Infosys SP and PP Tracks 2026: AI-Attuned Screening and Prep

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh confirmed in Q4 FY26 that candidates with AI-attuned skills receive higher starting compensation than the standard fresher intake.

That single fact reshapes how to read Infosys’s three fresher tracks. The question for an engineering student is not whether to prepare for AI. It is which track you are targeting and what preparation actually shifts your outcome.

Some campus placement communities refer to Infosys’s higher-tier tracks as “DSE” (Digital Specialist Engineer). The formal Infosys designations are Specialist Programmer (SP) and Power Programmer (PP). Those two tracks are where the AI-attuned premium shows up.

How Infosys Fresher Tracks Work in 2026

Infosys runs three distinct fresher tracks, each with a different entry bar and starting package:

Track	Starting CTC	Selection Process	Key Signal
System Engineer (SE)	₹3.6 LPA	Aptitude test + technical + HR	Base aptitude competency
Specialist Programmer (SP)	₹6.5 LPA	Stronger coding section + DSA-focused technical + HR	InfyTQ certification preferred
Power Programmer (PP)	₹9.5 LPA	Top InfyTQ / HackWithInfy performance + advanced technical + HR	HackWithInfy rank; 7.5+ CGPA typical

The SP and PP tracks do not replace the SE pipeline. Infosys still runs the standard SE intake at scale. What the higher-tier tracks represent is a parallel selection channel for candidates who have signalled technical depth through InfyTQ or HackWithInfy before campus season begins.

For most engineering students at Tier-2 and Tier-3 colleges, the SP track is the realistic stretch goal. It requires stronger coding performance than SE, but does not demand the competitive-programming level that PP expects. A student who clears InfyTQ certification and practises medium-difficulty DSA problems consistently is a credible SP candidate.

For details on how the off-campus and on-campus application cycles work, see the Infosys off-campus and on-campus drive guide.

What Infosys’s CEO Said About AI-Skilled Candidates

Salil Parekh’s Q4 FY26 earnings commentary confirmed two things, per Financial Express reporting:

• Infosys offers different starting compensation for candidates with skills more attuned to AI.
• Infosys is building a pool of forward-deployed engineers to do AI solution work directly with clients.

The “forward-deployed” framing is worth noting. These engineers work on-site with clients to implement AI solutions rather than from Infosys delivery centres. That is a closer-to-product role with a different skill profile, which is why the compensation differs from the standard SE intake.

What “AI-attuned” means in this context is applied competence, not theoretical familiarity. A candidate who has watched AI tutorials but never made a real API call is not what this framing targets. The practical interpretation is: can you use AI tools to build something a client could use?

Infosys onboarded 20,000 freshers in FY26 and plans to reach the same number in FY27, per the same Financial Express report. The volume is stable. What is shifting is the proportion who enter through the higher-tier, AI-signal-differentiated tracks versus the standard SE pool.

InfyTQ and HackWithInfy: The Two Formal AI-Signal Channels

Infosys has not published a separate AI-module screening test distinct from SP or PP selection. What exists are two public-facing mechanisms that Infosys campus teams actively use.

InfyTQ

InfyTQ is Infosys’s own student learning and certification platform, free to access. It covers programming fundamentals, data structures, cloud basics, DevOps concepts, and data science and AI foundations. Completing certifications here puts a verifiable signal directly in front of Infosys’s campus hiring teams.

SP candidates with InfyTQ certifications are explicitly preferred in Infosys’s published track descriptions. For students preparing for SP, the data science and programming certification tracks are the most relevant starting points. The Foundation certification establishes baseline programming competency. The Specialist-level tracks demonstrate the depth SP interviewers look for.

InfyTQ’s AI and data science modules also serve as structured prep for the kinds of applied AI questions that come up in SP technical interviews. Working through these before campus season gives you both the credential and the conceptual foundation.

HackWithInfy

HackWithInfy is Infosys’s national coding contest for engineering students. Top performers receive direct consideration for the PP track. The contest runs in multiple rounds; early rounds test standard algorithmic problem-solving and later rounds move to harder combinatorial and graph problems.

If your DSA is strong enough to clear two competitive-programming rounds, HackWithInfy is the fastest route to a PP offer. For students whose DSA is solid but not yet at competitive-programming level, the SP track via InfyTQ is the more direct path.

For the broader AI prep curriculum that complements InfyTQ, see the 2026 AI roadmap for Indian engineering students.

Aptitude and Logical Reasoning Still Gate All Three Tracks

The online test for all three tracks includes aptitude and logical reasoning. These sections screen candidates before they reach the coding round, so skipping aptitude prep while targeting SP or PP is not a viable strategy.

Infosys’s aptitude section tests:

• Quantitative ability: number series, ratios, percentages, time-speed-distance
• Logical reasoning: syllogisms, blood relations, seating arrangements
• Verbal ability: reading comprehension, grammar, sentence correction

A common mistake among students targeting SP is to over-invest in DSA prep and neglect aptitude, then get screened out before the coding round even starts. The aptitude section is timed and scores are percentile-ranked. Clearing it to competitive percentiles requires consistent practice across all three sub-sections, not just the quantitative one.

Number series questions appear consistently across Infosys test cycles. See Infosys number series and aptitude patterns for the most repeated question types.

For the full technical and HR round breakdown, the complete Infosys interview guide covers both rounds in detail.

Building the AI Signal Before Your Placement Window

The SP track selects on coding depth. The PP track selects on competitive programming performance. Both reward preparation that starts 10 to 12 weeks before the placement window, not the week before.

For candidates targeting the higher-tier tracks with an AI angle, the preparation stack looks like this:

• Complete at least one InfyTQ certification track (programming or data science)
• Clear the InfyTQ Foundation certification before your campus season opens
• Register for and attempt HackWithInfy if your DSA is at competitive-programming level
• Build one applied AI project: an LLM mini-app, a classification tool, or a retrieval prototype, deployed and on GitHub, not just in a notebook
• Keep aptitude practice running in parallel through the full prep window

The “deployed project” item is where most students stall. The difference between a notebook and a deployed app is not cosmetic. A deployed app means you have dealt with real API authentication, handled JSON responses that didn’t match the schema you expected, and shipped something with a URL you can open in a browser or share as a GitHub repo link. That sequence of encounters with real-world friction is what makes a technical interview answer credible.

When an Infosys SP interviewer asks what AI work you’ve done, “I completed a course on neural networks” and “here’s a repo where I built a document summariser using an LLM API and you can run it from the README” are different classes of answer. Infosys’s forward-deployed AI engineer framing rewards the second class.

TinkerLLM is where you build that first deployed project: at ₹299, it puts real LLM API calls in your hands (the kind where you hit a rate limit, read the error, and fix it), and the resulting project is what you point to the next time an interviewer asks what you have actually shipped.