Uber plans expansion in India; to hire engineers for tech, product teams

Ride-hailing platform Uber on Wednesday said it is recruiting close to 250 engineers for its teams in Bengaluru and Hyderabad as it continues to expand the scope of operations for its engineering and product work in the country.

The current round of hiring will strengthen the company's rider and driver growth, delivery, eats, digital payments, risk and compliance, marketplace, customer obsession, infrastructure, adtech, data, safety and finance technology teams, a statement said.

These roles are currently split between the company's Hyderabad and Bengaluru tech centres, it added.

"Uber's expansion plans are in line with its vision to make mobility and delivery more accessible, and to become the backbone of transportation in over 10,000 cities across the globe," it said.

Uber Senior Director (Engineering) Manikandan Thangarathnam said the teams in Hyderabad and Bengaluru work on important global mandates, and pioneer various industry-first innovations.

By the end of the year, the cumulative headcount at these centres is expected to touch 1,000 people.

"In order to serve more people across the globe, we're expanding our teams and are looking for bright engineering minds so we can collectively solve mobility and delivery challenges across all our global markets," he added.

Uber said it has started reaching out to prospective candidates for building new teams and adding to existing ones, including Uber infrastructure, Eats, Marketplace, Risk and Payments, Uber for Business (U4B), marketing and advertising platforms.

Uber's tech teams have been heavily invested in building technology to enable safer rides and delivery across cities, including enabling mask-detection features and updating maps across countries.

To facilitate more effective social distancing measures, Uber's engineers have been accelerating digital payments in several countries, and also using Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to digitise several parts of Uber's operations, including driver onboarding, and uploading digital menus.