Data science hiring process at CRED

Bengaluru-based CRED is one of the most talked-about startups globally, thanks to its unique business model and innovative ads. The company aggregates credit card holders and rewards people for good credit scores. In addition, it offers customers access to a range of additional services, including credit and a premium catalogue of products from both high-end as well as homegrown D2C brands. This includes Diesel, Cure.Fit, Myntra, Olive Bar & Kitchen and others. 

The platform offers a range of features, including tracking spending across credit cards, check credit scores, etc. The CRED protect feature is an AI-backed system that keeps track of every activity in a credit card payment journey, right from due date, reminders, spend patterns, and other card usage statistics. 

CRED heavily relies on AI, data science and analytics and has a data science team of 30 members – including data scientists and ML engineers – to solve the most challenging problems in the financial and credit card payments industry.

Inside CRED data science team 

CRED follows a hybrid structure. This includes a central pod that develops horizontal solutions and capabilities alongside other team members aligned to specific business lines. Data scientists work closely with respective project managers, analytics and engineering teams to build and own end-to-end data science solutions.

The data science team is currently building models for information extraction and classification that power customer-facing products on the app and building personalisation models to power various sections of the app, drive engagement and cross-sell.

The team works on improving the payment experience of its users through forecasting and anomaly detection models. In addition, it uses analytics and ML models to detect and prevent fraud and abuse on CRED. The team is also involved in building models that help underwrite loans, alongside building casual models to understand the downstream impact of actions and using the same to decide optimal interventions.

CRED is expanding its data science team and are hiring data scientists and data science analysts across experiential levels in Bengaluru. The number of positions currently available: 4. 

Interview process 

“We follow a mix of behavioural, skill-based and situational interview styles to assess candidates,” said Satyadarshi Behera, head of data science at CRED. 

He said the interviews assess candidates on their technical ability–critical understanding of core statistics and machine learning algorithms–and relevant experience. “We assess work they have done in the past, focusing on design/approach choices they made, outcomes they created, etc.,” he added. 

The startup evaluates candidates on their ability to think from first principles, solve problems and translate ideas to code. The interviews may also focus on candidates’ ability to work with stakeholders from engineering and product teams to drive outcomes.

Expectations 

Behera said CRED believes in a culture of trust, ownership, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He said they consider multiple factors while hiring team members, including:

• Obsession: CRED said it looks for passionate team members, not necessarily just with coding but also with other aspects or hobbies such as cycling, painting, music, gaming, etc. The team looks for folks who are obsessed with getting the best model or analysis or implementation and not shy away from facing challenges.

• Curiosity: CRED encourages curiosity, and they look for people interested in learning new technology or even design. The startup believes curiosity brings out new insights and new approaches. 

• Solve elegantly: CRED is all about moving fast. But, at the same time, they also expect data scientists to not jump to the first solution that comes to mind, and to evaluate all possibilities and move towards the most elegant solution iteratively.

Dos & don’ts 

Not listening carefully during the interview, not asking more clarifying questions, not starting with first-principle thinking and jumping to complicated models (without being able to justify why a simpler solution would not work) are major no-nos for CRED. 

Work culture 

“Our value system is guided by the principles of obsession, skin in the game, being truth-seeking, solving elegantly, being audacious, earning trust and delivering outcomes,” said Behera. He said the start-up’s policies and initiatives (like ESOPs for all team members, flexi work hours, an open leave policy, and encouraging side hustles) reflect the high-trust relationship it has with the team members. 

CRED doesn’t believe in micromanaging and has leaders who act as coaches/mentors and manage performance through OKRs and regular discussions. “We have soft boundaries in terms of job roles and descriptions. This allows team members to learn and gain experience in aspects of work that they find interesting,” said Behera. 

Work perks 

CRED believes the team members are essential to its growth, and its focus is on creating a conducive environment for them to realise their potential and work towards the collective goals they’ve set for themselves. 

Perks and benefits at CRED include: 

ESOPS 

CRED ensures its team members have skin in the game. Every team member at CRED is a shareholder. The company believes the growth over the past 4+ years has been possible because of the collective conviction and contribution of the team. CRED believes rewarding the team members’ commitment involves providing them ample opportunities to create wealth, helping them realise financial goals and investing in their future.

To this end, CRED has expanded its ESOP pool size to USD 500 million and ESOPs are offered to all employees across levels and verticals. In August 2021, CRED launched Accelerated Wealth Program, where team members can choose up to 50 percent of their annual cash compensation in the form of special grant ESOPs. As part of the programme, the cumulative ESOP buyback for 2021 was over INR 80 crores, with eligible team members exercising the vesting option. 

CRED BeniFlex 

The CRED BeniFlex Program is designed with the intent to provide team members with greater control over their insurance plans. 

BeniFlex allows the team to avail tailor-made benefits. This includes options to add custom benefits for their future needs or to support their family requirements like elder care, gender reassignment surgery, and egg freezing, among others.

Employee-friendly policies

In addition to the BeniFlex program, CRED offers other perks and benefits including:

• Advance salary: CRED pays salaries at the beginning of every month. 
• Leave Policy: CRED believes the team members deserve to plan their work and time off on their terms. 
• L&D support: Team members get professional development credits for any course or leadership development program they want to sign up for.
• AMA’s with industry experts: Team members get access to key insights from Indian and Global industry leaders in sessions hosted by Kunal Shah on topics ranging from company culture to data analytics
• Flexi work hours: CRED doesn’t believe in tracking team members’ hours, as long as they get the work done! Dedicated hours for independent work are also chartered.
• Relocation Support: CRED covers major relocation expenses when team members need to move cities. 
• Mental wellness: CRED regularly hosts workshops and has enlisted partners like Kaha Mind to offer one-on-one support to team members.

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