As a part of its ‘Normal Business Review’, Twitter halts global engineering work at Bengaluru

In what may actually come as unsurprising (considering Twitter’s ongoing woes globally), the company has decided to completely stop its ongoing engineering work at the Bengaluru Development center. The same was confirmed to us by Twitter, in a detailed e-mailed conversation.

Out of its three offices in India, Twitter’s global stagnation seems to be affecting the employees of its Bengaluru development centre directly. According to multiple sources, Twitter is laying off around 80 percent of the employees posted in the aforementioned office. The official stand on the umber of employees laid by Twitter however, remains undisclosed.

We knew something like this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Twitter’ official statement on the story is this.

Engineering is a key part of our global company and we continue to focus our programs and efforts on improving the core product experience for our users worldwide. As part of our normal business review, we have decided to stop the global engineering work at the Bangalore development center. We thank the impacted individuals for their valuable contributions and are doing as much as we can to provide them a respectful exit from our company.

See the contradiction there? According to Twitter, only half of its employees at Bengaluru are being impacted. The exact number isn’t being released and Twitter is also denying to comment on how it would help the affected employees with their exits because of the company’s employee privacy policies and also out of respect for the individuals affected.

Delhi, Mumbai employees are unharmed, for now

While Twitter’s Bengaluru office will see itself being slayed off, of half of its workforce, Delhi Mumbai centres will remain unaffected. A Twitter spokesperson further added,

We have offices in three locations in India: Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Only the global engineering workforce in Bangalore is affected, we will continue to maintain a presence in Bangalore for other functions. We are hiring for other positions in our offices across India.

So could this mean, that this is more of a part of a global restructuring plan for Twitter ? Well, we for sure think so, considering the almost stagnant growth the company has been showing across its platform. Investors too, aren’t really confident of where the company is heading. However, Twitter’s official stand on the speculation is this :

No, only the global engineering workforce in Bangalore is affected.

The company also had other news to convey, too. Apparently, the micro-blogging website recently launched an e-governance partnership with the Uttar Pradesh State Police to use the platform as a customer service channel via Tweets to their official @UPPolice account. It also highlighted the fact that it has created emojis for major Indian cultural moments such as Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, and International Day of Yoga to increase engagement among Indian users. All of this though — as is pretty much clear — is more of a cover up attempt.

Finally, the company stated that Pepsi used the company’s latest ad product, ‘Promoted #Stickers’, to initiate the #PepsiMojo campaign in India with about 50 custom stickers to promote “Say It With Pepsi” on Twitter. The company claims this particular campaign as a major revenue source in India. The actual picture however, can be seen here.

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