Weeks after announcing plans to go fully-remote, Andela is reportedly closing off its offices in Africa and also selling off their equipment.
This comes after software-talent company laid off 135 staff, and announcing their plans to become a remote-first company while expanding their network to include top engineers from across the continent, and eventually around the world.
Andela’s CEO, Jeremy Johnson confirmed the statement in a twitter response to a user, saying, “it is true that we’re going fully remote, but it’s not a secret. We announced it earlier this week to all Andelans”.
An ex-employee at Andela Uganda told Afritechpost that the software development firm has already sold off her equipment to select employees and is now reportedly selling to asset disposal companies.
In addition to this, a source from Nigeria says, Andela isn’t exiting any country, however, they are becoming a United-Office by shutting down all their offices around the world except for one that would be a sales office and they would now be fully remote.
“The idea is not to limit talent by location but on a motto of “Talent is evenly distributed”. So now they are focused on Africa as a whole compared to a few countries. They have modified their business model from what it was as learning then doing workplace to now a market place for engineering talent.”, he adds.
Since Andela’s inception, developers have hosted meetups, hackathons, coding mentorship sessions and more, in collaboration with innovation and tech hubs all over Africa, however, Andela went on to build new spaces to enable them to better support respective tech ecosystems in their locations and serve as a collaboration hub for technologists and entrepreneurs. Now, what will be the use of these recently constructed spaces? Welp, only time can tell as most details are sealed.
It’s also important to understand why the software company has been planning the shutdown plan for a while and why they strongly believe this move will best help them work better. In a medium post, Jeremy explains that Andela is going to help usher in a world where the most talented people can work from anywhere and build careers commensurate with their impact.
“We face the challenges of today with heavy hearts, greater clarity, and a renewed sense of commitment to building the future we know is possible.”, he explains.
AFRITECHPOST.COM
June 22, 2020
