New Delhi, July 26 -- He was just 26 when he started training people more than double his age-and with a greater number of years at work and big-ticket degrees-in artificial intelligence (AI).

But what struck me when I first met Sridev Ramesh, aka Sid, in California a couple of months ago was that today, he makes nearly Rs.3 crore a year-a figure most engineers don't reach even after decades in the field.

That's the story of India's new breed of techies who did not want to follow the conventional career path. Ramesh and his compatriots, like 27-year-old Ansh Mehra and 32-year-old Varun Mayya, are all part of a growing cohort of razor-sharp engineering graduates making content for other tech professionals.

Mayya, for instance, has never...