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I have no problem with leaders encouraging overworking, but the article could have detailed the compensation that people got during the work. My guess is that t

I have no problem with leaders encouraging overworking, but the article could have detailed the compensation that people got during the work. My guess is that they were getting not much more hourly wage than a McDonald's worker for correcting for the bad leadership.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> My guess is that they were getting not much more hourly wage than a McDonald's worker for correcting for the bad leadership. I agree that this crunch time seems unnecessary, but it's mathematically impossible for Uber engineers to work enough to reduce their wages to anything near fast food wages. Even someone working 80-hour weeks, 52 weeks per year at $15/hour would earn $62K. That's less than half the starting salary for entry level engineers at Uber. Entry-level compensation at Uber is around $160K, with senior software engineers earning $400K or more: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Uber/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Uber/salaries/Software-Engine...
- dylan604 5y ago
  >80-hour weeks, 52 weeks per year at $15/hour would earn $62K Someone not salaried would be eligible for overtime and double time if working 7day weeks. That would significantly change the amount earned at $15/hour
  - plorkyeran 5y ago
    Doubling the wage for the 40 hours of overtime still doesn't get you to $100k, and the people working on this were all making much more than that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gregdoesit 5y ago
OP here. We did not get any additional compensation for the long hours beyond you could expense food at late hours and on weekends. And at the end of the project, my director told everyone to take their SO to the most expensive restaurant, hire a babysitter if they have kids and expense the whole thing. I submitted a bill of €300. When I joined Uber, my compensation effectively doubled from my last - already pretty well-paying gig - so even if calculating the per-hour wages for those 3 months, I made good money, and nothing comparable to the hospitality industry.
- notyourwork 5y ago
  That sounds ignorant of reality and abusive at best. In my former org when we go into q4 things get a bit crazy and chaotic. Once the dust settles my manager would let us take a week off and do whatever we wanted. No vacation needed, just don't come to office and do something fun. Its sad how many orgs still abuse salaried employees time.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    Let me guess, some kind of ad, marketing or e-government agency? The "clients have leftover budget they need to burn or next year's budget shrinks" problem is real. I wonder why no large company has ever discovered the absurd waste this budget policy causes. Add to that the problems associated with tenders (= sometimes absurd amounts of money wasted for pitching) and the overhead of way too many stakeholders and feedback loops on client side... in many a project the single thing that makes the most savings is a competent (!) PO on client side that gets "dictatorship powers" from their C-level that can override petty politics and internal squabbles if they threaten progress too much.
    - notyourwork 5y ago
      Sorry, to be clear I don't and never have worked at Uber. My former org was a reference to a team I was on prior to current team at another company.
- caractacus 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> My guess is that they were getting not much more hourly wage than a McDonald's worker for correcting for the bad leadership. I agree that this crunch time seems unnecessary, but it's mathematically impossible for Uber engineers to work enough to reduce their wages to anything near fast food wages. Even someone working 80-hour weeks, 52 weeks per year at $15/hour would earn $62K. That's less than half the starting salary for entry level engineers at Uber. Entry-level compensation at Uber is around $160K, with senior software engineers earning $400K or more: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Uber/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Uber/salaries/Software-Engine...

dylan604 5y ago
>80-hour weeks, 52 weeks per year at $15/hour would earn $62K Someone not salaried would be eligible for overtime and double time if working 7day weeks. That would significantly change the amount earned at $15/hour
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  Doubling the wage for the 40 hours of overtime still doesn't get you to $100k, and the people working on this were all making much more than that.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gregdoesit 5y ago

OP here. We did not get any additional compensation for the long hours beyond you could expense food at late hours and on weekends. And at the end of the project, my director told everyone to take their SO to the most expensive restaurant, hire a babysitter if they have kids and expense the whole thing. I submitted a bill of €300. When I joined Uber, my compensation effectively doubled from my last - already pretty well-paying gig - so even if calculating the per-hour wages for those 3 months, I made good money, and nothing comparable to the hospitality industry.

notyourwork 5y ago
That sounds ignorant of reality and abusive at best. In my former org when we go into q4 things get a bit crazy and chaotic. Once the dust settles my manager would let us take a week off and do whatever we wanted. No vacation needed, just don't come to office and do something fun. Its sad how many orgs still abuse salaried employees time.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Let me guess, some kind of ad, marketing or e-government agency? The "clients have leftover budget they need to burn or next year's budget shrinks" problem is real. I wonder why no large company has ever discovered the absurd waste this budget policy causes. Add to that the problems associated with tenders (= sometimes absurd amounts of money wasted for pitching) and the overhead of way too many stakeholders and feedback loops on client side... in many a project the single thing that makes the most savings is a competent (!) PO on client side that gets "dictatorship powers" from their C-level that can override petty politics and internal squabbles if they threaten progress too much.
  - notyourwork 5y ago
    Sorry, to be clear I don't and never have worked at Uber. My former org was a reference to a team I was on prior to current team at another company.
caractacus 5y ago