Ola, India's leading mobility platform and a global powerhouse in ride-hailing. It is operating across 250+ cities in India, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Ola has redefined convenience and transparency for millions of consumers and over 1.5 million driver-partners. Moreover, Ola's commitment to innovation extends to its electric-vehicle arm, Ola Electric, which has carved a significant market share in a short span of time.. 

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Securing an Software Development Engineer (SDE) role at Ola is highly sought after for Indian tech professionals. However, gaining entry into this position can be challenging. While the conventional approach involves applying directly through the Ola jobs portal, a more accessible and effective route is to obtain a referral from an existing employee.

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In this article, we'll delve into Ola’s work culture and explore how you can leverage a referral to enhance your chances of landing a rewarding career opportunity within this tech powerhouse.

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How to get a job at Ola?

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Coming to the main question first, how to get into Ola. There are several ways of doing that. First go over to Ola careers page and scour through it and find the job you're looking for. You can check active jobs on their LinkedIn page as well. Apply to the job and wait for your resume to get shortlisted out of hundreds of resumes. 

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But if you’re looking for a more effective and an expeditious way to land a job at Ola, you should consider following the referral process. This method entails asking current employees who can advocate for you within the company for a specific job role. The referral process is advantageous for three primary reasons: firstly, existing employees already possess credibility, so anyone they vouch for is likely to be viewed favorably. Secondly, if their referral doesn't meet expectations or leaves the company shortly after joining, it could affect their reputation within the company. Some companies have employee referral programs and employees get monetary incentives if their referral joins the company. Therefore, they have a vested interest in recommending candidates who are qualified and likely to succeed.

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How to Get a Job Referral

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Let’s talk about the process of how to get a referral at Ola. Here’s a step by step guide for it.

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Finding a Potential Referrer

• Open LinkedIn and dive deep into research mode. Read and research about the company, its culture (you can read about it in this article below), and its employees. 
• Try to find if anyone in your friend circle/ acquaintances/ college alumni are currently working at Ola and reach out to them. 
• You can install our chrome extension to cut through the manual process and see which of your 1st degree LinkedIn connections are connected to Ola. You can even ask them to provide a referral through a 1 click easy process.
• Don’t sweat, if the above step doesn't work. You can check out job referral sites which have a curated list of people who have agreed to give referrals in their companies. We have made a list of Ola employees who have agreed to give referrals. You can check out a few of them below (install our extension to check the rest).

1. Ashwini Kumar - Currently working as Senior Engineering Manager at Ola | Previously worked in CDK Global | College: Birla Institute Of Technology, Mesra (2006)
2. Prabhanjan jha- Currently working as Engineering Manager Qa at Ola | Previously worked in Walmart Labs, Amadeus Labs, Cognizant Technology Solutions | College: Annamalai University, Chidambaram (2011)
3. Saidhanya Sudhan T C B- Currently working as SDE - I at Ola | College: Vellore Institute Of Technology
4. Shubham Kumar Gupta- Currently working as Software Developer at Ola | College: Indian Institute Of Technology, Guwahati
5. Sourav Singla- Currently working as Software Development Engineer 2 at Ola | Previously worked in Amagi Corporation, Rafay | College: CGC Punjab (2019)

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• Try to find people with whom you share a common interest with such as your ex- colleagues, college/ school mates, people from your hometown or people with mutual connections. If you don’t find anyone like that, try to find a mutual interest which you can talk about eg, interest in startups, finance or even anime.

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You can also search potential referrers directly through LinkedIn

• Search for Ola employees in the search bar and then filter them using connection, location and college filter. You can also navigate to the "People" tab on Ola’s LinkedIn page and search through the employees.
• Remember to try to find people with maximum mutual interest and working in the same or similar role you want to apply for.

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Crafting Your Request

• Now that you've identified your potential referrers, it's time to prepare your approach. Remember, personalization is key here.
• Start by researching the referrer's background and interests. 
• Craft a LinkedIn message or email. 
• Start with a brief greeting followed with an opening line using the shared interest (same college/ school, mutual connection/interest). 
• Introducing yourself and explaining why you're reaching out. Be clear and concise about your intention, attach your resume and any relevant work sample.
• Highlight how your skills and experience align with the job requirements and the company's goals and make it clear why you're a perfect fit for the role. Emphasize on how it would benefit both the organization and yourself. 
• Don't forget to express your gratitude for their time and consideration.
• Be patient about it and wait for at least a couple of days before sending a following up.
• Be polite in case they refuse or don’t reply. Thank them for their time and make sure that you don’t burn the bridges. If they refuse, try to get their feedback and work on it.

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You can check out sample examples of personalized referral requests below in this article.

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Bonus Tip: Making it Easy for your Referrer

To make it easy for your referrer, consider providing a prefilled message that they can simply copy and send to the hiring manager. We have attached the template below.

