11 ms·

My Interview at Uber

233 points by akras14 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
PaulRobinson 10y ago
In which somebody who didn't want to work for Uber, interviews at Uber, is unimpressed, and they with him, but this realisation is kept secret until a story about Uber culture blows up all over the web over a weekend. By the way, it's spelt "suit", not "suite". I believe the e on the end has escaped from "belive", which appears later in the article.
- akras14 10y ago
  Fixed, thanks. ESL
  - croon 10y ago
    If you want some more you use "I've" a lot, where it should just be "I", example: "He then asked if I had any questions for him. I’ve asked if they had any plans to make thing better for the drivers." "I’ve asked if they considered to pay the driver more? He said that it’s not ideal" "It wasn’t until I’ve red Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber today" The last one also has "read" misspelt.
    - akras14 10y ago
      Thank you!
    - thecatspaw 10y ago
      english is my second language, can you explain why I've is wrong in this context?
      - peterjmag 10y ago
        This is one of those surprisingly subtle things that's particularly difficult for native speakers to explain, and things are complicated even more by the fact that British English and US English vary slightly in their usage. I personally wouldn't call "I've" completely incorrect in those sentences (though some may say otherwise), but it does sound "off" to American ears. Some further reading which may clarify things a bit (or possibly confuse them): http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3309/when-will-present-perfect-vs-past-tense-cases-be-affected-by-culture http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3309/when-will-pr... http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t1636.htm http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t1636.htm
      - croon 10y ago
        English is my second language as well, but here goes: Take the first one as an example since it refers to both the third person and first person asking something: > "He then asked if I had any questions for him. I’ve asked if they had any plans to make thing better for the drivers." The former is simply past tense, while the latter is present perfect. You generally write a text in one tense. It doesn't have to be present, it doesn't have to be past, but once you settle with one it's best to stick to it. Past tense as it suggests indicates something happened in the past. Present perfect on the other hand indicates that something has been done, but either continues in the present, or the effects of which are still present. It's not as much about being inherently incorrect as it is about being coherent. Best practices if you wish.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Yeah, just a tip OP: You might want to re-read your article for typos - there were quite a few which detracted from the actual story for me. But as an aside - I was looking forward to hearing more about what you could learn from their corporate culture from the interview rounds. You mentioned that they were almost always running in 'emergency' or 'fix it' mode and expected staff to work long hours, but did you see it in the conduct of the staff you met? Did they seem tired or frazzled? Also, what did you manage to learn about the management structure and how they treated employees there? Did you notice that people respected their managers, or feared them, or felt disconnected from them?
  - aaronbrethorst 10y ago
    From the article: The guy interviewer was so tired from “staying up last night working” that he drank two energy drinks during our interview and forgot his laptop when he left.
- moonshinefe 10y ago
  So in your view if someone isn't super keen on working for a company, but goes through the interview process and points out alarms about their business practices, that is then invalidated? Unless you're implying the author has some sort of bone to pick with Uber, and feel free to present evidence, that seems like a very silly point. And it's a personal blog, and maybe the person is ESL, who cares if there were two mistakes? If you find that pedantry irritating enough to comment on it, I can't imagine how awful your browsing experience must be like in general.
- akras14 10y ago
  Going into the interview I had a pretty open mind. Just because I thought Facebook > Uber, doesn't mean I didn't want to work there. But after talking to the driver, couple interviewers and the hiring manager, I was positive that it was not for me.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
TeeWEE 10y ago
I once interviewed at Uber. I told them I was also interviewing at other companies, to see what was available. They told me this was not "the people they where looking for". And it wouldn't be "OK" to say something like that in America. They where looking for people who really want to work at Uber. I got an assignment to build a linked-list in language of choice, with a test-suite. A weird assignment if you ask me. But i build it in Golang and submitted it a day later. After that I didn't get a reply for 3 weeks!! I then mailed them asking if they where going to check out my work. 2 days later I got a reply, it was OK to continue. At that point my interest for Uber was already gone. If they cant handle candidates well, the company would probably be chaotic inside too. I also don't like their arrogance. An old colleague of mine is working at Uber, and he says the working times are flexible, but more than 40 hours per week. And they have over 1000 microservices. And its normal to rewrite them often. To me that seems like a bad architecture.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > And they have over 1000 microservices. And its normally to rewrite them often. > To me that seems like a bad architecture. I don't know, the part about it being "normal to rewrite them often" is worrying, but having fleets of microservices managed like Erlang processes or supervision trees sounds interesting and possibly pretty good — assuming that's how they're architected, I've no idea about that. And rewriting a service might be less of an issue if each service is just a small processing loop.
  - rejschaap 10y ago
    The idea about microservices is that they are small and self-contained. This makes them easy to rewrite completely. Now I wouldn't say it is the goal to rewrite them all the time, but it is not a bad sign if some of them get rewritten occasionally. Microservices are somewhat new and a lot of architecture and infrastructure is being built around it. Companies like Netflix and Uber take the lead in this. Susan Fowler wrote a book about this during her time at Uber, you can find it here: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920053675.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920053675.do
