Razorpay

• The food is free and fantastic.
• The tech stack is fairly decent, and because Razorpay handles large scale, there is much to learn.

I was at Razorpay for 2 months because I decided to leave as soon as I realized what was really happening within the company. Mark my words, Razorpay has got THE WORST CULTURE IN TECH, hands down.

• My manager did not care to be welcoming to me at all since day 1; in fact, he acted hostile. I still remember when I first went to meet him; he didn't even greet me and gave me this uncomfortable stare like I was a threat to him. Never once did he smile or make jovial conversation or help me with getting clarity on my tasks/role. Basically, I was just left alone to figure things out myself and find everything by myself. Nobody ever offered any help or support of any kind.

• My so-called assigned "buddy" would not even say hi, make eye contact, or talk to me with a straight face. The same goes for the rest of the team. Even engineers much junior to me would just walk past me at the start of the day as if I was a wall. I would try to make eye contact to say hi, but they would just look straight ahead. No one ever asked me for lunch/coffee even once. People would just go to lunch without telling you. I ate alone for 2 weeks and then found some friends outside of my team finally.

• Teammates are constantly trying to put down each other, and it's cutthroat out there. If you are technically stronger than the rest, the team will find means to make life difficult for you so you don't get ahead. This anti-collaboration is in turn bringing down the quality of their products.

• Ultimately, I decided that my mental health and self-respect were far more important than the tech stack, which, by the way, a LOT of companies have. Further, even the compensation wasn't outstanding enough to put up with the constant insults. Tons of companies out there pay a lot more.

• There is a huge lack of respect and professionalism within the company. I started interviewing again and got an offer from a big tech company and resigned within 1 month. Firstly, my manager started using unprofessional language and reacted aggressively when I told him about my resignation. Then, he and the entire team completely stopped talking to me altogether. No more replies to my Slack messages/emails. Further, when I put down my resignation, my manager intentionally tried to delay approving my resignation as long as possible to cause me distress. Even the HR was completely non-communicative and maintained radio silence until my last working day.

When I joined, there was a culture session in my orientation, driven by Arun Chetty, the head of culture at Razorpay. So, this advice is directly for him. Arun, you just have to look inside and evaluate what's really happening within your teams. The fact is that the values you show new hires on the projector screen in orientations are the exact opposite of what is being followed by managers within your org. If you are unable to change that, you might as well stop this culture session charade.