The Engineer Who makes HR run like Clockwork: How Sambit Panigrahi rewires Global HR Systems

India.com

21-05-2025

Increasingly, as more companies move their HR-systems onto the net, the business of managing people is becoming more high-tech even than before. Worldwide, the market for HR technology in 2023 was more than $37 billion and is to increase over six-fold by 2032. India is also rapidly expanding in this space – its HR tech industry grew to $1.12 billion by 2024, and could be at $2.3 billion in 2033, according to the research firm IMARC . These engineers fuel this surge as they support the operations such that everything from hiring, payroll, benefits to reviews of performance of thousands of employees in companies runs smoothly.
One of them is Sambit Panigrahi, a Bhubaneswar-born engineer now based in Miami. He has spent over 13 years behind the scenes of some of the world's largest HR technology projects. Now working as a Senior HR Technology Analyst at VITAS Healthcare, Sambit has overseen the full setup and launch of advanced HR systems for companies with more than 50,000 employees.
Sambit also played key roles in large-scale integrations across the insurance, aviation, and financial services sectors, helping align platforms during mergers and major system upgrades. In each case, his role wasn't just to ensure system uptime, but to ensure that complex transitions happened with as little disruption to the people relying on them as possible.
Instead of accepting slow processes and manual configurations as the industry norm, Sambit chose to fix what others ignored, building systems that quietly changed how global HR technology is delivered. The Unseen Problem Behind Corporate HR Systems
Each time when a large company updates software, acquires any company or initiates a new HR process, the digital team of this company has to duplicate and migrate thousands of configuration settings. These setups (normally they control everything from salary rules to leave policies) are kept in different development, staging, testing and production environments.
Without a clear way to compare these environments, engineers are forced to rely on screenshots, spreadsheets, and memory. It's slow, frustrating, and often inaccurate.
Sambit first came across the seriousness of this problem while working at Deloitte, one of the world's leading consulting firms, where he where he was behind the set up of large HR software systems used by global companies to manage their employees (Oracle HCM Cloud). Teams had no easy way to track configuration changes. There were delays, repeated testing, and client dissatisfaction. And yet, this was considered 'normal' in the consulting world. This recurring issue appeared across projects and clients.
' We knew things would go wrong, we just didn't know where or when,' he recalls. 'You're constantly double-checking settings across files, screens, and emails, hoping nothing breaks in the live system. It's stressful, and it wears people down.' The Tool That Changed Everything
Instead of accepting the inefficiency, Sambit decided to solve it at the source.
' The tool was built using reporting and data technologies (Oracle BI Publisher and XML) that allowed it to automatically pull out setup information from different systems, keep track of changes over time, and show exactly what was updated, when, and by whom,' Sambit explains.
It flags differences between setups, logs user-specific changes, and even creates backup snapshots before major updates.
This Setup Extractor Tool produced immediate results. It cut down the amount of manual work engineers had to do by more than a third, reduced mistakes during system updates by 75%, and helped teams finish their work 25% faster — even when rolling out changes across multiple countries. Most importantly, it made system launches smoother and helped earn greater trust from clients.
Initially used to manage salary-related settings, the tool was later expanded to cover all major parts of the HR system, including employee records (Core HR), payroll, benefits, and performance management. It has since become a highlight in Deloitte's solution demos, contributing to higher win rates in competitive bids. Today, elements of the tool's design and approach have influenced broader configuration practices in HR tech projects beyond Deloitte, as clients and partners alike sought similar solutions for their own systems. From Fixing Systems to Serving People
Each of the systems in the enterprise tech hide the human factor whose job depends on whether the system runs smoothly or otherwise. The best technical solutions are those that drive others to perform their tasks more quickly, accurately, and with less hassle without anybody even being aware of them. In healthcare, this effect becomes much more apparent.
At VITAS Healthcare, the largest hospice and palliative care provider in the U.S., Sambit led the full launch of a cloud-based HR system (Oracle HCM Cloud) to manage data and services for over 12,000 employees. His focus extended beyond clean configuration. He automated benefits enrollment workflows and integrated multiple vendors into one cohesive HR ecosystem, removing delays and manual handoffs. He also led the integration of a 350-employee acquisition, expanding VITAS operations into seven new regions without delays—an effort that required harmonizing HR systems, onboarding processes, and payroll structures across both organizations.
But one of Sambit's most impactful works was the Recruitment Efficiency Scoreboard, a tool developed to help HR teams hire clinical staff faster and more effectively. The dashboard provided real-time visibility into recruiter performance, hiring timelines, and compliance risks across regions. Over the course of a year, the tool helped cut time-to-hire by 24%, boosted recruiter accuracy by 35%, and reduced early attrition by 12%.
' When you're hiring for clinical care, delays hurt patients,' Sambit says. 'The scoreboard helped us speed up hiring and reduce dropout rates.'
This kind of internal tooling is rarely discussed in public, yet it shapes the day-to-day functioning of major institutions. It's a reminder that innovation doesn't always come from flashy new products, while it often starts with listening, mapping where people are getting stuck, and quietly removing friction. The Larger Lesson: Don't Just Deliver. Design.
In the contemporary enterprise environment, the actual worth of an engineer does not only lie in fulfilment of assigned tasks, but in enhancement of the engine underneath. The best professionals do not stand by waiting to be told what's broken, they see what bogs others down and invent solutions that quietly smooth friction from the system.
' You don't have to invent the next big app,' says Sambit. 'Sometimes, the most valuable thing you can do is fix what slows everyone else down.'
Across roles and industries, three principles stand out: Fix what others ignore
Many of the most persistent problems—inefficient workflows, inconsistent setups, poor documentation—are considered routine. Real impact begins when someone chooses to improve themselves.
Design for reuse
A well-built internal tool or process shouldn't solve just one team's problem. Reusable, documented solutions are the building blocks of scalable organisations.
Own the full system
The most valuable contributors understand the interplay between business logic and technical delivery. They don't just implement. They align technology with long-term organizational needs.
This proactive, systems-oriented, and quietly transformative mindset is what will define the next generation of global tech leadership.
' If you only see your role as coding what's assigned,' he says, 'you'll never see the full problem. But when you ask why things break—and how to prevent it—you start building real value.'
In a global tech industry that often celebrates visibility over substance, the quiet work of fixing systems, improving workflows, and reducing friction is foundational, but rarely spotlighted. Whether in healthcare, finance, or logistics, progress often depends not on disruptive ideas but on those who identify inefficiencies and quietly remove them.