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Snapchat Sneakily Uses Its Own App to Poach Uber Engineers
- amelius 12y agoThis attitude of "we can use your data for whatever we like" has to stop!
- perfunctory 12y agoWhy would it?
- william20111 12y agowell then stop using their application? It asks for location access when you install it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- rylee 12y agoDid you even read the article? Snapchat is not a car ride app.
- PhilipA 12y agoWell if you don't pay for the app, the currency will be your data...
- pjc50 12y agoI'm sure the next step of this is someone commuting to work in an Uber finding it rolling up at Uber HQ instead. "You work here now." (More seriously, I'm again going to suggest that employers should develop a football transfer-style market for programmers, along with football-level salaries)
- rl3 12y agoThe meta aspect should be fun: Startup Manager 2016. Actually, the closest existing analog to that would probably be Game Dev Tycoon.
- toxican 12y agoI would play the hell out of that, just like I did with Game Dev Tycoon!
- DonHopkins 12y agoFantasy Scrum
- michaelochurch 12y agoFuck Scrum and the dysentery-spreading zombie horse it rode in on.
- Cakez0r 12y agoWe'll add that to the backlog.
- xtracto 12y agoAmazing. Just yesterday some colleagues and I were toying with the idea of creating a game called "Age of Startupts", an RTS game were you have to build your Technology Empire but starting with a simple "garage" and a couple of 'founders'. As part of this hypothetical game you would have to develop technology, by building research centers and creating (sorry, I meant recruiting) Data Scientists and Engineers. As the player keeps expanding, he would pass from the "mvp age" to "seed round age", then to "series A", "series B", "series C", until they get to the holy grail age of "IPO". But as with any good RTS, the player would have to compete with other players. This will mainly be in the form of a priest^WCEO which will travel to the other startups to 'wololo' Engineers and DataScientists so that they work for him. Another interesting option will be, the "secret agent", a guy (Eng, DS or Admin) who you can disguise as a unit from another player and leave in the middle of the enemy's Plex so that he believes that it is one of his units. Once the enemy player starts directing your 'camouflaged' unit you will be able to get new information about the adversaries. Should make an interesting game haha.
- sethbannon 12y agoIncoming Uber notification to everyone dropped off at Snapchat HQ...
- matthewmacleod 12y agoI want to be annoyed by this, but it's pretty clever I guess.
- skuhn 12y agoSnapchat may see this as "playful", and I doubt they gave it too much thought. I see it as putting their business interests before their users's privacy, and I think it's a breach of trust (however minor). The core problem is that even if Snapchat grows up enough to put some internal restrictions in place that prevent using end user data in this way, there will always be another company that has access to the same data with no compunctions about how to use it. I wish that societal pressure could put a stop to this sort of thing, but it seems pretty unlikely to happen. I think the only way to prevent misuse of end user data is if companies can't gather it in the first place.
- flyinglizard 12y agoIt balances out against the advantage to the engineer being poached (presumably to be better compensated). It's like targeted ads - sure, they breach on your privacy, but at least you get semi-useful stuff instead of total junk.
- skuhn 12y agoI can't imagine getting enticed away from a job by this kind of maneuver. All of these people are already, without exception, aware of Snapchat's existence. They probably also know that Snapchat, like everywhere else, is hiring like mad. In terms of feeding the applicant pool, this is probably even less effective than the constant stream of LinkedIn recruiter mail. And more privacy invasive to boot. Snapchat's target audience here also lives in the wrong city, since the article claims they are targeting Uber HQ in San Francisco. Snapchat's office is in LA.
- Findy3ti 12y agoIs this just not doing the same as the app currently does? It takes your location and provides a number of filters based on that. I'm not sure how them providing a filter around uber's location is any different, in regards to a users's privacy, to them providing a filter when you are in Paris for example
- rylee 12y agoWith all due respect, you are way blowing this out of proportion. This is the same thing as Snapchat currently supports — a silly little sticker based on your location. Just because it's an advertisement instead of Big Ben doesn't make it any more of a "breach of privacy".
