Top Ford engineer joins Uber for self-driving car development
Uber announced yesterday that it has hired Sherif Marakby, one of Ford’s top electric engineers, to help the ride-hailing platform pursue self-driving vehicles. “Self-driving technology is a hard challenge to solve with enormous potential to improve people’s lives,” Brian McClendon, Uber’s vice president of advanced technologies, said in a statement. “Sherif is a world expert and we’re excited to have him join the team.” Marakby’s move to Uber comes as Ford works to transform itself into both an automaker and mobility-service provider to fend off challenges from Uber, Google and other Silicon Valley technology companies.

Add Ford to the list of companies that are being pillaged by Uber in its quest to excel in the hyper-competitive world of self-driving cars. Sherif Marakby, director of global electronics and engineering at Ford, is joining Uber as vice president of global vehicle programs, the ride-hail company told The Verge Thursday. Marakby will relocate from Detroit to Pittsburgh, where Uber is busy expanding its Advanced Technologies Center.

In Pittsburgh, Marakby will oversee "manufacturer strategy and integration efforts," which may or may not include the actual construction of autonomous vehicles. (Uber wouldn't say whether its building its own self-driving cars, although the company is said to be shopping for a fleet of vehicles in Germany.) He'll report to Brian McClendon, who was a vice president at Google in charge of the mapping division before leaving the search giant to run Uber's self-driving car program. "Self-driving technology is a hard challenge to solve with enormous potential to improve people's lives," McClendon said in a statement. "Sherif is a world expert and we're excited to have him join the team."

"Self-driving technology can help prevent these tragedies as well as improve the quality of life in cities."

In his own statement, Marakby framed his decision to jump from the traditional auto industry to a company that aims to upend that world as one motivated by safety. "Over one million people die in car accidents every year — in the US it's the most common cause of death amongst young people," he said. "Self-driving technology can help prevent these tragedies as well as improve the quality of life in cities. It's one of the many reasons I am so excited to join Uber's team in Pittsburgh."

Uber has been wooing engineers and self-driving car experts to join its Pittsburgh operation for months now. In addition to McClendon, Google Maps product manager Manik Gupta jumped to Uber's mapping division late last year. Last May, the $62.5 billion startup pretty much cleaned out the entire robotics research unit at Carnegie Mellon University.