Zeta Doesn’t Hire Engineers. It Hires Builders.

Mithun Kulkarni’s four requirements: fundamentals, AI fluency, the art of judgment, and business sense. Here’s why he calls the last one non-negotiable.

Mithun Kulkarni leads employer branding at Zeta, which builds core banking infrastructure for banks and fintechs, so he sees hiring from the brand side as well as the technical one. He makes the case for letting candidates use AI tools during evaluation, argues that restricting it costs you both candidate and brand experience, and describes a university programme that spends months making graduates unlearn and relearn. For talent teams still deciding whether AI belongs in their process.