- wodenokoto 12y agoI think some people in this thread are misunderstanding what they are doing. They are not reading people's snaps to profile if they are a top engineer and then send them job offers. They are using a feature, where if you are in Paris you can add a sticker of the Eiffel tower to your pictures, if you're in Egypt you can add the pyramids and if you are near the office of uber you (that is anybody) can add little taxis to your pictures. It's a cute feature, where if somebody adds Big Ben to a snap, you know he is in London. It encourages people to snap "in the moment" lest they forgo a cute sticker, but since it is just a sticker, you can hardly say they are forcing anyone to snap more.
- skuhn 12y agoIf it were simply little Uber cars driving around and nothing else, I would not take issue with it.
- wodenokoto 12y agoOkay, so it's an image of uber cars and some text.
- jusben1369 12y agoI wonder how much this was driven by SnapChats HR needs vs being a beta for SnapChat sales to show how you can build super unique targeted advertising. Couldn't Nike do a cute "unhappy with you Kicks?" And show a ghost in Nikes whenever someone was within 200 feet of a Footlocker? This advertising seems like an incredible advancement over anything we've seen (because it's real -.they're doing it)
- xrjn 12y agoThat's what I was thinking too. Just imagine all the potential that these sorts of snaps can have, especially given their audience which is often considered to be one of the most valuable [1]. Could be something as simple as a local ad for a mall or a country wide ad for a new film for example. [1] http://www.inc.com/issie-lapowsky/inside-massive-tech-land-grab-teenagers.html http://www.inc.com/issie-lapowsky/inside-massive-tech-land-g...
- jkot 12y agoGood way to get ban in any corporation. Snapchat is stealing our data and our employees...
- vorian 12y agoWhat data are they stealing? The user has to give them permission to access their location.
- s73v3r 12y agoHow are they "stealing" employees? Are they not people, and perfectly capable of making their own decision on where they want to work? If any company is bitching about having employees "stolen", maybe they need to do less bitching, and more looking at why people are wanting to leave.
- smoyer 12y agoI don't find it sneaky, and since it doesn't expose what's supposed to be a private and short-lived message (image) I also don't think it's "snooping". Geo-location is with us whether we like it or not. If you don't want applications knowing where you are, don't install them or turn off geo-location on your phone (yes ... this will break things).
- dkns 12y ago"It’s extremely hard for these companies to find good engineering talent" As someone who's trying to get his first junior position: is it really that hard or do they mean experienced engineers? Are companies generally not interested in hiring and training juniors?
- pjc50 12y agoAs in my other comment, they mean proven talent. It's very hard to assess engineers so the easiest way is to let some other company do it and then poach them. Training in this industry is basically a lie told to children. It doesn't exist at startups and barely exists at corporates.
- borgia 12y ago>Training in this industry is basically a lie told to children. It doesn't exist at startups and barely exists at corporates. Should it really though? As developers/testers/whatever position we occupy in the tech space, most of us are pretty good at picking up new languages/technologies/frameworks/tools etc. in a pretty short amount of time. Personally I think having well working teams with not only people of solid experience at the helm, but who have good communication skills and enjoy sharing knowledge, is far better in terms of developing juniors / new developers than simply sticking them on a few formalized training courses every year. Throw in collaborative 10%/20%/etc. time and you've a recipe for good development teams, in my opinion. Now, when you're talking about transitioning from a development position into project/team management and above, there should be training/mentoring/etc. provided, but in terms of core tech skills I don't think formalized training is the way to go.
- forgottenpass 12y agoShould it really though? As developers/testers/whatever position we occupy in the tech space, most of us are pretty good at picking up new languages/technologies/frameworks/tools etc. in a pretty short amount of time. Yes, it should exist. You've argued against whatever image of formalized training you seem to have a problem with, but provided a decent argument training (in general) should be provided. If developers are expected of to continually learn new things, and it can be done in a short amount of time, it is all the more reasonable for the business to treat that as training and budget time and money for it as such. The types of gaining knowledge that you acknowledge in your post are "a few formalized training courses every year" and "good communication skills and enjoy sharing knowledge". You seem to be ignoring the large band of training that exist between those two. Which is also the where most ongoing learning happens. Good communication skills and "collaborative time" allocated with percentages pulled from your rear is a fine (if slow) way to get people up to speed with the tech used at the office. But only serves to poorly normalize knowledge across the office.
