In this episode of Scaler Pod, we have Rahul Chari, Founder and CTO, PhonePe. We explore the driving forces behind PhonePe's success and its pivotal role in shaping UPI's growth and adoption. Also, unveiling the origins of UPI, the challenges faced during its implementation, and how PhonePe has played a significant role in India's Digital Payments Revolution. Rahul has over two decades of experience in embedded systems, enterprise software development, e-commerce platforms, and mobile applications. Prior to PhonePe, he was the VP of Engineering at Flipkart, where he was in charge of developing the best-in-class e-commerce logistics supply chain system. He talks about his entrepreneurial journey, learnings from Flipkart days and the idea behind PhonePe. He deep down on being mobile native and what challenges they face in managing scale, millions of transitions and regulations that arise for fintech platforms. Great watch for everyone who wanted to understand the UPI ecosystem and PhonePe's case study. Rahul also shares about the work culture at PhonePe, expanding in new markets, innovations that they plan and the qualities of a great software engineer. He also talks about the user life cycle, design principles and other verticals like insurance, investment, bill payments etc in which PhonePe is expanding to create the impact in driving UPI's popularity by offering a user-friendly and intuitive platform that integrates seamlessly with the UPI ecosystem for digital payments. ScalerPod by Scaler is a one-of-a-kind podcast for engineers and tech enthusiasts. Our host Arnav Gupta talks to the leaders of the biggest tech companies from India and around the globe about the software engineering challenges they are solving and the products they are building for scale!

Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:27 A Day in His Life 04:20 His Journey - College Days to PhonePe 11:09 Music Streaming, Flipkart's Flyte and Retro Talks 17:23 Being VP of Engineering at Flipkart(Ekart), Logistics and his Learnings 20:01 Idea Behind PhonePe and How PhonePe Started? 23:33 On Phonepe's acquisition by Flipkart 26:38 Early Days of UPI and Digital Payments in India 32:38 PhonePe's Tech Stack and Choices 38:54 On being Mobile Native and Managing User Interactions 41:35 Decoding Digital Payments, UPI and Future Ahead 47:56 Understanding PhonePe Wallet 51:33 Handling Scale, Mobile App and Innovations 58:23 Thoughts on Cross-Platform Integrations 1:00:36 Organisation Structure, Pods and Qualities of Great Engineers 1:06:33 Regulatory Issues and How PhonePe tackle these Challenges 1:14:18 Onboarding Rituals at PhonePe and PhonePe University 1:17:38 Will PhonePe become a Bank? 1:21:58 Opportunities for Digital Payment Platforms 1:25:21 AI in Fintech and Thoughts on ChatGPT 1:28:09 Outro

#PhonePe #UPI #Fintech #Scaler #ScalerPod