Pan-African tech company Andela which operates in seven countries will spare Rwanda and Ghana in the ongoing downsizing of workflow.

This signals more opportunities in the country for local developers despite the global software talent company’s projections of customer decline and slow business amid covid-19 pandemic.

Andela recently announced the lay off in four countries across Africa citing recession caused by the novel coronavirus as demand for software engineers shrink.

Andela entered Rwandan market in July 2018 after an agreement with Rwanda Development Board. The firm has been hiring local developers and tech students who gain skills and work remotely on software projects from its international clients.

It is the second time Rwanda was unaffected by the tech company’s employees reduction. However, the software talent company revealed in an interview with Rwanda Today that it is now focusing on training engineers in Rwanda rather than hiring developers due to change in global demand for junior developers last year. “We have transitioned our business in Rwanda to focus on training University of Rwanda students to become engineers, rather than placing engineers on projects with global technology companies,” s explained Andela's chief executive Jeremy Johnson.

The software firm continues running the remote training program which aims to train 100 developers annually.

According to the deal signed in 2018, the firm is expected to recruit train 500 nationals with expertise of software development and give them six month paid training.

The deal was also meant to establish a “pan African” tech hub in Kigali that is now hosted at The College of Science and Technology. “The change in demand meant that we had to make significant changes to our hiring process to only bring on engineers that we believed we would be able to place in an appropriate time,” the firm CEO said.