Andela has announced the departure from its Nigeria and Uganda hubs of approximately 250 junior engineers and employees with another 170 potentially affected in Kenya.
Andela who recently raised $100 million shared in a statement that now deals with all workers impacted and potentially affected.
According to Seni Sulyman, Andela VP of Global Operations, most of the market is for more seasoned talent. Now on the search for growth Andela needs to change their talent base’s mix / composition and have been recruiting and evaluating mid-level and senior engineers, representing over 25% of Andela’s talent base.
Jeremy Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Andela says: “As the world of technology has changed, we also have, and over the past few years it has become increasingly clear that the world needs what Andela provides: high-quality innovation as a product. Nevertheless, it has also become apparent that most of the demand is for more seasoned talent, and we need to expand our senior talent base even faster in order to keep up with it.
“This change in demand also means we now have more young talent than we can position. This is a problem for the company and those junior engineers who want and deserve meaningful work experiences that we can not offer.”
Beyond this restructure, Andela continues to grow rapidly with plans to hire an additional 700 experienced engineers by the end of 2020. Today’s announcement will not affect Andela customers’ operations, as the company evolves to deliver even stronger engineering support for their teams.
Seni Sulyman, Andela VP of Global Operations says, “Our immediate priority is to ensure that our colleagues who are affected by this change are well supported to succeed in their next career moves. We are in talks with tech leaders across Africa, who have been very supportive in exploring opportunities for these talented Andelans. We are also focusing our attention on providing adequate support for the rest of Andela during this period, as we continue to build a world-class engineering organization.”
Moving forward, the company will continue to invest in the Andela Learning Community (ALC), which has already introduced over 30,000 learners from across the continent to software engineering. Over the next three years, the company expects over 100,000 engineers from across the continent to take advantage of programs within the community.
Johnson added, “Five years ago, we launched Andela to solve a global challenge: Brilliance is evenly distributed, but the opportunity is not. To succeed in our long-term mission, we have to make tough decisions to continue growing a company that we know will change the way the world thinks about talent.”