- unclesaamm 12y agoIt's a prank! Giving a company their own geofilter seems like a fun tribute in a way.
- unclesaamm 12y agoIt's a prank! Giving a company their own geofilter seems like a fun tribute in a way.
- muglug 12y agoClearly not an anomaly – one app I've used (which loads my data from FB) popped a message saying "We're looking for engineers like you" (I studied CS at a top-ranked school).
- unclesaamm 12y agoIt's a prank! Giving a company their own geofilter seems like a fun tribute in a way.
- cpcallen 12y agoThis is amusing but not really new. When I worked as a site reliability engineer for Google here in London, I would get ads on Facebook reading "Come and work for Facebook as an SRE in London". I was always amused by the specificity of the targeting, since there were only about six of us at the time, but I suppose they did the same thing on a much larger scale in the bay area.
- imaginenore 12y agoWhy Uber?
- fabulist 12y agoThe article suggests that, since both companies are founded by Stanford grads, they have similar social networks and so are drawing on the same pool of talent. I have no idea if that is true or not. My two cents are, "why do you think its just Uber?" Its cheap to add filters, maybe they have them for Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. Maybe having one for direct competitors like WhatsApp is a bit much.
- bearlikelion 12y agoSnapchat responded saying that its not just Uber. They're targeting any company that fits into their potential talent pool. Its easy and cheap, the hardest part being the artwork. We also have no idea where they're targeting, since the geofilters are a call to Snapchat's servers.
- ryandrake 12y agoI really think writers need to stop misusing the word "Poach" for these articles. The title's phrasing heavily implies a number of untrue things: 1. Uber owns their engineers 2. Snapchat is trespassing on some kind of "territory" and attempting to "steal" Uber's property 3. The engineers involved are like fish or game, simply being taken away by someone else If someone chooses to go to work for another company, they aren't being "poached". They're informed participants in a business transaction, not to mention a major life event. They are voluntarily severing one business arrangement and entering into another one. This whole idea that when you go to work for a company, you turn in to some pheasant owned by the property's lord should be revolting to anyone who's worked hard on their career and their professional development. Just stick with the word "recruit." Leave out "poach" and its negative and demeaning connotations. EDIT: Typo
- simonebrunozzi 12y agoYou know? You're absolutely right. And words are important.
- catshirt 12y agoOxford English dictionary lists the following definition of "poach": "take or acquire in an unfair or clandestine way". seems reasonable to me, the connotations are your own. Company A takes or acquires Company B's talent. it's not about Company B owning the person, it's about Company B possessing an employee, the abstract.
- droopyEyelids 12y agoBoth 'take' and 'acquire' imply possession. RyanDrake is making the point that companies do not possess or own their employees. To use language implying they do is insulting and demeaning.
- catshirt 12y agosorry, i already edited my response to address just this (so to readers your response might not seem as relevant as it was). the technicalities of your argument imply that it is false for any company to say "we have X employees" and it is offensive for them to say "we have the best talent in the valley". the only truth would be "our company has no employees". if you feel that way, at least you're logically consistent. it just feels disingenuous to me.
- michaelochurch 12y agoIt bothers me that Snapchat being "playful" is seen as a good thing. Please don't be playful when people are trusting you to do a job that is important to them, like delete their photos. First, I find it pathetic that Snapchat has to use these kinds of sales tactics. Are they really that unable to find talent? The idea that there's hot demand for top talent is fucking absurd in an industry where engineers are thrown out by 40. There are plenty of good engineers out there who aren't earning half a million. Some are female, some are older than 40, and some didn't go to Stanford, but if you can't get past that, I don't know what to tell you. Second, "playful" is often annoying, and I for one am fucking sick of the juvenility/neoteny of the tech industry. I didn't even like it when I was young and supposedly a beneficiary of it (I wanted people to look up to, and there were few, just as now) and I especially don't like it now that I'm "old" (31) by tech standards. I want for us, as an industry, to get to work and solve hard problems, not be run by middle-aged underachievers who give millions of dollars to unqualified, juvenile hacks like Lucas Duplan and Evan Spiegel who come up with shitty ideas like this and think that it's cute.