PickMe adds top talent from local universities to expand engineering team

Stepping out of being a young tech start-up and making its way towards the larger perimeters of tech-based businesses, PickMe, recently announced a significant expansion of its engineering team to equip the ride-hailing software with the resources needed to cater to the forecasted growth of the company.

This expansion is based on an accelerated recruiting plan where PickMe’s partnership with the local universities will enable engineering students from these universities to be trained and recruited by PickMe, having proven their skills on individual projects assigned to them by PickMe and the student’s mentors. The students recruited will then have the rare opportunity to be resourced by PickMe to carry out their projects to its completion, thereby bringing their ideas to life and releasing their solutions for the benefits of the local commuters.

PickMe actively presents themselves in a number of career and educational fairs organised by universities in a bid to handpick prospective employees to strengthen their engineering team with the best local talent. With its rapid growth and the continuation to expand its footprint across Sri Lanka, PickMe is positive that its recruitment process will pick up pace and accelerate over the next few years.

“At PickMe, we believe that efforts aimed at advancing capabilities, maximising performance and enhancing efficiency of our service will help fuel the innovative solutions needed to uplift the transportation industry of the country and maintain our qualitative edge as the industry leader,” said PickMe Chief Executive Officer Jiffry Zulfer.

“This increased focus creates a need for engineering assets to actively support PickMe’s innovation through close collaboration with internal and external stakeholders of the company and ultimately, developing the best product which is tailor-made to meet customer expectations. In this regard, we are actively recruiting the best engineering talent from local universities and groom them to become future leaders of Sri Lanka.”

“As we enter the next crucial phase in our journey, this infusion of fresh blood into the PickMe team will make an invaluable contribution towards shaping an exceptional new portfolio of PickMe products,” Zulfer commented further.

A product of the University of Moratuwa, Aruna Prabhashwara from Halvitigala, Galle, is one such recruit that joined PickMe’s team of engineers recently. “I have always had a keen interest in doing something new. This is a dream I hoped to achieve when I joined the University of Moratuwa following my A/Ls. In the process, I fell in love with software languages and decided that software was a very useful tool to help realise my dream,” said Prabhashwara. 

“When PickMe hosted a hackathon at our university, I realised that this was my golden opportunity and I went for it. My project was shortlisted by PickMe and today I’m a trainee software engineer at PickMe, helping build software solutions that can help elevate the transport sector in our country,” Prabhashwara further elaborated. 

PickMe recently strengthened its core leadership team further with the appointment of Isira Perera as the Chief Operating Officer (COO). With his visionary leadership and proven track record in digital financial services and mobile commerce, PickMe is set for a new course of innovativeness and to thrive well in Sri Lanka’s rising digital economy sphere. 

The company also announced a partnership with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and the newly-established Center for Data Science (DataSEARCH) at the University of Moratuwa recently in strengthening and extending the capacity of research and development needed to foster a culture of technological innovation and entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka.   

As the software platform that hosts the largest organised taxi fleet in Sri Lanka – with over 12,000 three-wheelers, mini cars, cars, vans and luxury sedans – PickMe currently services the transportation needs of over one million passengers based in Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Kandy regions. Adding to its portfolio of services, PickMe also provides corporate traveling solutions to businesses and organisations with the PickMe Business Portal, the benefits of which is currently enjoyed by over 150 corporates in the country.