Day: September 29, 2025

• Walmart’s Sravana Karnati said he looks for two things in engineer hires: domain expertise and the ability to learn.
• He said he values subject-matter expertise in computer science over specific programming languages.
• The executive also said he’s looking for people who can keep up with technology’s evolution.

Walmart executive Sravana Karnati has over 25 years of leadership experience at companies like Amazon, Disney, and Oracle — and he looks for two key traits when he hires engineers.

“I look for the fundamentals and ability to learn,” the executive vice president of Global Tech platforms told Business Insider.

Karnati said while he’s never hired a candidate for “specific knowledge,” he wants to know they have domain expertise. Anyone in a technical position, including those in project manager roles, need to understand the architecture, dependencies, and risks involved in the work they do, the executive said.

“It is not about whether you know Java, whether you know C++, or some other language,” Karnati said. “What we look for is, does a person understand the fundamentals of computer science?”

Karnati added that the specific skills someone needs depends on the role they’re aiming for. For example, someone in a UX design or engineering role doesn’t necessarily need to know computer science fundamentals in depth, but some basic technical knowledge could be useful. What’s most important is the ability to effectively use tools like Figma and other LLMs to do the work, he said.

Those in software development or engineering roles, though, need a strong foundation in computer science fundamentals, Karnati said. LLM tools can help make those employees more productive, but they can’t serve as a substitute for a deeper understanding of systems, algorithms, and architecture.

Karnati, who played a key role in developing Walmart’s new AI tool called Wibey, said that he wants candidates who know how to write good algorithms and long-term “sustainable code.” (The company says Wibey is a developer-focused tool that helps employees streamline workflows by automating repetitive coding tasks and managing compliance checks.)

While Karnati said he’s looking to hire computer scientists, that doesn’t necessarily mean the people he hires need a computer science degree. Karnati himself has a doctorate degree in chemical engineering but has been a computer scientist for years, he said.

“If you have an industrial-engineering background with some computer-science orientation, you could do really well in technology operations,” Karnati said, adding that operational rigor is needed in those kinds of roles.

Karnati said “the trick” is keeping up with the evolution of technology and continuing to retrain yourself. Those who have successfully worked in the industry for 30 to 40 years have kept up with the business and continued to learn, Karnati said.

That ability to learn quickly and keep up with the pace of the industry, he said, is the second trait he looks for. When he looks to hire someone, Karnati said he wants to see that the person has already demonstrated that trait.

He said candidates can show this ability by participating in different kinds of internships, or through coursework that indicates a “wide palette of learning, rather than a narrow focus.”

Karnati’s comments align with a broader trend among tech leaders, who have pointed to the growing importance of adaptability in the workplace, as AI becomes ubiquitous.

Waze cofounder Uri Levine previously told Business Insider that the “most important learning today is the ability to adapt.” Similarly, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told Business Insider that the cybersecurity giant is focused on recruiting talent with a “broad set of skills.”

• Boston Consulting Group is integrating AI into metrics for performance evaluation.
• BCG says AI adoption has reached 90%, with 50% of employees using it daily.
• BCG leads in custom GPT development, enhancing performance reviews, and client services.

There is no room at Boston Consulting Group for AI skeptics.

About a year ago, the firm began building AI expectations into the benchmarks that shape how consultants are assessed, Alicia Pittman, the global people team chair at BCG, told Business Insider.

“There’s no box on our forms that says, ‘Are you using AI?’ It is an expectation,” she said, but the technology is now central to the core competencies, like problem solving and insight, that drive evaluations and promotions.

“If you’re not, you won’t do well on the competencies—you’ll fall behind your peers on problem solving and insight,” she said.

AI hasn’t changed the type of work BCG expects from employees, Pittman said, but it has raised the bar on quality and efficiency.

“For example, in problem solving, a consultant might use AI to surface insights — but performance is assessed on the judgment they apply to interpret those insights, structure the problem, and deliver solutions that matter for clients,” she said.

Perhaps the most impactful application of AI is in performance management itself. Pittman said one of the firm’s best AI tools helps employees write performance reviews — cutting writing time by 40% while improving quality metrics by 20%.

BCG’s employees are taking up AI faster than expected

Now, almost 90% of the firm’s 33,000 employees use AI, and about half are what BCG calls “habitual users,” or those who use the technology daily. “That’s something we measure because it leads to stickiness and sophistication of use,” Pittman said. The firm had aimed for 50% adoption by year’s end but hit that milestone in May, months ahead of schedule.

BCG isn’t unique in urging employees to adopt AI. Across the industry, consulting firms are retooling their workforces. Accenture, for example, has said it is “exiting” employees it can’t reskill, even as its CEO, Julie Sweet, projects overall head count will grow in the next fiscal year. At McKinsey, over 70% of the firm’s 45,000 employees now use use its chatbot Lilli, McKinsey senior partner Delphine Zurkiya told Business Insider in March.

Progress at BCG has largely been thanks to its AI training program.

As of April, the firm had developed eight or nine internal tools. Deckster, a slideshow editor trained on 800 to 900 templates, helps consultants build and grade presentations; about 40% of associates use it weekly, Scott Wilder, partner and managing director at BCG, previously told Business Insider.

GENE, a GPT-4o-powered chatbot from ElevenLabs, a startup that develops text-to-voice AI technology, features a deliberately robotic voice and is used for brainstorming, podcasts, and live demos.

The firm provides training for employees on how to use its AI tools. It has a dedicated generative AI learning and development team staffed by rotational consultants who teach and codify best practices. It also has a network of 1,200 people in local offices who function like “ground troops,” Wilder said. They provide hands-on training, gather feedback, and push forward on adoption.

Wilder told Business Insider the firm estimates employees reinvest about 70% of the time they save into “higher-value activities” including analysis and communicating insights clearly.

The firm is also tracking a group of about 1,500 “advanced users” — employees at the edge of experimentation with AI. Roughly two-thirds are associates and consultants, BCG’s entry-level ranks, Pittman said.

One of their biggest contributions has been creating custom GPTs, or no-code versions of ChatGPT tailored to specific tasks.

Consultants have developed GPTs to review slide decks, check clarity, anticipate client questions, and enforce BCG formatting guidelines. Many are tested internally before being shared with clients.

BCG is now the highest number of custom GPTs of any OpenAI customer, Pittman said, with five times more employees building them than a year ago.