plaidturtle 10y ago
Poorly written (probably because it was written in a hurry to piggy back on Susan's article). This doesn't contribute anything new to the conversation.
- chipperyman573 10y ago
  If you look past the typos the article does bring up a few new points. (BTW, the author said he was ESL, which might explain the typos).
  - plaidturtle 10y ago
    More than the typos, I was more put off by the structure and sentence flow which made me feel like it was haphazardly put together, but didn't know he is ESL. Thanks for pointing that out. My apology to the author.
- diminoten 10y ago
  I think your comment is the first in what amounts to a "noise loop", where your comment doesn't add anything substantive to this conversation, and me pointing out that fact also doesn't add value, ad nauseum, forever. There may or may not have been signal in the submission, but there certainly is no signal in what we're doing. Preferably, you'd have never made your original comment. Maybe I shouldn't even make this one. Who knows.
  - plaidturtle 10y ago
    Yet here we are.
- watwut 10y ago
  I found it interesting. The account does not have to contain outrageous horrible war story to be worth to be read. Moreover, if you are trying to make up your mind about a company or place, non exaggerated no big event story about how normal daily affairs are done there should matter. The fact that this story does not contains ridiculous behavior on part of anyone, just some warning flag does not make it pointless.
rezashirazian 10y ago
Nothing in this article really stood out for me. Anyone who has interviewed in the valley is bound to come across disorganized recruiters, overworked engineers, demanding hiring managers and an overall chaotic environments. This is the norm. The issues raised in Fowler's however is not normal and is something that Uber should figure out as soon as possible.
cft 10y ago
And yet, despite all these politicizing attempts, Uber has essentially transformed urban transportation in the 21st century.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- plaidturtle 10y ago
  "politicizing attempts". Sexual harassment is politicizing?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- flootch 10y ago
  Laws, minimum wage and ethical treatment of employees are a huge barrier to innovation, and I for one am glad Uber has ripped that barrier down.
- csydas 10y ago
  I would argue that they've disrupted American urban transportation instead of transforming it - we're still essentially getting around the same way, and taxi services world-wide basically operate the same way Uber does and have for a long time. While Uber has a presence in other countries, the public transit infrastructure is far better supported and taxis operate with similar costs. I can't imagine trying to take Uber in Seoul, for example, when the majority of the time I could either just take the metro or have a home delivery for most stuff I need, or grab one of the numerous taxis. Or, in my current home city of St. Petersburg, Uber doesn't have much of a competitive edge in price or service compared to the other taxi services, and in most cases, just taking a tram or the metro makes more sense. Uber's system works really well in places where car ownership is mandatory for day to day activities, simply because there aren't any better alternatives. They didn't really transform urban transportation, they just capitalized on the inefficiency of current taxi services, disrupting the existing market, and quite frankly, unless they start to invest in stuff like the personal taxi drones like what is being demoed in Dubai right now [1], I think they're going to end up with a transportation empire that is irrelevant when you can just travel as the crow flies and eliminate the traffic concerns entirely. Granted, such a future has a ways to go with technology and regulatory work, but so do the autonomous cars everyone is banking on. And to the side point on your comment, doing something impressive doesn't excuse bad behavior. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/02/taxi-take-0 http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/02/taxi-take-0 edit: corrected auto-correct's change of Uber's > User's back to Uber's
atemerev 10y ago
Looks like a regular startup company interview. I have no objections to Uber's business model, and a friend of mine earns $5000/month being an Uber driver (that's in Switzerland, but still impressive -- it helped him a lot when he had financial troubles). Sexism, of course, is unacceptable, but that's from another story, not this one.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  $5000/month is very impressive. Could you share his work routine? I know one guy who leased a Prius. He didn't get the calls he was promised. He ended up ruining his credit. I hear these big numbers thrown around, and don't know whom to believe. Five grand a month is great! Is there something different in Switzerland that would account for his/her success? My friend who leased the Prius lives in the Bay Area.
  - atemerev 10y ago
    He is a professional driver with stellar Uber rating, and tracks all events and other potential price hikes, being exactly where he's needed the most (he also chose one of the most expensive cities to work in, and lives in less expensive area). But this is a full-time job with some research and planning.
  - tonfa 10y ago
    > Five grand a month is great! Is there something different in Switzerland that would account for his/her success? Yes, cost of life and wages are way higher than what you have in mind. Median salary is around 6k (it is by far the highest in Europe, esp. looking at after taxes wages).
_bpo 10y ago
The tldr here is that this is a nice recounting of personal experience interviewing with Uber and being frustrated by it, pointing out the many warning signs seen in the interview about a toxic work culture. The post was prompted by the phenomenal writeup by Susan Fowler on her year working with Uber. If you can read only one, certainly read hers. If you can read only two, consider reading Susan's twice as it's exceptionally good writing. This is a nice (not exceptionally original) personal account of a bad interview experience.
- angelofm 10y ago
  In case someone wants to save 1 minute of their life :) https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- moonshinefe 10y ago
  I'm not familiar with the other write up you've mentioned, but I enjoyed this blog post. It's nice to know warning signs for potential companies you could work for. We have to stick together in IT and not let companies take advantage of us. If doing 80 hours of work in 40 and all the other warning signs is no big deal to you, by all means, gun for an Uber position in that area. I'd like to hear about that though before I waste my time, so well done by OP.
  - akras14 10y ago
    https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...
