17th September, 2019
Andela, an African company that develops talents in software engineers is making a major tweak to its business model and will end its developer training programs in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda—three of its four African campuses.
However, the company disclosed that 250 junior engineers and staff from its Nigerian and Ugandan hubs will be leaving the organisation.
Another 170 engineers may also be affected in its Kenyan hub.
Seni Sulyman, Andela’s vice president for global operations says the overall change of tack is down to the saturated market for skilled junior developers in the US, Andela’s most important market.
He said: “Over the past five years, there has been a massive wave of boot camps and programming classes of different kinds like Lambda and Flatiron schools. Computer science schools in universities have also ramped up their programs. What that has done is create a massive flux of junior engineers in the US…which is our primary market.”
With more junior developers now more widely available in the US unlike when it launched, Andela’s value proposition of supplying talent is directly impacted and means the company can no longer place as many junior engineers as required, Sulyman acknowledges.
But the increased supply of junior developers also means “demand is heavily skewed towards more senior talent,” Sulyman says. As such, part of Andela’s shift in strategy will now see it focus more on hiring and then outsourcing senior engineers from its African markets.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Andela said their departure is due to its decision to restructure its talent pool to “more closely align with global market demand”.
“Andela is now working with all impacted and potentially impacted employees and is committed to providing a holistic professional and financial support package,” it said.
“The company 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. These hubs will also offer impacted engineers the opportunity to use their co-working spaces free of charge for the next three months.”
Reacting to the development, Omowale David-Ashiru, Andela Nigeria country director said: “We’re proud of what we have achieved at Andela in five short years; we know the impact we have made both in Nigeria and globally.
“However, we have reached an inflection point that has required a change in strategy, which is why we are announcing these changes to our talent strategy.
“Our immediate focus is on providing practical support to those employees who are impacted by the restructuring, and we will provide them with the resources they need to succeed in their next steps.”
In his remarks, Jeremy Johnson, Andela’s co-founder and CEO, said the company has to grow its senior talent base faster because there is a higher demand for experienced talent.
“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,” he said.
“Five years ago, we launched Andela to solve a global challenge: Brilliance is evenly distributed, but 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.”