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Sharing the template below:

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Hi [Hiring Manager],

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I hope this email finds you well.

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I'm writing to recommend [name] for the [role]. [name] and I worked at [company] together/ attended the same college and collaborated on various projects during our time there. He's demonstrated himself as a hard worker and a dedicated team player.

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Sharing his contact details below:

Email: xyz@gmail.com

Phone: +91 xxxxxxxxxx

Resume:

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Best regards,

[referrar]

Work culture at Ola India

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Ola boasts a work culture that is both dynamic and demanding. Understanding the nuances of Ola’s work culture can greatly aid in navigating the job process and acclimatizing to the company's environment.

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Pros:

• State of the art offices: Ola provides a pleasant and comfortable work environment, and a cozy office.  
• Good learning curve and career growth: Ola works with the latest tech stack which provides a good learning curve and career growth to its employees.
• Competitive Comp: Ola offers competitive salary, even better than industry standards in some cases, but employees are not happy with the process of hikes and variable pay.
• Always innovating: The company fosters a culture of innovation, constantly seeking new ideas and solutions to stay ahead in the industry.
• Complete ownership: SDEs are given complete ownership of their work, leading to faster professional growth.

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Cons:

• Poor Work-life balance: Ola employees are required to work with very tight deadlines and have a high workload. The work can even spill over outside office hours and even on weekends.
• Lack of job security: Employees feel a sense of instability due to frequent layoffs, impacting morale and job security.
• Lack of clear communication from upper management: Ola employees feel a lack of clear communication when it comes to feedback, promotions, or hikes.
• Lack of set processes: Being a startup, Ola lacks established processes which leads to confusion and inefficiencies in systems and processes.

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In the end it’s about weighing pros and cons to reach a final decision when considering joining Ola as an SDE. 

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Different roles and hierarchy at Ola

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• SDE 1- For college graduates, requires 0-2 yrs of experience. The candidate should have a basic understanding of programming and good problem solving skills.
• SDE 2- Requires 2.5 - 4 yrs exp. They take end to end ownership of problems and provide solutions.
• SDE 3- Requires 5.5+ yrs exp. They own the tech vision of their team and are responsible for timely delivery of solutions/ features. They provide leadership and guidance to SDE 1&2.
• Principal Engineer- 7.5+ years. They are experts in their domains and are experienced in building scalable solutions/platforms.

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Ola salaries for different roles:

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Ola is known to pay good salaries to its engineers. On top of the base salary, SDEs are given additional stocks as well. Average salaries for roles are given below,

• SDE 1- 20 LPA 
• SDE 2- 32 LPA
• SDE 3- 42 LPA

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Samples for asking for Job Referral:

Email sample for job referral: Reaching out to a college senior

Hi Anuj,

Hope you’re doing well.

I don't know if you remember me or not but I worked as a volunteer in your team in our annual college cultural fest. We worked directly in the stage play event when the judge canceled at the last minute and led to the whole event getting delayed, quite a fiasco it was.

I'm actually reaching out to you because I needed a small favor. I recently saw that an SDE 2 position has opened up at Ola and I'm interested in applying for it. Would it be possible for you to refer me for the same? I have 1.5 years of experience as a Fullstack Engineer at Weekday (a YC backed startup) and I believe my skills and experience align well with the requirements of the SDE 2 role at Ola.

I've attached my resume for your reference. If you're able to provide a referral or offer any advice on the application process, I would be incredibly grateful.

Thank you for considering my request. I truly appreciate your time and assistance.

I know that you’ll be submitting a referral in your internal portal but in case you’re going to mail the hiring manager you can use something like this.

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Hi [Hiring Manager],

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I hope this email finds you well.

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I'm writing to recommend Amit Singh for the SWE 2 role. Amit and I attended the same college and collaborated on various projects during our time there. He's demonstrated himself as a hard worker and a dedicated team player.

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Sharing his contact details below:

Email: xyz@gmail.com

Phone: +91 xxxxxxxxxx

Resume:

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Best regards,

Anuj

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Warm Regards

Amit

Phone: +91 xxxxxxxxxx

Sample of how to ask for referral on LinkedIn: Reaching out to a person with mutual connection

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Dear Anuj,

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Hope you’re doing well.

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I got your reference from Akhil. I believe you guys went to college together. He is an ex colleague of mine, we worked briefly together at Weekday before parting ways.

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I'm actually reaching out to you because I needed a small favor. I am actively looking for a new job and saw that an SWE 3 position has opened up at Ola. I wanted to see if it would be possible for you to refer me for it? I have 4 years of experience in a similar role at a YC backed startup. I believe I possess the technical skills and relevant experience required for this role.

Attaching my resume for your reference. If you're able to provide a referral or offer any advice on the application process, I would be incredibly grateful.

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Thank you for considering my request. I truly appreciate your time and assistance.

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Warm Regards

Amit

Phone: +91 xxxxxxxxxx

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