    - zxmys 10y ago
      lol!!
khazhou 10y ago
TLDR: His interviewers were young and seemed stressed. One guy implied you should work long hours. He realized mid-interview it wasn't for him. Finished interview. He feels bad for drivers.
OoTheNigerian 10y ago
Dear Americans, Being expected to tip a person for a service you just paid for is NOT normal! Yes, in the EXCEPTIONAL situation where you want to give a person money for whatever reason, please do so but do not change a default setting for something that warrants it 10% of the time. How does one justify going to a salon, being given a price by the barber, paying it and still be expected to "tip" the person you just paid what was asked for? Uber including tipping will mess up the experience. Period. It will influence ratings. Cos, how would a driver rate 2 passengers with equal service but one tipped $20 and the other $0. We from the rest of the world are very uncomfortable being forced to perform this "optional" task.
- plaidturtle 10y ago
  1. I don't think the drivers can see how much you tip. 2. In case of restaurants in the US, generally servers make very little without tip. When you pay you are paying the restaurant and not the person who serve you food. I know it's different in other countries but that's just how things are here.
  - OoTheNigerian 10y ago
    Can the drivers know IF you tipped? Then let the restaurants pay their servers more. Or put it in the bill. "service charge" it is called. Don't leave me with calculations to do and faux hospitality from waiters being nice only because of money. I'd hate to have to do a "little dance" and show extra teeth every time I serve someone.
    - plaidturtle 10y ago
      From my previous conversations with Lyft drivers, if I recall correctly they get a sum weekly/biweekly and don't see who tipped. I used to live in a country where tipping wasn't a thing. But having lived in the US for a while now I actually like it. It gives the servers incentive to do well. Also you always have the option to not tip if the service is really bad. I understand your frustration, though. Perhaps, I've gotten too used to it haha.
horsecaptin 10y ago
There seems to be a conflict in the article. The writer questioned Uber's need to pay less in real dollars and more in funny money, but is happy to stick to Lyft "even if it costs me a few extra dollars". I understand if one company is a better culture fit than another, but if the motivation is to make more money, then wouldn't it be better to work for someone who will actually pay more money?
- jaredsohn 10y ago
  I don't see a conflict or even see what those statements have to do with each other. It seems to me that the writer includes his values when making a decision (willing to pay more for Lyft, not interested in working at Uber due to a culture mismatch) and also doesn't weigh Uber's financial package as highly as some other companies because of their stock situation. I didn't see the writer say that his motivation was to make more money, but even if that is the goal, my impression is that it looks like other companies that allow selling their stock and/or offer higher compensation would be better ways of doing that in his view.
illuminati1911 10y ago
"I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the one I’ve seen in the Lyft app. I felt kind of bad that I was not able to tip the guy after asking all those personal question, but I shrugged it off and proceeded to hurry up to my interview." Thank god there isn't tipping on Uber. I hate nothing more than the American insane tipping culture. It's the responsibility of the company to pay employees enough salary and it's employees responsibility to know what kind of contracts they sign. Making customers feel bad or guilty about not paying a tip is not the way to go.
diminoten 10y ago
I think some of the stuff in this story reminds me of the crazy MBA interview shit someone was telling me about going through just recently. For example, Amazon had a "bar raiser" who'd be somewhat intentionally offputting and as part of the interview they gauged your response to this person's mannerisms. Same with the frequent and seemingly chaotic interview situation. Two different "tactics" meant to determine how you handle unexpected situations. "The Interview" is such terrible black magic, there's simply no way these techniques provide reliable predictivity towards someone's success in their job. I would love to hear about specific metrics regarding expected vs. actual success, and while I know it'd be impossible to know how someone would have done had you hired them, you can at least know how well someone did who you did hire, based on your expectations. Like, if someone scores "well" on the "Is it cool if I take my shoes off during this?" stress test, does that actually make them more likely to be a good employee? I currently believe no one in HR knows the answer to that question, though the assumption is largely, "Yes."
argigg 10y ago
>The recruiter took me to another room and asked me what my salary expectations were. I told him my current salary and he said that it was a little high for their base pay and that they prefer to under pay on base but overcompensate with stock. Don't tell the recruiter your current salary! You can only lose by doing that. If your current salary were 50% larger, they would also have told you that it was a little high for the base pay and all the numbers they offered would be scaled up. What you should is tell them you expect some optimistic but possible number (250k-500k/year total annual comp depending on your seniority) and negotiate from there. Even if your current salary is great, you should still only tell them if they offer a lower number first. Of course, you weren't going to take this job anyway, but the same advice applies at companies you actually like. A big offer from Uber would be a great tool for other negotiations.
fishnchips 10y ago
I interviewed at Uber in Amsterdam and my experience wasn't great. They flew me over for just one day (waking up at 5am just to get there on time) and kept me interviewing between 11am and 7pm with no break for food and no food in sight. After that they essentially forced me to take Uber back to the airport once I told them that I just took a train from Schiphol. What's funny was that the driver was so upset with the company that he bitched and moaned all the way to the airport.
- hocuspocus 10y ago
  8 hours of non-stop interviewing?! Do they manage to hire anyone?
  - fishnchips 10y ago
    I don't know. They didn't hire me.
beaner 10y ago
This article seems to be capitalizing on the popularity of Susan Fowler's blog post earlier today, which was rightfully popular for its outrageousness. This one is just a weird uninformative rant that is mostly just a description of an arduous but not particularly horrible interview day, plus some comments about not liking the app. It doesn't contain anything particularly new or insightful or damning about Uber.
