Uber has lately shown a lot interest in hiring ex-Googlers for its executive positions. It was recently reported that Google’s SVP of Engineering, Amit Singhal is making his way to the car-on-demand service startup. And looks like he is going to have some buddies. Kevin Thompson, who is joining Uber as VP of Marketplace Engineering is a former VP of Engineering on YouTube’s ads team.
This means that the former colleagues will once again share the same roof. Uber has confirmed that Thompson will now report to Singhal in a new role, which is of an in charge of engineering in both the Maps and the Marketplace team. In case you are unaware of Uber’s internal divisions, Marketplace focuses on stuffs like providing drivers to the customers for a specific ride, calculating price for the rides and forecasting the demands — along with some other major fundamental tasks around the Uber’s business model.
Thompson served Google for over 12 years whereas Singhal, who was a key member of the Software team and joined as one of the tech behemoth’s first employees. Thomson had spent over 15 years with Google and his most recent undertaking was to supervise Google’s engineering team for YouTube Ads — which would help them raise revenues as well as make those ads tolerable at the users end.
A major part of Google’s YouTube advertising platform is autonomous and deals with taking decisions like which ad would be suitable to serve in front of which viewer, calculating the products demands and allocating available inventory, and many more. As a person deeply involved with it, Thomson is certain to bring a lot of value to Uber.
It is quite understandable that Uber is inclined towards absorbing world class engineering talents, with exceptional track records and a fair amount of work experience. A highloy trained executive will let Uber tackle all sorts of issues while also improving its experience for users.
