UK food delivery co Deliveroo to open engineering office in India

ETtech

Mumbai/Bengaluru: Multinational food delivery company Deliveroo will set up an India Engineering Centre in Hyderabad, joining international players like Indonesia’s Gojek, Singapore’s Grab, and Japan’s Rakutan that have set up engineering offices in the country without operating here.

The centre will have a new team and will be a core part of Deliveroo’s central technology organisation.

The company has already started recruiting and plans to employ over 150 engineers in the areas of analytics, platforms, automation and machine learning by the end of this year.

“This is going to be the largest technology hub outside the United Kingdom,” said Devesh Mishra, chief product and technology officer, who joined Deliveroo last year. “This is a massive opportunity for software engineers, data scientists, ML and AI engineers to work on some of the toughest challenges.”

The centre will be headed by Sashi Somavarapu, vice president of engineering, who has led teams at organisations including Amazon, Jio Platforms and Ford Motor Co. He will report to Mishra.

The team will focus on developing new application services to accelerate its grocery segment, rider proposition and improving network efficiency, delivering enhanced, scalable automation systems and fast consumer experiences.

Deliveroo is vying for India’s tech talent at a time when the technology industry’s demand-supply gap for the right talent is expected to persist amid rapid
digital transformation of companies, ET reported on January 8.

India will struggle to meet technology resource requirements for the next 3-4 years, as per industry data.

“One of the reasons why we decided to set up an office in India is because of that. We are close to a competitive environment, entrepreneurial environment, which will teach our engineers to be more innovative, productive, and learn from what is going around,” said Somavarapu. “Competition is all over the map. We don’t really consider that as a hurdle for us to enter this market.”

Deliveroo was founded in 2013 by William Shu and Greg Orlowski. It is headquartered in London, and operates across nearly 800 locations in 11 markets, including Australia, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the United Kingdom.

“Opening up a new engineering hub in India will extend our global team of incredible engineering talent,” chief executive Shu said in a statement. “The Centre will help us to continue to unlock new innovations for each side of our marketplace, developing a world-leading service for consumers, restaurants and grocers, and riders.”

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