underwater 10y ago
It seems weird to me that the author was so uninformed going into the interview. I do everything I can to tip the balance in my favour during a job hunt.
Kiro 10y ago
> I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the one I’ve seen in the Lyft app. The best feature of Uber compared to Lyft if you ask me.
wallabie 10y ago
Long post warning - this is just a perspective about shitty HR in the vein of this post, not sexism, like the original Fowler post. Late last year at 10am on a Thursday, I got a call asking if I wanted to interview for a HR position with Uber in Australia. He wanted the position filled ASAP, so we organised an interview for that evening. I had already accepted an offer from another company for a summer internship in software dev, an area I was actually interested in, but I was beguiled by the Uber brand and was practically willing to give up a lot to work for them as a result. I am not interested in HR by any stretch, and believe that HR staff are better put to use removing staples from about-to-be-recycled paper or other more productive ends. I 'passed' the initial interview and was asked to do the following: - Draft a cold email to a potential hire, with the goal to fill an existing vacancy in the company; - Pass an extensive, three-hour 'data analytics' test (see: basic-intermediate data manipulation and analysis in Excel) hosted on HackerRank. This was actually fairly challenging because you're purposefully time-poor throughout the test; - Create a PowerPoint presentation outlining a plan to target university grads. This was also challenging since if I was given a template with pre-made slide designs, it would be pretty easy. But I designed a slide deck from scratch completely in line with the Uber design guidelines, including typeface, color and other design requirements, on top of my recruitment strategy; - Trawl through their current Uber Careers website and list as many possible ways that it could be improved. So I was given this Thursday night. He wanted the tasks done asap, but I told the recruiter that I had an assignment due Tuesday, and that it would be quite a crunch. He 'relented' and gave me until Sunday night. As I write this, I realise that he was unabashedly using my enchantment with the company to his favour. I did nothing that entire weekend but work on those items, and handed them all in Sunday evening, right on time, to the detriment of my assignment. I found out later (through a contact in the company, not from the recruiter) that I scored over 80% in the online exam, and that all the other items were very well received. Despite this, I never received anything back from the recruiter at all. Nothing except a boilerplate rejection email, featuring photo of Diversity Hire #1 and #2 laughing over coffee and 'Thank you for your application. However, we cannot proceed with your application at this time...' The recruiter insisted that they tried to call me (again, I heard this through the contact) but lo and behold, despite being glued to my phone for over a week, my phone didn't ring once. The incredible disrespect I felt from this experience will mean that I'll never apply to them for any role, ever. Tl;dr - my perspective of Uber is that they are entitled to your best work, and have no intention to reciprocate.
lettersdigits 10y ago
> The driver said that Uber gave him more business, but he didn’t make as much I asked many Uber drivers (outside and inside my own country), and they all LOVED uber (bottom line - more jobs, more money, even if smaller profit margins per job) I think in general it was much more appreciated in third world countries. (And also by me, safety-wise. regular yellow taxi drivers could be extremely dangerous in these places. so many tricks to make on tourists). I truelly cannot remember a negative comment about it. > I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the one I’ve seen in the Lyft app I think that the rating system is much more powerful (even economically) than a $$$ tip. A 5-start rating is even better than a $ tip - you will (in the long run, if others rate you high as well) make more jobs (thus more money) if you have a great rating. Same goes the other way around: Giving 1-2 stars is even more criticizing than not leaving a tip - if your average rating is lower you will get less jobs. if it's below some threshold - game over. I myself would prefer (if I were an Uber driver) that you just gave me a pampering 5-star rating and then have a nice day :) (edit: new lines) (edit2: responded to a different quote from the article)
sokoloff 10y ago
> I work at Apixio and we are hiring. Please hit me up if you would like to join us. This seems like an odd juxtaposition with an article detailing the author's interview at another company...
ar15saveslives 10y ago
I can write the same blog post about onsite interview at Google, which was a horrible 6 hours marathon with people that copying to their notes all that you draw/write on whiteboard. Questions/problems are pretty lame, btw. Do one geeksforgeeks problem a day, you'll be able to crack it in a year.
- akras14 10y ago
  I have also unsuccessfully interviewed at Google in the past. My biggest complain there was that people felt a bit snooty. But I did not get a sense of such extreme underpaid/overworked culture as I got from Uber.
simplehuman 10y ago
I wonder why the author feels those engineers waste their time compared to Facebook and Google which is all about ads. Is this what they did studied engineering for? To show best ads? Name one person who enjoys ads. Yet I can be you millions who enjoy cheap timely taxi rides. Terrible judgemental article. The author has preconceived notions and wants to capitalize on the Uber hate wave.
- akras14 10y ago
  Good point, my judgment was mainly based on engineers being overworked/underpaid. Re trying to capitalize... I want to contribute to the discussion, since the time seems right for Uber to actually listen.
  - simplehuman 10y ago
    Sorry, I got a bit riled up there and my last line was probably unnecessary :-) I liked your article but would have liked it more if you had left out the comparison to facebook part out. I have multiple friends at the big G and facebook and trust me if that's not a waste of good engineering talent & life, I don't know what is.
- prodigal_erik 10y ago
  I think the quote you're looking for is > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads ... that sucks.
popironi 10y ago
We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures and Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us raphaelnunezhacks@gmail.com
popironi 10y ago
We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures and Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us raphaelnunezhacks@gmail.com

