eBay Opens New Development Hub In India To Replace Israel R&D Operations
eBay is opening a new Development Hub in Bengaluru, India with mass hiring spree to ramp up operations in the region.
Senior Software Engineering Manager Rishabh Agarwal is just one of several eBay managers working to get the word out about the new location and job opportunities on LinkedIn, revealing the Development Hub will play a crucial part in shaping the eBay user experience, including leading Generative AI development at the company.
The ramp up of operations in India coincides with eBay's announcement they will be shuttering their R&D operations in Israel by early 2026 with over 200 employees there expected to be laid off over the new ~6 months.
Liz Morton
And it's not just AI being moved to India - eBay's career's page currently shows over 80 available positions in the country, including tech lead for eBay's collectible trading card game marketplace subsidiary TCGPlayer and important legal work in Ethics Monitoring and Testing.
eBay recently announced the closer of the TCGPlayer authentication center in Syracuse, NY, laying off over 200 unionized workers at that location and moving authentication operations to Kentucky - and while they have said that remote/tech employees would not be impacted by those layoffs, it's clear that eBay intends to move at least some TCGPlayer work to this new development hub in India as well.
Liz Morton
The TCGPlayer situation is just one of several recent labor-relations dust ups eBay has faced, with multiple ex-employee lawsuits still ongoing.
Notably, one of those lawsuits specifically raises concerning allegations of discrimination and retaliation related to eBay's H-1B hiring practices and claims that Caucasian employees at the company are not treated fairly by managers of South Indian descent.
Liz Morton
eBay is also still under a 3 year compliance monitoring program as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ after being criminally charged in connection to the 2019 cyberstalking of journalists Ina and David Steiner of EcommerceBytes.
Liz Morton
The Ethics Monitoring & Testing Lead position will be based in India, but will be responsible for the design and implementation of systems to monitor and enhance eBay's ethics and compliance programs across the globe including managing employee ethics survey and annual Conflict of Interest questionnaires as well as "conducting due diligence and ongoing monitoring of high risk third parties."
While the job ad doesn't go into details about how eBay defines "high risk third parties" to be monitored - that language could certainly conjure images of Person of Interest reports and monitoring of journalists and online commenters revealed as being part of eBay's security operations in the ongoing cyberstalking scandal lawsuit.
Liz Morton
In the wake of that scandal, eBay claims to have outsourced POI investigations and other key security work to third party contractors (which presents its own ethical and compliance issues) but the company is still engaged in questionable press relations and communications tactics, recently seeking to hire a crisis and financial comms manager with a history of "preventing high-impact media coverage."
Liz Morton
Will moving more development capabilities to India finally unlock the tech-led reimagination of eBay and magical AI advancements that CEO Jamie Iannone has been promising (and failing to deliver) for years or is it just a cost-management move under the leadership of new CFO Peggy Alford? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
