Building a Global Software Engineering
“Center of Excellence” in Jaipur

Inside the partnership that transformed Hakkoda’s India Global Delivery Center in Jaipur into a top-performing hub, blending culture-first scaling, AI-powered delivery, and Data & AI expertise to become a strategic asset in IBM’s portfolio.

About Cloudsmith

Cloudsmith is the world’s leading cloud-native artifact management platform, built to control, secure, and distribute everything in your software supply chain. As a fully managed solution, it helps teams streamline builds, reduce risk, and operate at enterprise scale, so developers can focus on building, not maintaining infrastructure.

The Challenge

Hakkoda, a fast-growing Snowflake services leader, needed to:

Urgent need to scale a high-performance data engineering team to meet rising client demand in healthcare, agriculture, and supply chain.
Onshore hiring limited by speed, cost, and talent availability, creating the need for a trusted partner to build a GDC in India.

Cloudsmith needed a partner that could combine technical depth with a culture-first approach, ensuring Cloudsmith India became a leading employer in Jaipur’s open-source and software supply chain ecosystem.

Industry

SaaS / Software Supply Chain Management

Timeline

2023 – Ongoing

Outcome

Built Cloudsmith’s largest TSE team in India
Product pod enhancing and maintaining platform
20×5 support with faster response, high CSAT
Cadet Program: 100% intern-to-engineer conversion
Expanded Ops: Marketing, Sales, Finance

Key Metrics

We’ll let the numbers tell the story

75%

of Cloudsmith’s global TSE team built in India, a seamless extension, not an offshore back-office.

100%

Fresh Engineering graduate (aka Cadet) Program conversions, nurturing next-gen engineers into full-time contributors.

33%

global delivery hours powered by our AI-driven lab, trusted by 7 key clients

>90%

sustainable growth enabled by culture-first hiring, structured career paths.

The BOT Solution

Leveraged the Odyssey Operating Model to deliver a turnkey GDC:

BUILD
BUILD
⁠Hired & aligned India talent pyramid
Integrated processes & governance with Hakkoda
Set up Jaipur office, infra & culture programs
‍
OPERATE
OPERATE
Delivered Snowflake, dbt, BI, Salesforce, AI Labs projects
Owned marquee client programs & built trust
Scaled innovation with accelerators & 100% SnowPro Core
TRANSFER
Transfer
Aiming for Seamless IBM integration: Leadership retained, all contracts transitioned.

Key Differentiators

Leveraged the Odyssey Operating Model to deliver a turnkey GDC:

Factor
Impact
Culture-First Hiring
96% retention, 40% women leaders, career tracks & promotions.
Rapid Scaling
6 weeks to billable, 100+ roles filled ahead with flexible staffing.
Delivery Excellence
7 key customers significantly staffed by India GDC
SEZ Advantage
20% cost savings via tax benefits

“BOT Consulting has been a great GDC partner in building out our team in Jaipur. This partnership enabled us to build an amazing team with speed and in tune with Hakkoda's culture, training, and structure."

Erik Duffield

CEO of Hakkoda

BOT built a GDC that felt like Hakkoda from Day 1 – same culture, higher delivery benchmarks. Their AI-driven talent pipeline delivered 30% faster ramp times, making Jaipur our top-performing hub and a key asset in IBM’s acquisition."

Corey Ariss

COO of Hakkoda

"BOT’s Hakkoda India GDC became Hakkoda’s cultural twin and top-performing hub – now a crown jewel in IBM’s portfolio."

Abhishek Majumdar

Global VP of Hakkoda

Looking Ahead

As part of IBM, the Jaipur GDC is now scaling to 500+ FTEs with:

AI Labs 2.0: Agentic AI for Snowflake migrations.
Dedicated innovation campus for the Hakkoda team.

Ready To Build Your GDC?

Contact us today to explore how we can help you build, operate, and scale a high-performing GDC that meets your business goals.

Building a Global Software Engineering “Center of Excellence” in Jaipur