Kolkata: Leading Indian IT firms like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Mahindra Satyam and Cognizant have once again started recruitment in the middle and senior level, which were largely on hold since the recession, reports Economic Times. The firms are now undertaking such senior-level hiring to bid for big-ticket IT deals which are now opening up in the West. It is usually from January onwards that clients prepare their IT budgets and invite bids. Headhunters estimate that some 3,000 senior professionals have been hired by the Indian IT sector in the October-December 2009 quarter. For instance, Mahindra Satyam has roped in a battery of senior professionals to rebuild the company and bid for large deals. It has roped in Vijay Anand Vaderu from Wipro to head strategy, Sudhir Nair from Infosys to drive infrastructure management division, Bobby Gupta from IBM to head sales in Australia and Ram Ramchandran from HCL to head Asean region. Patni Computer Systems recently appointed Naresh L Lakhanpal from Deloitte and Touche to head its American operations, V Mathivanan from Singapore Network Services as President of its Asia-Pacific operations, and Vijay Mehra, who was the global CIO at Essar Group, as Executive Vice President. "The signs are encouraging since October last year, after more than three quarters of complete freeze in lateral hiring by the IT firms," said E Balaji, CEO of Ma Foi.