'Human decency': Zerodha CTO reveals secret behind employee retention

Kailash Nadh felt that small teams had the potential in them to scale massive numbers (Photo: kailashnadh/LinkedIn)

Online stock trading firm Zerodha has gone from strength-to-strength in the last few years and a key factor that has contributed  to the company's success has been its employee retention rate. Zerodha's tech team has 33 employees in their tech team out of which only two have left the team, in the last ten years.

Speaking at Moneycontrol's India Fintech Conclave, Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh said that no formula has helped the company retain its talent for several years.

"There is no formula. I think the key is that we don't look at people as resources or talent. We don't even use the word talent. That is not our framework. It is a group of people who hang out with each other, who have the right philosophies, who gel well with each other. There is no pretense. It is human decency, I guess and a clear focus on building relationships. There is really, no real formula," he said at the conclave on Tuesday.

"Keeping things really simple. Having the conviction to avoid #FOMO. A lot of companies focus on way too many things. At Zerodha we always had short-term goals," Kailash Nadh

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When asked on how the company can ensure it can maintain its existing framework and continue to grow, Nadh said that it was possible for even a small team to build huge systems and scale to massive numbers.

"I think it is a misconception that the number of people in a tech or engineering team scales linearly with the organisation, in terms of financial transactions or the number of users or revenue. It is absolutely possible for a really small team to build massive systems that scale to really massive numbers. For me, if an engineering team grows exponentially as the company and its business grows, that is a bit of an anomaly," he added.