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At Cashfree Payments, innovation sparks when curiosity meets code: from patterns spotted, workflows reimagined to ideas sparked by a simple “what if?
Every week, our engineering teams come together in a recurring ritual we call the Idea Board, a space to pitch, debate, and shape engineering-led innovations that improve internal systems, developer workflows, and even customer experience. What starts as a raw idea on the board often turns into scalable products and tools used across Cashfree.
Here’s how some of those ideas moved from whiteboard discussions to real-world impact driven entirely by engineers.
One Config, Every Gateway
Cashfree’s hybrid API gateway serves over 95% of traffic. But configuring new APIs across all environments and gateways can be a repetitive process. “With multiple gateways (N) and multiple environments (M), onboarding a new API quickly becomes an N × M effort,” says Shubham Mishra, SDE 3. That’s exactly the problem he set out to solve.
Inspired by an internal open-source tool, ESL, Shubham built GSL (Gateway and Environment-agnostic Configs), a single YAML-based system to standardise and simplify API onboarding. “Now, with GSL, all changes are made in a single file, ensuring no discrepancies across environments or gateways,” Shubham explains. “This has led to faster onboarding, reduced PR review effort, and lower risk of config-related incidents.”
The Idea Board helped sharpen his thinking. He says, “The feedback shared by peers brought in dimensions I hadn’t considered initially. I’ve come to realise that structured processes reduce chaos and deliver long-term benefits, especially when scaling solutions across teams.”
AI in the IDE
For developers integrating Cashfree, context-switching between docs, dashboards, and support was becoming a bottleneck. That’s when Chadive Satish Chandra Reddy, SDE 2, envisioned a bold solution: “An AI assistant inside the IDE that feels like having a Cashfree engineer by your side.”
The result was Cashien AI, a VS Code extension that delivers real-time, context-aware code suggestions and API help without leaving the editor.
“Cashien AI has drastically reduced integration time for developers by eliminating the need to hop between docs, dashboards, and support channels,” says Satish. “It delivers stack-specific suggestions right where developers work.”
The Idea Board gave structure and support to a big bet. Satish explains, “It helped gather feedback, align stakeholders, and maintain momentum through execution. It’s a great space to explore bold ideas and turn them into tangible products.”
Automating the Screenshot Shuffle
During merchant onboarding, Cashfree agents spent nearly a third of their time manually capturing and verifying website screenshots. “This process was repetitive and time-consuming, especially with a high screenshot rework rate (~40–50%),” explains Raman Kumar Singh, SDE 2.
His resolution was simple. He decoupled screenshot capture from the agent workflow and turned it into an asynchronous process powered by queues and automation.
By automating this workflow, the impact was immediate: “The feature significantly reduced agent time spent on the website validation section, by ~8 minutes per merchant, saving one full agent’s time daily. It eliminated repetitive manual tasks, allowing agents to focus on higher-order validations and speeding up onboarding for merchants,” says Raman.
What helped him turn a manual bottleneck into a system-wide improvement? “The Idea Board gave structure to the proposal; it pushed me to frame the problem with measurable impact and explore scalable ways to solve it,” he says. “It empowers us to step beyond just writing code and contribute to systemic improvements with tangible business impact.”
Small Detail, Big Impact
Sometimes, a simple tweak can elevate the entire user experience. Prem Chand, SDE 2, realised that payment link’s credibility can be improved when shared on WhatsApp or Telegram if they have rich previews.
“It’s a small detail, but one that significantly improves user experience and brand perception,” says Prem.
Prem’s enhancement added titles, descriptions, and thumbnails to Cashfree’s payment links. “This addressed the issue of unbranded links, which could lead to user distrust. With better previews, our links started appearing more credible and informative, likely improving click-through and completion rates.”
And it didn’t go unnoticed. “The Idea Board gave visibility and momentum to the idea, helping align it with business priorities through structured feedback.”
Where Ideas Turn Into Impact
What ties these interventions together more than strong engineering is the culture that supports it. At Cashfree Payments, the Idea Board isn’t just a meeting. It’s a mindset. One that gives a platform to engineers to bring their creative best to solving high-impact fintech problem statements.
If you’re excited by the idea of turning problems into products, of shaping systems with real impact, then explore open roles at our teams here: https://www.cashfree.com/careers/
