Google loses another bright mind to Uber: engineer Amit Singhal

By Lulu Chang January 20, 2017

uber — Worawee Meepian

Apple is to Tesla what Google is to Uber — at least when it comes to employee migration. On Friday, Amit Singhal became the latest bright mind to bid adieu to Google and bonjour to black cars. Previously, the engineer played an integral role in developing Google’s ranking algorithm. Now, he’s joining Travis Kalanick and team at Uber, where he’ll head up Uber’s engineering team as the senior vice president.

Catching the next ride of my professional journey with @travisk at @Uber pic.twitter.com/EGQn7VQTDJ

— Amit Singhal (@theamitsinghal) January 20, 2017

Singhal’s tweet suggests a friendly relationship with the CEO, which will come in handy since he will report directly to the executive in his new role. He’ll also work closely with Anthony Levandowski, who leads Uber’s self-driving car division. In his new position, Singhal will be tasked with leading Uber’s Maps and Marketplace, and will aim to bolster Uber’s self-driving engineering team.

In a Facebook post, Kalanick praised Singhal and spoke of his excitement over Uber’s latest hire. “I love Amit’s excitement for solving complex computer science problems and his passion for helping improve people’s lives through technology,” he wrote. “The team at Uber, myself included, will learn a lot from him, and I can’t wait for him to get started.”

As for the engineer himself, he wrote this on his personal blog: “… as I dug deeper into how Uber works, it became pretty clear that this is one of the hardest — and therefore most fun — computer science and engineering challenges in the world today. It’s hard enough to connect millions of drivers to millions of riders in real time while creating optimal routes for drivers. Add to that the twist of predicting real-time traffic, pooling multiple riders, and making the system economically attractive for everyone — and now you have one of the most challenging computer science problems I’ve encountered in my 30-year career.”

He concluded: “I can’t wait to get started applying computer science to the real world, for real people, to improve real lives.”

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