Snap prepared to lay off 100 engineers, which would be the highest number of people laid off by the company in one round, news network Cheddar reported.

The announcement will be made internally within a week and the figure represents less than 10 per cent of the engineering department. Cheddar reported Snap reduced the number of new staff hired by around 60 per cent in Q4 2017, ending the year with 3,069 staff.

Snap previously laid off employees across its hardware and recruiting divisions in 2017, which was followed by more cuts in January.

At the end of 2017, CEO Evan Spiegel reportedly told managers they would have to make “hard decisions” when evaluating their teams going into 2018.

Cheddar reported Snap withheld bonuses at the end of 2017 because of failure to meet company goals, although Spiegel received a $637 million stock award for launching an IPO. The figure was said to be the third-largest annual CEO payout in recent times.

Not long after revealing disappointing Q3 results and promising to rebuild its app, Snapchat’s parent announced it is separating “the social from the media”.