Andela, the Nigeria-born global engineering talent marketplace, has acquired Woven, a technical assessment company known for simulating real engineering work, to advance its capabilities for evaluating and matching engineering talent in the artificial intelligence era. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition comes as organisations transition from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale, driving demand for engineers capable of building, integrating, and managing AI systems. With Woven’s assessment technology, Andela intends to sharpen its ability to evaluate technical talent across these specialised AI-related functions.
Woven’s founder and chief executive officer, Wes Winham Winler, will join Andela under the terms of the deal to lead the development of next-generation assessments focused on both AI-assisted software development and the creation of complex AI systems.
The move reflects Andela’s alignment with growing enterprise demand for AI-native engineers, rather than only generalist software developers. Globally, employers in the tech industry are increasingly seeking candidates with proven, real-world experience in building AI capabilities, such as large language models, autonomous workflows, and governance frameworks.
This acquisition builds on Andela’s earlier investments in AI-driven talent infrastructure, including the launch of Andela Talent Cloud, an integrated platform designed to transform how companies find, vet, and manage technical professionals. Originally introduced in October 2023, Andela Talent Cloud combines an AI-powered matching engine with a global talent marketplace, providing transparency into candidate skill profiles and assessment results.
By integrating Woven’s capabilities with its existing assessment infrastructure, which already includes Qualified, an assessment platform Andela acquired previously, the company can offer a more comprehensive, scalable evaluation engine designed to benchmark not just coding proficiency but the actual job readiness of engineers. The consolidation of these technologies creates a unified foundation for assessments tailored to the demands of AI-driven development work.
Carrol Chang, Andela’s Chief Executive Officer, described the acquisition as a pivotal step toward building what the company calls “the best technical assessment engine in the world.”
Winler, now leading the assessment product team at Andela, echoed this sentiment, stating that the strengths of both companies will enable the development of more accurate and scalable means of measuring engineering performance in the AI era. He highlighted the complementary value of Andela’s reputation and extensive talent network, combined with Woven’s unique approach to technical evaluation.
The acquisition also reinforces Andela’s broader strategy to evolve from a remote technology-talent marketplace into an AI-native talent platform, capable of assessing and deploying engineers whose skills match the real demands of modern enterprise technology work.
With global competition for AI expertise intensifying, Andela’s move may signal an important shift in how companies source and certify the engineers who will build the next generation of AI systems.
