Ola Fires 300 Software Engineers As Demand Plunges: Indian Startups Will Fire More Employees?

Indian multinational ridesharing company, Ola has started handing over pink slips to its employees across software teams. 

Further, around 500 employees are likely to be laid off across different software verticals of ANI technologies, as the sources said. 

Ola Firing Its Employees 

Most of these employees are believed to have been working on different aspects of the Ola app. 

The decision seems to be influenced by the backdrop of declining sales of the Ola Electric scooter.

Earlier to this, Ola launched its electric scooter during December last year. 

The ride hailing company has been carrying out a restructuring exercise for the past few months. 

The service provider had laid off close to 2,000 employees earlier   due to the closure of the pre-owned car business, Ola Cars, and quick commerce business Ola Dash. 

In the last two years, more than 30 senior officials, including members of Bhavish Agarwal’s leadership team, have quit from the company.

Initially, Ola has declined to comment on the number of layoffs. 

But, lateron Ola has confirmed that 200 employees are likely to be impacted.

Focusing On Non-software Engineering Domains

Ola said, “Ola Electric, India’s largest EV company, has been increasing its focus on non-software engineering domains with a clear focus on building engineering and R&D capabilities across – vehicle, cell, battery, manufacturing and automation, autonomous engineering streams. The company currently has around 2000 engineers and aims to increase its engineering talent pool to 5000 over the next 18 months,” in a statement.

The statement mentions that Ola is centralizing operations and is undertaking a restructuring exercise to minimize redundancy and build a strong lateral structure that strengthens relevant roles and functions. 

Further adding that this restructuring will impact approximately 10 percent of Ola’s overall engineering workforce.

How Did This Happen?

This all started when an Ola S1 scooter caught fire in March. 

Further, this case along with eight other incidents of electric scooter fires was investigated by a high-level committee.

They have found shortcomings in the BMS, safety mechanisms and the quality of cells used in the battery packs of different electric vehicle companies.

In its tenure of nine months in the electric vehicle market, Ola has been facing many customer complaints about the software, battery performance, and service issues. 

As of April, 12,691 scooters sold, but the company’s sales have been declining every month.