Braintree, an acquisition of online payments processing firm Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) has fired some of its workers and recalled an ongoing hackathon.
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Braintree is a payment powering firm that supports payments for companies such as GitHub, Uber, and Airbnb. The company terminated its hackathon initiative called “tech for good” for 2016 as well as laying off some of the employees that were involved in the initiative. The winners of the hacking competition would have won $100,000.
The competition involved regional challenges that were organized in 14 cities, and the finalists had to fly to Seattle to complete the final stage of the competition that was a 24-hour affair. Braintree’s development team posted on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) where they stated that they decided to rethink BattleHack 2016 and that they were contemplating new initiatives to engage those with interest in the subject.
Paypal has not revealed the number of staff members that have been laid off, but one of the company’s developers reported that the PayPal subsidiary has dismissed the whole team. The company also issued a statement to The Next Web where it stated that it is re-evaluating its strategy for the future. The hackathon format may have become too mainstream for Braintree and thus the need to look for new challenges.
Advocacy has grown into a vital part of Braintree’s businesses and PayPal in general because it is at the core of all their activities. It is therefore not necessary to have a separate team working on developer advocacy. Braintree’s Development team will therefore not work in that category, and some of the team members will be absorbed into Braintree’s developer-facing roles.
One spokesperson for the company also pointed out that it will not be supporting BattleHack 2016, and the focus will be directed towards creating the next generation of programs developers. He also added that the company is working on new initiatives and programs. PayPal acquired Braintree for $800 million in 2013.
