Scaler Pod - The Software Engineer's Podcast · Scaler Academy

SCALER POD 09 ft. Nirdosh Chouhan, SVP Engineering, OYO | Hospitality, Innovation and The Jugaad Mindset

·1 hr 15 min·5 clips

Nirdosh was at Apple during the iPhone 1 launch, seeing touch change device interaction forever.

This episode features Nirdosh Chouhan, SVP of Engineering at OYO, in conversation with host Arnav from Scaler Pod. Chouhan discusses his career journey and the technological challenges within the hospitality sector. He argues that hospitality has lagged behind other industries like finance and banking in adopting transformative technology. Chouhan started a business in college, taught automata theory, and began his software career building insurance systems. He worked at Apple during the iPhone 1 launch and was involved with early web technologies like WebObjects. He highlights experiencing the shift from static to dynamic web publishing and the impact of hardware load balancers like Netscaler. Later roles at NetApp taught him about storage system fundamentals like data deduplication. He returned to Apple to lead retail engineering in India before joining OYO to engage with the Indian startup ecosystem. A key insight is that technology in hospitality should act as an enabler for quick transactions, not a time sink. Chouhan describes building data science platforms to predict room demand and optimize pricing for hotels of all sizes, even those with only ten rooms. He notes the immense diversity in hotel operations across different Indian cities and international markets like Europe and the Middle East. The engineering challenge involves creating inclusive software that serves a range from small hotels to large properties. Chouhan explains that user filter selections on booking platforms can be contradictory, so machine learning models analyze user personas to infer true intent. The team uses scientific methods, like time-series algorithms from Facebook and LinkedIn, to measure the impact of product changes amidst seasonal booking patterns. He emphasizes that solving for even one user in a million who faces accessibility issues is a first-order priority. A memorable principle he shares is building software for "everyone," not just "someone." The tone is conversational and educational, blending personal career anecdotes with detailed technical and product management insights. The style is reflective, with Chouhan drawing clear parallels between his experiences at Apple and his current role at OYO. Software engineers interested in scaling consumer platforms, data science applications, and cross-cultural product design would find this episode valuable. Listeners seeking highly structured debates or purely technical deep-dives might find the discussion too broad.

As heard by us

A grounded look at hospitality tech, fast booking, and product choices under scale.

Hospitality is the starting point, but the real thread is how technology can reshape an old industry. The conversation treats software as a practical enabler: booking flows should move quickly when someone is ready to book, and the benefits should reach the smallest hotel, not…

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Why you'd press play

If you want to hear how OYO thinks about making hotel booking a 30-second task.

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