Breaking: Andela Ends Open Recruitment Program; to Ease Out About 400 Engineers in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda

Foremost developer trainer and outsourcing company, Andela is undergoing some major changes that will see the company close down its D0 program in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, as well as let go of about 250 staff members in Nigeria and Uganda and some 170 engineers in Kenya.

This was revealed by the Company’s Co-Founder and CEO, Jeremy Johnson in a blog post today.

On the reason for this update, Jeremy wrote that the change is a reflection of the company’s strategic “shift in focus”. This involves focusing on its senior engineers supply with a few junior engineers deployed as a top layer strategy.

According to him, this shift will help Andela “better align with what the market needs, and in the process better connect brilliance with opportunity at all levels.”

Job Losses

As a result of this change, Jeremy disclosed that some staff will lose their jobs because Andela now has significantly more junior talent than they are able to place. 

“As part of this shift, we have also had to make an extremely difficult decision as it relates to a number of talented junior engineers. Today, we are announcing that we are closing the D0 program in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. Moving forward, we will be focusing on D0 training efforts on our pan-African hub in Rwanda. In addition, we will be letting go of approximately 250 Andelans in Nigeria and Uganda, with an additional 170 potentially impacted in Kenya, who we don’t believe we’ll be able to find meaningful work for over the next year”, he said.

To further emphasise its new focus on providing senior engineers cadre, Andela will boost its Senior engineers’ bench in the coming year. “Going forward, we will hire another 700 experienced engineers by the end of 2020 in order to keep up with demand from our partners”, Jeremy added.

Plans for those leaving

He, however, said plans were in place to ensure a seamless transition for the engineers affected by this shift. The plans include a number of palliative actions:

• Ongoing access to learning programs and job placement services
• Commitment to a range of financial and emotional resources
• Access to the strongest engineering network on the African continent

Other plans include a partnership with innovation hubs in each country (CcHUB in Nigeria, iHub in Kenya, and Innovation Village in Uganda) to help connect the impacted developers with opportunities in their local ecosystem. 

In addition, these hubs will offer impacted engineers the opportunity to use their co-working spaces free of charge for the next three months. 

Closure of Open Recruitment Programmes

Another major casualty of the Andela shift, according to Jeremy, is the Andela D0 (Open developers recruitment) programme. The Andela D0 program will be closed in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda.

Moving forward, the D0 training efforts will solely happen at the company’s pan-African hub in Rwanda.

The industry stands to benefit

What is evident is that Andela’s shift to senior talent management is in response to market factors – what the market needs – and better connects brilliance with opportunity at all levels. 

It is certain that this would make the industry better. These engineers will be available for hire by others in the African tech space at their own price and without the hassles of a middleman.

However, the impact this upheaval will have on the quality of output within the tech space in the coming months remains to be seen.