Hello, Last-mile - Work Culture at Dispatch

By Navneeth Kannan

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Introducing the Dispatch Network Journal

Dispatch is young. We are still in the middle of building, testing, breaking, learning, and rebuilding. For most of this journey, we have been too deep in the work to talk about the work. Last-mile delivery is not glamorous. It is messy, physical, time-critical, human, and shaped every second by the unpredictability of cities. It demands systems thinking and street-level intuition at the same time.

We have spent the last few years trying to understand this space end-to-end; riders, vehicles, batteries, payments, platforms, incentives, density, demand curves, routing logic, and the silent frictions that waste time and money every day. This process has shaped how we hire, how we organise, and how we work.

We are sharing our story now because enough of the foundation has been laid to speak with clarity, about why we operate the way we do, how our team is structured, and what we’re learning as we build systems that have to survive real streets, real incentives, and real pressure.

How a Flat Structure affects work culture

The work we do cuts across hardware, software, logistics, behavioural economics, and urban problem-solving. There is no single department that “owns” last-mile delivery. The only way to operate effectively is to dissolve traditional borders.

People here move fluidly across roles. Designers write product specs. Engineers go on rider shifts. Business teams debug routing logic. Operations refines incentive models with data science. Ownership is shared, not allocated.

Hierarchy gets in the way of clarity. Titles are minimal. Decisions are made close to the work. If you notice a problem, you own the solution—no permission loops.

Everyone Is a Generalist First

Depth matters, but narrowness is a risk. A generalist mindset makes the system more resilient.

We encourage people to understand the full delivery chain—not just their piece of it. The result is faster decisions, tighter feedback loops, and solutions grounded in reality rather than assumptions.

This is not “move fast and break things.” It is: understand deeply, design precisely, build cleanly, iterate continuously.

What Guides Us

1. Reality over theory. If it doesn’t work for riders on the street, it doesn’t work.

2. Tools are chosen for the job, not for trend.

3. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Rushing early creates rework later.

4. The best ideas come from people close to the problem.

5. Complexity should be earned, not assumed.

6. Work should feel meaningful—not performative.

What This Blog Will Be

We will write about:

• Building systems that manage thousands of moving parts in dynamic environments.

• Why generalists form the core of the team.

• Designing incentives that align the worker, the customer, and the network.

• Reducing empty miles and idle time using intelligent positioning.

• Vehicle + platform integration and what “full-stack mobility” means in practice.

• Lessons from rider onboarding, support systems, and operational routines.

• Mistakes, rewrites, and the decisions we got wrong.

This will not be a marketing space. It will be a record of the work, the reasoning, the trade-offs, and the ongoing process of building last-mile infrastructure thoughtfully.

If you care about systems, mobility, logistics, distributed networks, or just working on problems that have real weight and real consequences, you may find something here worth staying for.