Wish Taps Google Veteran Farhang Kassaei as New Chief Technology Officer

Wish is making a significant leadership move to strengthen its technology infrastructure. The ecommerce platform has named Farhang Kassaei, a veteran engineer from Google, as Chief Technology Officer starting July 12, 2021. Kassaei steps into a newly created role that underscores the company’s commitment to technological advancement.

A Resume Built on Scale

Before arriving at Wish, Kassaei spent over a decade at Google in increasingly senior roles. Most recently, he held the position of Senior Director of Software Engineering, where he oversaw full-stack commerce capabilities spanning Search, YouTube, Assistant, and Local services. His fingerprints are on Google Express, the company’s local shopping and delivery initiative, as well as the infrastructure powering Google Product Listing Ads globally.

His tenure prior to Google stretches even further back. Kassaei spent more than 10 years at eBay, where he held multiple leadership positions including Chief Architect of the core marketplace. During that stretch, he drove critical initiatives around global identity verification, buyer-merchant risk management, API platform development, and the company’s pivotal shift toward microservices architecture.

What Kassaei Will Lead at Wish

At Wish, Kassaei will report directly to Founder and CEO Piotr Szulczewski. His mandate spans the company’s core marketplace operations, engineering infrastructure, data and relevancy systems, Wish Local, and product procurement. Beyond managing existing systems, he’s tasked with building out entirely new technology solutions to enhance the platform’s competitive edge.

“This represents a critical inflection point for our business,” said Szulczewski in a statement. “Farhang’s deep expertise in commerce ecosystems, software architecture, and merchant scaling will be instrumental as we execute our strategic roadmap. His work on logistics and merchant onboarding at Google directly aligns with our growth priorities.”

Why This Hire Matters

Kassaei himself framed the opportunity around Wish’s core mission. “The chance to join a rapidly expanding ecommerce business with a clear vision for democratizing commerce is compelling,” he said. “I’m focused on deepening the consumer experience while making our merchant ecosystem more sustainable—and building complementary features that cement Wish’s standing among value-focused shoppers.”

The appointment reflects Wish’s ambition to compete more effectively in mobile commerce. With millions of users across 100+ countries and over 500,000 merchants on the platform, the company is signaling that technology infrastructure and engineering excellence will be central to its next chapter.

Background

Kassaei holds an MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The Ohio State University and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. His earlier roles included leading engineering teams at companies specializing in 3D collaboration software for manufacturing and underwriting systems for financial services.