233 points by akras14 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

PaulRobinson 10y ago

In which somebody who didn't want to work for Uber, interviews at Uber, is unimpressed, and they with him, but this realisation is kept secret until a story about Uber culture blows up all over the web over a weekend. By the way, it's spelt "suit", not "suite". I believe the e on the end has escaped from "belive", which appears later in the article.

akras14 10y ago
Fixed, thanks. ESL
- croon 10y ago
  If you want some more you use "I've" a lot, where it should just be "I", example: "He then asked if I had any questions for him. I’ve asked if they had any plans to make thing better for the drivers." "I’ve asked if they considered to pay the driver more? He said that it’s not ideal" "It wasn’t until I’ve red Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber today" The last one also has "read" misspelt.
  - akras14 10y ago
    Thank you!
  - thecatspaw 10y ago
    english is my second language, can you explain why I've is wrong in this context?
    - peterjmag 10y ago
      This is one of those surprisingly subtle things that's particularly difficult for native speakers to explain, and things are complicated even more by the fact that British English and US English vary slightly in their usage. I personally wouldn't call "I've" completely incorrect in those sentences (though some may say otherwise), but it does sound "off" to American ears. Some further reading which may clarify things a bit (or possibly confuse them): http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3309/when-will-present-perfect-vs-past-tense-cases-be-affected-by-culture http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3309/when-will-pr... http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t1636.htm http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t1636.htm
    - croon 10y ago
      English is my second language as well, but here goes: Take the first one as an example since it refers to both the third person and first person asking something: > "He then asked if I had any questions for him. I’ve asked if they had any plans to make thing better for the drivers." The former is simply past tense, while the latter is present perfect. You generally write a text in one tense. It doesn't have to be present, it doesn't have to be past, but once you settle with one it's best to stick to it. Past tense as it suggests indicates something happened in the past. Present perfect on the other hand indicates that something has been done, but either continues in the present, or the effects of which are still present. It's not as much about being inherently incorrect as it is about being coherent. Best practices if you wish.
cyberferret 10y ago
Yeah, just a tip OP: You might want to re-read your article for typos - there were quite a few which detracted from the actual story for me. But as an aside - I was looking forward to hearing more about what you could learn from their corporate culture from the interview rounds. You mentioned that they were almost always running in 'emergency' or 'fix it' mode and expected staff to work long hours, but did you see it in the conduct of the staff you met? Did they seem tired or frazzled? Also, what did you manage to learn about the management structure and how they treated employees there? Did you notice that people respected their managers, or feared them, or felt disconnected from them?
- aaronbrethorst 10y ago
  From the article: The guy interviewer was so tired from “staying up last night working” that he drank two energy drinks during our interview and forgot his laptop when he left.
moonshinefe 10y ago
So in your view if someone isn't super keen on working for a company, but goes through the interview process and points out alarms about their business practices, that is then invalidated? Unless you're implying the author has some sort of bone to pick with Uber, and feel free to present evidence, that seems like a very silly point. And it's a personal blog, and maybe the person is ESL, who cares if there were two mistakes? If you find that pedantry irritating enough to comment on it, I can't imagine how awful your browsing experience must be like in general.
akras14 10y ago
Going into the interview I had a pretty open mind. Just because I thought Facebook > Uber, doesn't mean I didn't want to work there. But after talking to the driver, couple interviewers and the hiring manager, I was positive that it was not for me.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

TeeWEE 10y ago

I once interviewed at Uber. I told them I was also interviewing at other companies, to see what was available. They told me this was not "the people they where looking for". And it wouldn't be "OK" to say something like that in America. They where looking for people who really want to work at Uber. I got an assignment to build a linked-list in language of choice, with a test-suite. A weird assignment if you ask me. But i build it in Golang and submitted it a day later. After that I didn't get a reply for 3 weeks!! I then mailed them asking if they where going to check out my work. 2 days later I got a reply, it was OK to continue. At that point my interest for Uber was already gone. If they cant handle candidates well, the company would probably be chaotic inside too. I also don't like their arrogance. An old colleague of mine is working at Uber, and he says the working times are flexible, but more than 40 hours per week. And they have over 1000 microservices. And its normal to rewrite them often. To me that seems like a bad architecture.

masklinn 10y ago
> And they have over 1000 microservices. And its normally to rewrite them often. > To me that seems like a bad architecture. I don't know, the part about it being "normal to rewrite them often" is worrying, but having fleets of microservices managed like Erlang processes or supervision trees sounds interesting and possibly pretty good — assuming that's how they're architected, I've no idea about that. And rewriting a service might be less of an issue if each service is just a small processing loop.
- rejschaap 10y ago
  The idea about microservices is that they are small and self-contained. This makes them easy to rewrite completely. Now I wouldn't say it is the goal to rewrite them all the time, but it is not a bad sign if some of them get rewritten occasionally. Microservices are somewhat new and a lot of architecture and infrastructure is being built around it. Companies like Netflix and Uber take the lead in this. Susan Fowler wrote a book about this during her time at Uber, you can find it here: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920053675.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920053675.do

plaidturtle 10y ago

Poorly written (probably because it was written in a hurry to piggy back on Susan's article). This doesn't contribute anything new to the conversation.

