Andela has announced the departure of approximately 250 junior engineers and staff from its Nigeria and Uganda hubs with another 170 potentially impacted in Kenya. The move comes as the company looks to “restructure its talent pool” to more closely align with global market demand.
Andela who recently raised $100M shared in a statement that is now working with all impacted and potentially impacted employees.
The majority of the demand is for more experienced talent according to Seni Sulyman, Andela VP of Global Operations. Now on the hunt for growth Andela need to change the mix/composition of their talent base and have been sourcing and assessing mid-level and senior engineers, and they represent more than 25% of Andela’s talent base.
7/ As a result, we’ve come to the conclusion that Andela’s next phase of growth requires a strategic shift in how we think about talent. Historically, we have viewed our talent supply as being primarily junior with some mid-level and senior engineers.
— Seni Sulyman (@senisulyman) September 17, 2019
The company announced it is partnering with CcHUB (Nigeria), iHub (Kenya), and Innovation Village (Uganda) to help connect impacted developers with opportunities in their local ecosystems. Together, they have identified over 60 companies who are looking to hire top quality junior engineering talent, which begs the question – why is Andela not contracting these companies and retaining the junior talent to fill these positions?
Jeremy Johnson, Andela co-founder and CEO says: “As the talent world has evolved, we have as well, and over the past few years it’s become increasingly clear that the world needs what Andela provides: high-quality engineering-as-a-service. It has also become clear, however, that the majority of the demand is for more experienced talent, and to keep up with it, we need to grow our senior talent base even faster.
“This shift in demand also means that we now have more junior talent than we are able to place. This is a challenge for the business, and for these junior engineers who want, and deserve, authentic work experiences that we are not able to provide.”
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.”
