From TechCrunch:
....MUCH MOREUber has laid off 435 employees across its product and engineering teams, the company announced today. Combined, the layoffs represent about 8% of the organizations, with 170 people leaving the product team and 265 people leaving the engineering team.The layoffs had no effect on Eats, which is one of Uber’s top-performing products, and Freight, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Meanwhile, the company is lifting the hiring freeze on the product and engineering teams that has been in effect since early August, according to the source.
“Our hope with these changes is to reset and improve how we work day to day—ruthlessly prioritizing, and always holding ourselves accountable to a high bar of performance and agility,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. “While certainly painful in the moment, especially for those directly affected, we believe that this will result in a much stronger technical organization, which going forward will continue to hire some of the very best talent around the world.”
Of those laid off, more than 85% are based in the U.S., 10% in the Asia-Pacific and 5% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the source.
The layoffs came after Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi asked every member of his executive leadership team if they were to start from scratch, would their respective organizations would look like the way they do today.
“After careful consideration, our Engineering and Product leaders concluded the answer to this question in many respects was no,” the spokesperson said.
Those leaders are Chief Product Officer Manik Gupta and CTO Thuan Pham. They looked at team size, identified duplicate roles and overlapping work, as well as individual performance to determine who would be laid off, the source said. That’s how they landed on focusing more on the design and research teams from the product side....
This is a bigger story than just the job losses.
Related:
Aug. 1
"Uber imposes engineer hiring freeze as losses mount: Exclusive"
