Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal is seeking a Chief of Staff – but with an expensive twist. Candidates must pay a fee of ₹20 lakh to Zomato and work without pay for a year.
The unconventional posting, shared on X (formerly Twitter), reads more like a character test than a job description. Goyal wants someone “hungry” but inexperienced, empathetic but willing to make unpopular decisions, and notably, someone with “zero entitlement.”
“We are making this job unattractive for most people,” Goyal said in the post, positioning the role as a premium learning opportunity rather than a traditional executive position.
The candidate has to pay Rs 20 lakh as a “fee,” which Deepinder says the company will fully donate to Feeding India. And if you are wondering, you’ll be getting a salary, no. Not for the first year. Though Zomato wants to show that it isn’t trying to save money, so it’ll donate 50 lakh, which is seemingly the usual salary for a Chief fo Staff, to a charity of the candidate choice.
After the unpaid year, the position offers a salary exceeding ₹50 lakh – if you survive that long working across Zomato’s empire of food delivery, quick commerce, and restaurant supply chains.
Deepinder says that the job is for those who want to learn and it’ll give 10x the learnings than a typical 2-year degree from a top management school, as the candidate will be working directly with him and also with some of the “smartest f0lks” of the consumer tech industry. Thus, the fee.
When a social media user suggested candidates might go hungry after taking a ₹20 lakh loan for the position, Goyal’s cryptic response – “Will let you know how this goes :)” – added fuel to the already heated online debate about the ethics of pay-to-work schemes.
The 200-word application process? Simple but strict: no resumes allowed. Just a cover letter to d@zomato.com and Deepinder is pretty strict about this word limit.