Snap has confirmed that it will lay off “just over” 120 engineers from its engineering team over the next few days. First reported by Cheddar, Snap’s layoffs were announced in an email to Snap employees by Jerry Hunter, the company’s engineer chief. A copy fo the email was published on Twitter by Cheddar‘s Alex Heath.
In the email, Hunter said that the layoffs are meant to better streamline and unify Snap’s engineering team. He also said that changes will allow the company to “[address] the technical debt that we have accrued over the years so that we can develop a product that engages customers and drives Snap forward.” This sounds like an interesting way of saying that Snap’s product has never been known to be efficient and robust code.
Instagram continues to steal Snapchat’s users, especially when Instagram introduced the Stories-like feature. It’s basically time for Snap to deal with some of the shortcomings it has experiences instead of ignoring them. These team cuts represent about 10 percent of Snap’s engineering team. This, so far, is the largest layoff Snap has done, but still relatively small compared to its 3,000-person company.
Confirmation of the Snap layoffs totaling 120 and Hunter’s full email to employees here: https://t.co/8zE8smvKBT pic.twitter.com/L5LX6IAjZI
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) March 8, 2018