Uber’s latest pick-up includes two former high-level Google executives — Amit Singhal, who spent 15 years leading Google’s search efforts, and former VP of engineering, Kevin Thompson.
Singhal’s announcement came rather unceremoniously via a tweet, featuring a picture of him standing alongside once-again teammate Thompson:
Catching the next ride of my professional journey with @travisk at @Uber pic.twitter.com/EGQn7VQTDJ
— Amit Singhal (@theamitsinghal) January 20, 2017
The former Google search chief further elaborated on his decision to join Uber in a blog post on his personal website.
“In fact 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.”
Singhal’s new role at Uber will be the SVP of engineering, while Thompson will be joining the ride-sharing company as VP of marketplace engineering. According to Re/Code, Thompson will report directly to Singhal who will report to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.
Thompson spent 12 years at Google, working on the engineering team of YouTube ads at the time of his resignation. Both Singhal and Thompson resigned from Google in February and November 2016 respectively.