chipperyman573 10y ago
If you look past the typos the article does bring up a few new points. (BTW, the author said he was ESL, which might explain the typos).
- plaidturtle 10y ago
  More than the typos, I was more put off by the structure and sentence flow which made me feel like it was haphazardly put together, but didn't know he is ESL. Thanks for pointing that out. My apology to the author.
diminoten 10y ago
I think your comment is the first in what amounts to a "noise loop", where your comment doesn't add anything substantive to this conversation, and me pointing out that fact also doesn't add value, ad nauseum, forever. There may or may not have been signal in the submission, but there certainly is no signal in what we're doing. Preferably, you'd have never made your original comment. Maybe I shouldn't even make this one. Who knows.
- plaidturtle 10y ago
  Yet here we are.
watwut 10y ago
I found it interesting. The account does not have to contain outrageous horrible war story to be worth to be read. Moreover, if you are trying to make up your mind about a company or place, non exaggerated no big event story about how normal daily affairs are done there should matter. The fact that this story does not contains ridiculous behavior on part of anyone, just some warning flag does not make it pointless.

rezashirazian 10y ago

Nothing in this article really stood out for me. Anyone who has interviewed in the valley is bound to come across disorganized recruiters, overworked engineers, demanding hiring managers and an overall chaotic environments. This is the norm. The issues raised in Fowler's however is not normal and is something that Uber should figure out as soon as possible.

cft 10y ago

And yet, despite all these politicizing attempts, Uber has essentially transformed urban transportation in the 21st century.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
plaidturtle 10y ago
"politicizing attempts". Sexual harassment is politicizing?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
flootch 10y ago
Laws, minimum wage and ethical treatment of employees are a huge barrier to innovation, and I for one am glad Uber has ripped that barrier down.
csydas 10y ago
I would argue that they've disrupted American urban transportation instead of transforming it - we're still essentially getting around the same way, and taxi services world-wide basically operate the same way Uber does and have for a long time. While Uber has a presence in other countries, the public transit infrastructure is far better supported and taxis operate with similar costs. I can't imagine trying to take Uber in Seoul, for example, when the majority of the time I could either just take the metro or have a home delivery for most stuff I need, or grab one of the numerous taxis. Or, in my current home city of St. Petersburg, Uber doesn't have much of a competitive edge in price or service compared to the other taxi services, and in most cases, just taking a tram or the metro makes more sense. Uber's system works really well in places where car ownership is mandatory for day to day activities, simply because there aren't any better alternatives. They didn't really transform urban transportation, they just capitalized on the inefficiency of current taxi services, disrupting the existing market, and quite frankly, unless they start to invest in stuff like the personal taxi drones like what is being demoed in Dubai right now [1], I think they're going to end up with a transportation empire that is irrelevant when you can just travel as the crow flies and eliminate the traffic concerns entirely. Granted, such a future has a ways to go with technology and regulatory work, but so do the autonomous cars everyone is banking on. And to the side point on your comment, doing something impressive doesn't excuse bad behavior. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/02/taxi-take-0 http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/02/taxi-take-0 edit: corrected auto-correct's change of Uber's > User's back to Uber's

atemerev 10y ago

Looks like a regular startup company interview. I have no objections to Uber's business model, and a friend of mine earns $5000/month being an Uber driver (that's in Switzerland, but still impressive -- it helped him a lot when he had financial troubles). Sexism, of course, is unacceptable, but that's from another story, not this one.

icantdrive55 10y ago
$5000/month is very impressive. Could you share his work routine? I know one guy who leased a Prius. He didn't get the calls he was promised. He ended up ruining his credit. I hear these big numbers thrown around, and don't know whom to believe. Five grand a month is great! Is there something different in Switzerland that would account for his/her success? My friend who leased the Prius lives in the Bay Area.
- atemerev 10y ago
  He is a professional driver with stellar Uber rating, and tracks all events and other potential price hikes, being exactly where he's needed the most (he also chose one of the most expensive cities to work in, and lives in less expensive area). But this is a full-time job with some research and planning.
- tonfa 10y ago
  > Five grand a month is great! Is there something different in Switzerland that would account for his/her success? Yes, cost of life and wages are way higher than what you have in mind. Median salary is around 6k (it is by far the highest in Europe, esp. looking at after taxes wages).

_bpo 10y ago

The tldr here is that this is a nice recounting of personal experience interviewing with Uber and being frustrated by it, pointing out the many warning signs seen in the interview about a toxic work culture. The post was prompted by the phenomenal writeup by Susan Fowler on her year working with Uber. If you can read only one, certainly read hers. If you can read only two, consider reading Susan's twice as it's exceptionally good writing. This is a nice (not exceptionally original) personal account of a bad interview experience.

angelofm 10y ago
In case someone wants to save 1 minute of their life :) https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
moonshinefe 10y ago
I'm not familiar with the other write up you've mentioned, but I enjoyed this blog post. It's nice to know warning signs for potential companies you could work for. We have to stick together in IT and not let companies take advantage of us. If doing 80 hours of work in 40 and all the other warning signs is no big deal to you, by all means, gun for an Uber position in that area. I'd like to hear about that though before I waste my time, so well done by OP.
- akras14 10y ago
  https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...
  - zxmys 10y ago
    lol!!

khazhou 10y ago

TLDR: His interviewers were young and seemed stressed. One guy implied you should work long hours. He realized mid-interview it wasn't for him. Finished interview. He feels bad for drivers.

