The Trade Desk cuts 15% of global workforce, Singapore employees affected

US advertising technology company The Trade Desk has cut 15% of its global workforce, with employees in Singapore among those affected, as the company restructures its operations following weaker-than-expected revenue growth.

Founder and CEO Jeff Green announced the layoffs in an email to employees on September 3, which was also published on the company-owned adtech news platform The Current. Affected employees left the company on September 4.

“This was a difficult decision that we have not taken lightly,” Green said, adding that while retrenchment is common practice in big tech, it has not historically been the norm at The Trade Desk.

The company had more than 3,500 employees globally before the latest cuts. Headquartered in Ventura, California, The Trade Desk has offices across Asia, including Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, Shenzhen and Taipei.

The company operates a self-service platform that enables advertisers to buy targeted digital advertising across the internet without having to work directly with individual websites.

The impact of the restructuring has been felt in Singapore, where LinkedIn indicates that The Trade Desk has more than 140 employees.

Several Singapore-based employees publicly acknowledged their departures on LinkedIn on September 4 and 5.

One employee in creative strategy and operations described leaving after six years with the company, while another employee in client services said she had been made redundant on September 4.

Despite the workforce reduction, The Trade Desk continues to advertise roles in Singapore. As of September 7, LinkedIn showed an opening for a senior director of business development for Asia-Pacific.

The layoffs follow pressure on the company's performance after it issued disappointing financial guidance. During a recent earnings call, Green acknowledged that the company's revenue growth was below expectations.

“Our revenue growth is below our expectations and below the standard we hold ourselves to,” he said.

Green said The Trade Desk remains financially positioned to invest in strategic priorities, including artificial intelligence and media measurement tools.

The company has approximately US$1.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and no debt on its balance sheet, according to Green.

At the same time, the company is looking to streamline how teams operate. Green said The Trade Desk wants to organise employees into smaller teams and working groups with greater focus.

The restructuring highlights a broader tension emerging across the technology sector: companies can remain financially capable of investing in new technologies while simultaneously reducing their workforce as they reassess organisational structures, productivity and future capability needs.

For employees, the shift reinforces an increasingly important question around career resilience. As businesses adopt AI, redesign workflows and reorganise teams, experience within a particular role may no longer provide the same level of security it once did.

The challenge for workers is therefore not only staying relevant within their current organisation, but building skills that remain valuable if their role, team or employer changes.

For employers, meanwhile, the latest round of cuts also underscores the importance of how organisations manage workforce transitions, particularly when restructuring is driven by changes in strategy rather than financial distress.

The Trade Desk's Singapore layoffs are a reminder that global workforce decisions can have a direct impact on local employees, even when the parent company continues to invest and expand in strategic areas.