Uber Hires Google Maps Veteran Brian McClendon To Materialize Its ‘Self Driving Car Project’

Mobile ride hailing app company Uber has hired Google’s Engineering VP, Brian McClendon who will now oversee the transportation network at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, according to reports.

According to a report on Re/Code, McClendon will report directly to Uber’s Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden and will monitor Uber’s self-driving car, vehicle safety initiatives, and mapping operations. “We’re thrilled that Brian is joining the Uber team,” a Re/code report quoted Holden, as saying. “He led the development of Google Earth and Google Maps, truly world-class products, from the early days, and he’s an extraordinarily talented engineer and entrepreneur.”

At Google, McClendon was responsible for the Google’s Geo products i.e. Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View, reports Business Finance News. McClendon joined Google when the search engine giant acquired Keyhole, a digital mapping firm in 2004, and stayed with the company for ten years, as per the Business Finance News report.

Uber and Google competing in Self Driving Car space

Uber currently relies on Google Maps for its location data within the Uber app but reports on Uber trying to reduce its dependence on Google due to its competition with Google in the self driving car segment is already rife, reports Tech Times. Though Google has been aggressively testing its self driving car before launching it to the masses, Uber is still a new entrant in this particular segment but it has been working with top engineers to fructify its goal, as per the Tech Times report, which also mentions that if Uber can take advantage of autonomous car technology, it might not have to hire drivers.

In April, a report on CIO said that Uber was hiring professionals to fill various job positions at its new Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. The research center that focuses on developing self driving car technology and advanced vehicle safety and mapping systems is seeking engineers in the field of robotics, communications, machine learning, traffic simulation, vehicle testing and software and hardware development. Uber had advertised for 19 positions, most of which called for multiple workers, as per the CIO report.

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