Razorpay Executive: India's Digital Scale Needs External Failure Planning
Building reliable digital payments at India's scale requires planning for failures in infrastructure a company does not control, according to Razorpay's SVP of engineering Prabhu Ram. He stressed that companies must design systems assuming disruptions can originate both within their own and external systems.
Ensuring reliable digital payments at India's scale necessitates planning for disruptions in infrastructure outside a company's direct control, stated Prabhu Ram, SVP of engineering at Razorpay. Ram was speaking at Inc42's The CTO Summit 2026.
Ram emphasized that companies must assume failures can originate not only from their internal systems but also from the underlying technology operated by third-party providers. "None of us here own all seven layers," Ram said, referring to the technology stack. "You have to build systems assuming that not just the layers that you control may break, but also the underlying layers that you don’t control may break."
He contrasted this reliance on external infrastructure with greater control over the technology stack, citing companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon as examples that have brought critical components in-house. "If you own the entire seven layers of that cake, it makes it a lot easier because you control the entire supply chain," Ram noted.
The challenge becomes particularly significant as consumers expect digital services to "just work," whether they are making a UPI payment or booking a ticket online. Companies must meet these expectations while maintaining response times within milliseconds or a few seconds.
The discussion also touched upon AI's role in engineering. Oracle's Palanivel Saravanan highlighted how companies are bringing AI models closer to their data to improve user responses. Ram cautioned, however, that AI cannot compensate for weak engineering foundations and can compound problems when deployed without adequate system observability.