What was the gross margin for Pure Storage in 2023-Q1 
ments. The fact that we're smaller, we're denser, more power efficient and generally more performance than other products in the market have certainly helped in this environment. We think it's -- as I mentioned, we are talking to quite a few other telcos about 5G deployments. I'm optimistic about this space.
And I'm going to invite Rob who worked on this opportunity to tell us a little bit more about this specific deployment.
Rob Lee -- Chief Technology Officer
Yes. So I think this is a testament really to the quality of our products and the reliability and performance, all the attributes that Charlie just mentioned and really the suitability of those attributes to 5G deployments. In many ways, it's a great validation that just like the hyperscale environments, which we've spoken to you previously about. In these large telecom environments, really share a lot of the same requirements.
They're highly available, highly performance demanding, very mission-critical environment, highly automated as well. And I think those are all attributes where Pure's products and services are uniquely well-positioned to go and serve. And so I think we're super pleased with the win. I think I'd also mention that in this particular environment, we were chosen to replace what was initially a custom design built around open-source software as customer had really tried to build out part of the environment themselves and then turn back to us to -- when they couldn't achieve the reliability performance and really the ease of management and automation required of these very demanding environments.
Kevan Krysler -- Chief Financial Officer
And I'll just hit the operating profit question again. And really, this just comes back down to our strategy really around prioritizing innovation and growth that's paying off. We're seeing it. We've been seeing it for several quarters.
And at the same time, we're increasing our profitability. Now we're balancing that. We had some great hiring, as I mentioned. I think we quarter over quarter, hired over 170 folks and new talent worldwide, which we're really pleased with.
We are navigating some higher wage costs as to be expected, and all that's being balanced and incorporated while we're increasing profitability for the year. So hopefully, that's a helpful context.
Tim Long -- Barclays -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street. You may proceed.
Eric Martinuzzi -- Lake StreetAdvisors -- Analyst
Yes. I was just curious, I wanted to go a layer deeper on the product gross margins. Curious to see if there's any let up. Obviously, you're putting up good gross margins in a tough supply chain environment.
But expedited shipping fees, anything there where you're seeing relief or forecasting relief?
Charlie Giancarlo -- Chief Executive Officer
I would say not at the moment. We had hoped back in Q3 and Q4 that the supply chain constraints would start to ease by Q1 or Q2. Unfortunately, we've not seen that. One situation after another just continues to extend.
It changes the nature of the supply chain problems, but it extends the supply chain problems. To be clear, we've not seen it get worse, but we've not seen it get better either. And it's across the board, as you're pointing out, everything from logistics shipping, but the ones that -- we can absorb all of that, the ones that always concern us is components and availability of components because that can get you to shut -- or border closures, right? Those are the ones we're most concerned about. But it's still across the board.
Kevan Krysler -- Chief Financial Officer
It's across the board. And where the advantage again comes to us is really around the fact that we have less parts that we have to navigate in terms of exposure. And that's really paying off for us, both on the inflationary side as well as supply constraints and how we've been able to navigate against that headwind.
Eric Martinuzzi -- Lake StreetAdvisors -- Analyst
Got it. Thanks for taking my question.
Operator
This concludes the question-and-answe
ments. The fact that we're smaller, we're denser, more power efficient and generally more performance than other products in the market have certainly helped in this environment. We think it's -- as I mentioned, we are talking to quite a few other telcos about 5G deployments. I'm optimistic about this space.
And I'm going to invite Rob who worked on this opportunity to tell us a little bit more about this specific deployment.
Rob Lee -- Chief Technology Officer
Yes. So I think this is a testament really to the quality of our products and the reliability and performance, all the attributes that Charlie just mentioned and really the suitability of those attributes to 5G deployments. In many ways, it's a great validation that just like the hyperscale environments, which we've spoken to you previously about. In these large telecom environments, really share a lot of the same requirements.
They're highly available, highly performance demanding, very mission-critical environment, highly automated as well. And I think those are all attributes where Pure's products and services are uniquely well-positioned to go and serve. And so I think we're super pleased with the win. I think I'd also mention that in this particular environment, we were chosen to replace what was initially a custom design built around open-source software as customer had really tried to build out part of the environment themselves and then turn back to us to -- when they couldn't achieve the reliability performance and really the ease of management and automation required of these very demanding environments.
Kevan Krysler -- Chief Financial Officer
And I'll just hit the operating profit question again. And really, this just comes back down to our strategy really around prioritizing innovation and growth that's paying off. We're seeing it. We've been seeing it for several quarters.
And at the same time, we're increasing our profitability. Now we're balancing that. We had some great hiring, as I mentioned. I think we quarter over quarter, hired over 170 folks and new talent worldwide, which we're really pleased with.
We are navigating some higher wage costs as to be expected, and all that's being balanced and incorporated while we're increasing profitability for the year. So hopefully, that's a helpful context.
Tim Long -- Barclays -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street. You may proceed.
Eric Martinuzzi -- Lake StreetAdvisors -- Analyst
 Yes. I was just curious, I wanted to go a layer deeper on the product gross margins. Curious to see if there's any let up. Obviously, you're putting up good gross margins in a tough supply chain environment.
But expedited shipping fees, anything there where you're seeing relief or forecasting relief?
Charlie Giancarlo -- Chief Executive Officer
I would say not at the moment. We had hoped back in Q3 and Q4 that the supply chain constraints would start to ease by Q1 or Q2. Unfortunately, we've not seen that. One situation after another just continues to extend.
It changes the nature of the supply chain problems, but it extends the supply chain problems. To be clear, we've not seen it get worse, but we've not seen it get better either. And it's across the board, as you're pointing out, everything from logistics shipping, but the ones that -- we can absorb all of that, the ones that always concern us is components and availability of components because that can get you to shut -- or border closures, right? Those are the ones we're most concerned about. But it's still across the board.
Kevan Krysler -- Chief Financial Officer
It's across the board. And where the advantage again comes to us is really around the fact that we have less parts that we have to navigate in terms of exposure. And that's really paying off for us, both on the inflationary side as well as supply constraints and how we've been able to navigate against that headwind.
Eric Martinuzzi -- Lake StreetAdvisors -- Analyst
Got it. Thanks for taking my question.
Operator
This concludes the question-and-answe