On-demand delivery app Glovo eyes Poland’s exploding tech talent for second tech hub

• Multi-category delivery leader will launch its second technology and engineering hub in Poland, following the acquisition of Polish Food Delivery service, Pizza Portal 

Glovo, one of the world’s fastest-growing on-demand delivery players today announces that it will be launching its second-ever technology and engineering hub in Poland, following its acquisition of Polish food delivery platform, Pizza Portal for up to €35M.

The Barcelona-based start-up which delivers everything from food to groceries and pharmaceutical items is expanding its technology and engineering team, bolstered by a recent series D funding injection of €150M.

The company has chosen to locate its first-ever technology hub outside of Barcelona in Poland, to take advantage of the country’s powerful combination of rich technology talent and a prosperous economy.

Glovo plans to start by hiring 40 new dedicated engineers, with 50 tech and product experts working out of the Warsaw office predominantly. This is expected to make-up half of Glovo’s tech capacity, with plans for further expansion in the market. Simultaneously, Glovo will be increasing its presence in the Polish delivery market through the acquisition of Pizza Portal, Poland’s largest food-service platform in Poland. The agreement was signed by AmRest Holdings SE, the leading multi-brand franchise restaurant operator in Europe in August.

A second home in Europe’s emerging tech market

Since putting a strong vocational system in place for technology and engineering careers, such as the P-Tech global educational and vocational training programme with Polish R&D Institute of Education and IBM – Poland has been reaping the rewards. The number of graduates in these areas has increased steadily, with Poland’s three largest universities being technology institutions, and there has been an incredible boost in the number of new startups. Increased interest from foreign investors and a series of new startup hubs, such as Campus Warsaw (by Google for startups) and IdeaHub, has created a buzzing technology ecosystem.

Coupled with Poland’s growing economy, it has become an incredibly attractive location for technology startups and the like to settle down and build their technology teams and data analysts.

“When it came to finding a location for our second technology hub, we were spoilt for choice in Europe – but Poland was consistently a strong contender. We wanted to locate our hub in a unique location that is ripe for growth and innovation – and Poland is a hotbed for new talent that we feel is yet to be fully recognised by the world’s technology ecosystem,”  said Mustafa Sezgin, Glovo’s VP of Engineering.

He continued “Our main focus initially will be in developing user-facing features for our marketplace product as well as for our partners who operate on our platform. These areas will involve mobile and web development that can help generate revenue for our partners in different ways and create great experiences for our customers who use our marketplace product across mobile and web.” 

The second technology hub is an integral part of Glovo’s roadmap in building a 300-strong engineering team to support innovations, such as SuperGlovo – dark supermarkets enabling groceries to be delivered to customers within 20 minutes of placing the order, 24 hours a day.

The creation of the hub will generate 40 new technology and engineering roles for backend, mobile and web software engineers as well as engineering managers, product managers and a new Director of Engineering. In the near future, Glovo will explore creating platform teams in the near future as well that can help build tooling and scale its infrastructure.

“As Glovo scales rapidly across the world, our main priority is to invest in our people – our team has been fundamental to our success to date and as we grow we need an even bigger team of engineers to meet the demand we’re experiencing.

“Glovo will leverage this local ecosystem but will bring a new perspective and option to local talent. We believe our ambition, strong culture and innovative business model are appealing in this fast-moving, challenging industry,” explains Glovo’s CEO, Oscar Pierre.

Launching in a new city every four days on average last year, Glovo now employs over 1,300 people and is quickly becoming the fastest-growing delivery player in Latin America and EMEA.