Uber hires former Google search chief Amit Singhal

Google’s former Senior Vice President of Search and employee number 176, Amit Singhal is joining Uber as its new SVP of engineering.

In the role, the engineer who spent 15 years at Google will be heading up the Maps and Marketplace departments at Uber and would also be directly advising Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski, the head of Uber's self-driving divisions.

Singhal had retired from Google last February after a 15-year stint to “see what kind of impact make philanthropically,” and to “spend more time with family,” in an effort to “define next fifteen years.”

In a few months time, he announced an initiative called Project Hope to offer free high-quality education to poor and bright kids. He also joined the boards of fitness startup GOQii and mobile payment & commerce company Paytm.

"I love Amit's excitement for solving complex computer science problems and his passion for helping improve people's lives through technology," Kalanick said in a statement. "The team at Uber, myself included, will learn a lot from him, and I can't wait for him to get started.

In an official blog post, Singhal said "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. It’s hard enough to connect millions of drivers to millions of riders in real time while creating optimal routes for drivers. Add to that the twist of predicting real-time traffic, pooling multiple riders and making the system economically attractive for everyone—and now you have one of the most challenging computer science problems I’ve encountered in my thirty-year career."