LTM Delivery Chief Gururaj Deshpande Says No New Deals Include L0 Roles as AI Reshapes Staffing

Gururaj Deshpande, Chief Delivery Officer at LTM, said the company no longer puts an L0 role into any new deal it bids for, as AI reshapes its delivery model. Business Standard reported the comments on November 1, 2026.

Deshpande's Case Against L0 to L2 Roles

Deshpande described a total collapse of entry-level engineering roles, mainly L0 to L2, which the report classifies as basic engineering functions. "Any new deal that we bid for, we never put a L0 role," he said. He said the company considered collapsing the layers across L0 to L2 and bringing an AI-native approach to the model itself.

Changing the operating model required new tooling. "In fact, the first thing I had to do was throw out all of the old tooling," Deshpande said. He said the shift meant new roles were needed because the old way of working no longer applied.

Those roles include AI support engineers, AI architects and tokenomic experts, while traditional testing, maintenance and quality assurance roles wither away. "An AI support engineer is more like the human in the loop. He is less of the doer but more of the checker," Deshpande said. LTM expects to hire at least 6,000 fresh graduates this year.

Pricing is shifting more slowly. Deshpande said the company wants to push toward outcome-based models, but many clients still want to run time-and-material engagements. On AI rate cards, he said conversations were ongoing and that clients needing a hyper-productive engineer from day one would have to pay for it.

LTM's Headcount and AI Programs

According to akta.pro company records, LTM launched the BlueVerse ecosystem in June 2026, including BlueVerse Currency, an outcome-based pricing model, and the AI1000 program to develop more than 1,000 Forward Deployed Engineers with hybrid technical and business skills. The same records list 87,950 total permanent employees as of March 31, 2026, and FY26 revenue of $4.76 billion, up 6% year on year.

Earlier Leadership and AI Moves at LTM

In October 2026, LTM appointed Mohit Sharma as Global Chief Information Officer, covering its enterprise technology agenda, Hrtoday reported. LTM also introduced BlueVerse Currency, an AI-linked commercial model that prices enterprise work by outcomes rather than effort, AETOSWire reported. The same outlet reported LTM's partnership with Anthropic to embed Claude, Claude Code and Claude Cowork into its BlueVerse AI Delivery Fabric, including scaling the AI1000 talent program.

LTM's GCC Origin Unit

LTM launched GCC Origin, a standalone business unit for Global Capability Centers in India, led by Shailendra Singh under CEO Venu Lambu, ScanX reported. The unit is powered by BlueVerse, offering more than 300 pre-built AI agents, and provides services from site selection to turnkey facilities.