OoTheNigerian 10y ago

Dear Americans, Being expected to tip a person for a service you just paid for is NOT normal! Yes, in the EXCEPTIONAL situation where you want to give a person money for whatever reason, please do so but do not change a default setting for something that warrants it 10% of the time. How does one justify going to a salon, being given a price by the barber, paying it and still be expected to "tip" the person you just paid what was asked for? Uber including tipping will mess up the experience. Period. It will influence ratings. Cos, how would a driver rate 2 passengers with equal service but one tipped $20 and the other $0. We from the rest of the world are very uncomfortable being forced to perform this "optional" task.

plaidturtle 10y ago
1. I don't think the drivers can see how much you tip. 2. In case of restaurants in the US, generally servers make very little without tip. When you pay you are paying the restaurant and not the person who serve you food. I know it's different in other countries but that's just how things are here.
- OoTheNigerian 10y ago
  Can the drivers know IF you tipped? Then let the restaurants pay their servers more. Or put it in the bill. "service charge" it is called. Don't leave me with calculations to do and faux hospitality from waiters being nice only because of money. I'd hate to have to do a "little dance" and show extra teeth every time I serve someone.
  - plaidturtle 10y ago
    From my previous conversations with Lyft drivers, if I recall correctly they get a sum weekly/biweekly and don't see who tipped. I used to live in a country where tipping wasn't a thing. But having lived in the US for a while now I actually like it. It gives the servers incentive to do well. Also you always have the option to not tip if the service is really bad. I understand your frustration, though. Perhaps, I've gotten too used to it haha.

horsecaptin 10y ago

There seems to be a conflict in the article. The writer questioned Uber's need to pay less in real dollars and more in funny money, but is happy to stick to Lyft "even if it costs me a few extra dollars". I understand if one company is a better culture fit than another, but if the motivation is to make more money, then wouldn't it be better to work for someone who will actually pay more money?

jaredsohn 10y ago
I don't see a conflict or even see what those statements have to do with each other. It seems to me that the writer includes his values when making a decision (willing to pay more for Lyft, not interested in working at Uber due to a culture mismatch) and also doesn't weigh Uber's financial package as highly as some other companies because of their stock situation. I didn't see the writer say that his motivation was to make more money, but even if that is the goal, my impression is that it looks like other companies that allow selling their stock and/or offer higher compensation would be better ways of doing that in his view.

illuminati1911 10y ago

"I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the one I’ve seen in the Lyft app. I felt kind of bad that I was not able to tip the guy after asking all those personal question, but I shrugged it off and proceeded to hurry up to my interview." Thank god there isn't tipping on Uber. I hate nothing more than the American insane tipping culture. It's the responsibility of the company to pay employees enough salary and it's employees responsibility to know what kind of contracts they sign. Making customers feel bad or guilty about not paying a tip is not the way to go.

diminoten 10y ago

I think some of the stuff in this story reminds me of the crazy MBA interview shit someone was telling me about going through just recently. For example, Amazon had a "bar raiser" who'd be somewhat intentionally offputting and as part of the interview they gauged your response to this person's mannerisms. Same with the frequent and seemingly chaotic interview situation. Two different "tactics" meant to determine how you handle unexpected situations. "The Interview" is such terrible black magic, there's simply no way these techniques provide reliable predictivity towards someone's success in their job. I would love to hear about specific metrics regarding expected vs. actual success, and while I know it'd be impossible to know how someone would have done had you hired them, you can at least know how well someone did who you did hire, based on your expectations. Like, if someone scores "well" on the "Is it cool if I take my shoes off during this?" stress test, does that actually make them more likely to be a good employee? I currently believe no one in HR knows the answer to that question, though the assumption is largely, "Yes."

argigg 10y ago

>The recruiter took me to another room and asked me what my salary expectations were. I told him my current salary and he said that it was a little high for their base pay and that they prefer to under pay on base but overcompensate with stock. Don't tell the recruiter your current salary! You can only lose by doing that. If your current salary were 50% larger, they would also have told you that it was a little high for the base pay and all the numbers they offered would be scaled up. What you should is tell them you expect some optimistic but possible number (250k-500k/year total annual comp depending on your seniority) and negotiate from there. Even if your current salary is great, you should still only tell them if they offer a lower number first. Of course, you weren't going to take this job anyway, but the same advice applies at companies you actually like. A big offer from Uber would be a great tool for other negotiations.

fishnchips 10y ago

I interviewed at Uber in Amsterdam and my experience wasn't great. They flew me over for just one day (waking up at 5am just to get there on time) and kept me interviewing between 11am and 7pm with no break for food and no food in sight. After that they essentially forced me to take Uber back to the airport once I told them that I just took a train from Schiphol. What's funny was that the driver was so upset with the company that he bitched and moaned all the way to the airport.

hocuspocus 10y ago
8 hours of non-stop interviewing?! Do they manage to hire anyone?
- fishnchips 10y ago
  I don't know. They didn't hire me.

beaner 10y ago

This article seems to be capitalizing on the popularity of Susan Fowler's blog post earlier today, which was rightfully popular for its outrageousness. This one is just a weird uninformative rant that is mostly just a description of an arduous but not particularly horrible interview day, plus some comments about not liking the app. It doesn't contain anything particularly new or insightful or damning about Uber.

underwater 10y ago

It seems weird to me that the author was so uninformed going into the interview. I do everything I can to tip the balance in my favour during a job hunt.

