Uber opens engineering centre in Bengaluru

Cab aggregator Uber on Thursday said it has opened here its first engineering centre in Asia that will fix India-specific problems it has been facing.

"The Uber engineering centre in Bengaluru is the first such centre all over Asia. It aims to fix problems and create solutions to issues like low connectivity, estimated time of arrival (ETA), traffic congestion, demand prediction and others," said Uber's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Thuan Pham, who inaugurated the facility.

Currently eight engineers are employed in the centre with the scope to hire hundreds more in the future, Pham said.

The company has less than a 1,000 members in its engineering team globally.

Pham did not say how much the company planned to invest in the centre.

"The initial mission and objective of the engineering team here is to drive the level of world class experience that we want to provide through our high-end technology and service platform," he said, noting that India has very unique technical challenges.

The engineering centre in Bengaluru is different from the Centre of Excellence (CoE) the company opened in Hyderabad which deals with operations and provides multi-channel support via email, phone and social media to ensure seamless experience before, during and after a ride.

"Marketing Uber as an application to drivers and driver partners, supporting what goes behind the scenes to make sure every ride is seamless, and resolving any issues behind them as quickly as possible is what happens at the Hyderabad centre," said Bhavik Rathod, General Manager, Uber, Bengaluru.

The company has three engineering centres in the US, three in Europe and one in India.

Pham said India is a very important market and a massive market opportunity.

India inspired the company to start cash transactions in its services even before entering the market, enabling it to offer a similar service in Nigeria and Vietnam, he said.

The cab aggregator is building an architecture which can enable any payment method, said the CTO.

Uber services are available in 26 cities of India and 400 cities globally.