Uber has aggressive hiring plans for India

Ride-hailing app decides to strengthen its team by increasing its workforce in various roles

In order to spread its wings across India, ride-hailing app Uber has decided to strengthen its team by increasing its workforce in various roles. A recent survey of the job postings by the San Francisco-based start-up shows that India ranks third, behind the US and China in terms of job posting. The survey was done by data publishing firm Silk.co. The data for the analysis was collected periodically from postings of job openings on the company’s blog.

According to the survey, the company had posted 57 India job openings from the beginning of this year. Silk has been compiling Uber's job postings every six months to look for differences, and recently noticed that the company is about to go on a hiring spree.

While the number might seem small in quantitative terms, but Uber as a company has always been concentrating on running lean. At present, the company has around 100 employees across 11 cities in the country.

A detailed analysis of the job postings shows that while most of the openings are in the operations vertical, the company has been hiring aggressively for local marketing support and public policy and communications. Of 57 openings, 25 are for the operations’ vertical, 11 and seven for local marketing support and public policy and communications, respectively.

With the company in regulatory hurdles (after an incident in December where a woman passenger was allegedly raped by a driver), it is understandable that the company is looking to bolster its public policy and communications team.

In a job posting for the position of an associate, senior associate for public policy and government relations on LinkedIn, Uber stated its public policy team is expanding its front lines and the company is looking for 'articulate wonks' who can help design regulatory legislative frameworks by wading through jargon and educate policy makers, staff and third parties about Uber's business model.

“We will be ramping up our operations teams rapidly and this vertical, in addition to our community management and support functions, will see the most hiring as we move forward,” said Pradeep Desu, India recruiting head at Uber.

An earlier report in the Business Standard showed how Uber was gearing up for a long drive in India, taking a series of steps to bolster operations here and strengthening its India arm after the crisis in December.

“We have aggressive hiring plans for the India market. As we look to enter our second phase of expansion into many more tier II and tier III cities, we are looking to attack the best talent there is and rapidly grow our workforce here in India,” said Desu.

Last month, Uber appointed Amit Jain, earlier the president of Rent.com, as its India head — a first-of-a-kind position created for any market by the company.