Grofers hikes tech team pay by 33%, increases ESOPs

Online grocer Grofers said on June 21 that every employee of its technology team will receive a salary hike of 33%.

These employees will also be getting a "hefty ESOP allocation" depending on their role in the company, cofounder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa said in a blog post.

"We will only succeed as an organisation if we invest heavily in tech. Our DNA needs to evolve to one of a tech company, and not an e-commerce company that utilises technology. Everything from productivity to personalisation to marketing is now a tech problem," he wrote.

"Tech will always be our number 1 priority going forward. I also realise that we are sub-par in terms of compensating our tech team compared to other technology companies in the country. That has two repercussions – we are not able to attract the best of talent, and we fail to motivate our existing tech team," he added.

Grofers did not disclose how many people it's technology team has. The pay hike also comes at a time when IPO-bound food delivery firm Zomato is in final talks to pick up a stake of $100 million in the SoftBank-backed grocer.

Grofers has also been on a general hiring spree in the last few months. Moneycontrol reported on May 21 that Grofers has hired 2,000 people in its warehousing and delivery teams since February. Over the next year it plans to hire 500 more people across tech, product, data sciences, supply chain operations, product and growth marketing and category management.

Grofers also said last week that Saurabh Kumar, co-founder of the firm is leaving the company, eight years after he started with Dhindsa.