Kiro 10y ago

> I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the one I’ve seen in the Lyft app. The best feature of Uber compared to Lyft if you ask me.

wallabie 10y ago

Long post warning - this is just a perspective about shitty HR in the vein of this post, not sexism, like the original Fowler post. Late last year at 10am on a Thursday, I got a call asking if I wanted to interview for a HR position with Uber in Australia. He wanted the position filled ASAP, so we organised an interview for that evening. I had already accepted an offer from another company for a summer internship in software dev, an area I was actually interested in, but I was beguiled by the Uber brand and was practically willing to give up a lot to work for them as a result. I am not interested in HR by any stretch, and believe that HR staff are better put to use removing staples from about-to-be-recycled paper or other more productive ends. I 'passed' the initial interview and was asked to do the following: - Draft a cold email to a potential hire, with the goal to fill an existing vacancy in the company; - Pass an extensive, three-hour 'data analytics' test (see: basic-intermediate data manipulation and analysis in Excel) hosted on HackerRank. This was actually fairly challenging because you're purposefully time-poor throughout the test; - Create a PowerPoint presentation outlining a plan to target university grads. This was also challenging since if I was given a template with pre-made slide designs, it would be pretty easy. But I designed a slide deck from scratch completely in line with the Uber design guidelines, including typeface, color and other design requirements, on top of my recruitment strategy; - Trawl through their current Uber Careers website and list as many possible ways that it could be improved. So I was given this Thursday night. He wanted the tasks done asap, but I told the recruiter that I had an assignment due Tuesday, and that it would be quite a crunch. He 'relented' and gave me until Sunday night. As I write this, I realise that he was unabashedly using my enchantment with the company to his favour. I did nothing that entire weekend but work on those items, and handed them all in Sunday evening, right on time, to the detriment of my assignment. I found out later (through a contact in the company, not from the recruiter) that I scored over 80% in the online exam, and that all the other items were very well received. Despite this, I never received anything back from the recruiter at all. Nothing except a boilerplate rejection email, featuring photo of Diversity Hire #1 and #2 laughing over coffee and 'Thank you for your application. However, we cannot proceed with your application at this time...' The recruiter insisted that they tried to call me (again, I heard this through the contact) but lo and behold, despite being glued to my phone for over a week, my phone didn't ring once. The incredible disrespect I felt from this experience will mean that I'll never apply to them for any role, ever. Tl;dr - my perspective of Uber is that they are entitled to your best work, and have no intention to reciprocate.

lettersdigits 10y ago

> The driver said that Uber gave him more business, but he didn’t make as much I asked many Uber drivers (outside and inside my own country), and they all LOVED uber (bottom line - more jobs, more money, even if smaller profit margins per job) I think in general it was much more appreciated in third world countries. (And also by me, safety-wise. regular yellow taxi drivers could be extremely dangerous in these places. so many tricks to make on tourists). I truelly cannot remember a negative comment about it. > I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the one I’ve seen in the Lyft app I think that the rating system is much more powerful (even economically) than a $$$ tip. A 5-start rating is even better than a $ tip - you will (in the long run, if others rate you high as well) make more jobs (thus more money) if you have a great rating. Same goes the other way around: Giving 1-2 stars is even more criticizing than not leaving a tip - if your average rating is lower you will get less jobs. if it's below some threshold - game over. I myself would prefer (if I were an Uber driver) that you just gave me a pampering 5-star rating and then have a nice day :) (edit: new lines) (edit2: responded to a different quote from the article)

sokoloff 10y ago

> I work at Apixio and we are hiring. Please hit me up if you would like to join us. This seems like an odd juxtaposition with an article detailing the author's interview at another company...

ar15saveslives 10y ago

I can write the same blog post about onsite interview at Google, which was a horrible 6 hours marathon with people that copying to their notes all that you draw/write on whiteboard. Questions/problems are pretty lame, btw. Do one geeksforgeeks problem a day, you'll be able to crack it in a year.

akras14 10y ago
I have also unsuccessfully interviewed at Google in the past. My biggest complain there was that people felt a bit snooty. But I did not get a sense of such extreme underpaid/overworked culture as I got from Uber.

simplehuman 10y ago

I wonder why the author feels those engineers waste their time compared to Facebook and Google which is all about ads. Is this what they did studied engineering for? To show best ads? Name one person who enjoys ads. Yet I can be you millions who enjoy cheap timely taxi rides. Terrible judgemental article. The author has preconceived notions and wants to capitalize on the Uber hate wave.

akras14 10y ago
Good point, my judgment was mainly based on engineers being overworked/underpaid. Re trying to capitalize... I want to contribute to the discussion, since the time seems right for Uber to actually listen.
- simplehuman 10y ago
  Sorry, I got a bit riled up there and my last line was probably unnecessary :-) I liked your article but would have liked it more if you had left out the comparison to facebook part out. I have multiple friends at the big G and facebook and trust me if that's not a waste of good engineering talent & life, I don't know what is.
prodigal_erik 10y ago
I think the quote you're looking for is > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads ... that sucks.

popironi 10y ago

We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures and Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us raphaelnunezhacks@gmail.com

popironi 10y ago