Rajan Bajaj hopes to see next Zuckerberg from 3-day work week at Slice

Slice, a fintech startup that  provides Visa cards, rolled out a three-day workweek program for engineers on October 4. The Bengaluru firm will hire full-time engineers, product managers, as well as designers under its 'Code in 3' scheme.

At a time when salaries of engineers are skyrocketing, the startup looks  at this program as a means to attract talent at a fast clip with a proposition to provide the techies the flexibility to work on their own personal projects for the rest of the week.

After its card product, the startup aims to foray into United Payments Interface (UPI), cryptocurrency, stocks and alternative investments like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL).

In a conversation with Priyanka Iyer of Moneycontrol, Slice Founder and CEO Rajan Bajaj said the project will help fuel the company's expansion plans. Slice looks at ‘Code in 3’ as a long-term project, rather than an experiment.

While Slice plans to hire over 1,000 engineers under this project in the next five years, will techies be happy to accept a pay cut in exchange for a three-day workweek? Here are excerpts from the interview.

What triggered the ‘Code in 3’ program? There's a hiring boom for techies now and companies are struggling to retain engineers as the salary war is heating up. Is this move an attempt to ensure you can attract good talent even if it is three days a week?

There are two reasons behind introducing this program. One is that there are some great engineers, designers and product managers working in large companies who want to work on their own projects, while not letting go of stability. And that is what this program provides them. Through that proposition, we expect some of the best engineers to work with Slice.

Second, the number of projects we are working on, we can barely hire fast enough. We're growing fast in our current product and have more lined up. But good growth in current projects sometimes leads startups to not focus on the long term. For example, cryptocurrency is something we should start work on. But because of our current expansion, we can't focus on everything. We will set up different teams that are self-sufficient, independent, and these teams will be working within themselves.

To begin with, the new recruits would be working on our new projects, which are aligned to the company's long-term goals as well. In terms of execution, we have small teams in the company who work independently on various projects.

A three-day-work week will allow us to recruit a certain calibre of talent because it’s a perk that big tech companies like Google and Amazon don’t offer.

How did your team come up with the idea?

We were all discussing that while there are many perks being offered by companies to their teams, what are they missing out on – the answer was time. We thought we can give time to people who want to work on individual ideas and projects that interest them. Post various discussions and iterations we came up with this plan.

What will be the salary structure for people coming on board under ‘Code in 3’? Salaries are already quite high. Will you offer the same level for a three-day workweek or these engineers will have to take a salary cut?

We offer competitive salaries, we are particular about that. But yes, they will have to take a slight cut. While the salary will not be 100 percent of their previous salary but we are looking to pay higher than the market. For example, three days over five days is 60 percent. But our salaries will be over 60 percent of their previous salaries. Although we have not zeroed in on a particular percentage in terms of a salary cut.

But will engineers be open to taking a salary cut, especially at a time when they are being offered huge hikes and benefits?

See, this program is not for everyone. While they have to take a slight cut, this is still giving them stability and, most importantly, time. Time is the most important currency now, it's not money. They can use that time to work on their own projects to build something of their own. Why can’t the next Mark Zuckerberg come from this program? I think they can.

How has the response been so far to the program?

It’s too early to tell, but the initiative has been well received till now. Many of our team members have been approached by their friends to find out how to apply.

Will you assess this program in terms of how it works and how efficient the model is in the next few months or so?

This is not an experiment for us. We are launching this full-fledged and will be a long-term plan for us. We will begin with hiring 100 people in the next one year. With an estimated projection of hiring over 1,000 team members over the next five years.

There will always be projects to work on, there is no dearth. Apart from what we are building right now, there are many long-term critical projects like cryptocurrency, BNPL, etc in the pipeline.