**Screening Rigor** - Custom screening rubric co-designed with client's Engineering Director - Emphasis on distributed systems, Kafka, and high-throughput API design - Reference checks completed before offers — no surprises post-join

**Onboarding Acceleration** - Negotiated early access to client's codebase for pre-join reading - Week 1 structured bootcamp covering architecture, team norms, and tooling - Embedded IILIKA delivery manager for first 30 days to handle any teething issues