Four Hundred junior engineers from Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria have been let go by Andela, an Africa-focused tech talent incubator. This news was announced by Jeremy Johnson, the CEO of Andela.
The layoffs come as the startup released first-time earnings figures indicating it will surpass $50 million in annual revenues for 2019.
Andela said in a press statement that the reason for letting the junior engineers go is “due to market demand for more senior engineering talent”.
Founded in 2014, Andela has offices in New York and five African countries: Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Egypt.
The Series D tech-venture is one of Africa’s most visible and best-funded ― backed by $181 million in VC from investors that include the Chan Zuckerberg initiative.
Andela selects a roster of developers each year who come on staff for a salary and are encouraged to continue working and living in their home markets in Africa.
Despite releasing the junior engineers, Johnson said Andela will employ 500 more developers next year signaling that the company is not facing any challenges.
“We’re actually actively and intensely growing, the mid and senior developer populations and next year we’re going to bring in 500 more developers,” he said.
“We’ve hired more junior developers than we are able to place in remote roles.”
The departing Andela software-engineers will gain severance packages and placement assistance, according to Johnson.
Following the announcement by @Andela this morning, #CcHUB, @iHub and @InnovationVilla are introducing dedicated spaces to offer junior developers opportunities to connect to jobs and continuous professional development (Talent Lounge).
— Co-Creation Hub (@Cc_HUB) September 17, 2019
Over the coming weeks, we will be working with companies across #Africa to further provide placement opportunities for engineering talent. If your organization is interested, kindly DM.
— Co-Creation Hub (@Cc_HUB) September 17, 2019
The company is working with partners such as CcHub and iHub to connect the developers to new opportunities.
“Many of these people will rapidly get jobs in the local ecosystem and someday may come back and work at Andela again,” he said.
Johnson flagged the revenue significance in a global startup context. “What it means is the world needs what we do. Very few companies have gotten to a $50 million run rate in under five years.”
