Swiggy appoints Amazon's Dale Vaz as engineering head

Online food delivery service provider Swiggy has announced the appointment of former Amazon executive Dale Vaz as the head of its engineering and data sciences. Vaz joins Swiggy after 11 years at e-commerce giant Amazon. 

In his most recent role as the director of software engineering at Amazon India, he led functions across verticals such as consumer tech, mobile engineering, payments engineering, new initiatives and data engineering.

In his new role at Swiggy, he will be responsible for driving the technology strategy and building the company's next-generation AI-driven platform for hyperlocal discovery and on-demand delivery.

Vaz will work closely with Swiggy co-founder and tech chief Rahul Jaimini and the firm’s fast-growing technology team. He will report directly to chief executive and co-founder Sriharsha Majety.

Vaz holds a bachelor of engineering degree in computer science from Manipal Institute of Technology and an MBA degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"As Swiggy continues to leverage technology to make the lives of consumers more convenient, Vaz’s expertise will help us move faster and more effectively towards that vision," said Majety.

“I am thrilled to be joining Swiggy at such an exciting juncture. I look forward to working with the Swiggy tech team as we build innovative products for our customers and drive both the industry and Swiggy forward," said Vaz.

In another step to strengthen its senior leadership, Swiggy had recently hired P&G veteran Vivek Sunder as its chief operating officer. In September last year, the firm appointed former Britannia Industries executive Rahul Bothra as its first chief financial officer.

Founded in 2014, Swiggy is run by Bengaluru-based Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd and claims to have 35,000 restaurant partners across 14 cities.

Swiggy was started by Majety, Nandan Reddy and Jaimini. Majety and Reddy are BITS-Pilani graduates while Jaimini is an engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur.

In June 2018, Swiggy had secured $210 million (around Rs 1,400 crore) in a Series G round led by South African technology conglomerate Naspers and Yuri Milner-led DST Global, thus becoming a unicorn.