Uber hiring after lay-off? Wtf

Facebook Rejnikanth
Sep 22 43 Comments

Got 2 reach outs from Uber recruiters this past week. A few friends have also reported the same.

Was there no effort to rebalance the teams and have those laid off reassigned.

Why hire after an 8% cur in workforce?

@uber

Uber
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 TOP 43 Comments
  • Uber jvr
    They presumably let go of poor performers, so that's why.
    Sep 22 12
    • Uber Wmfj76
      Stay away
      Oct 9
    • New / Eng dLbU73
      Thank you for your answer! Can you please elaborate a bit more on this please?
      Oct 9
    • Uber 󠀠
      Ignore the sour grapes. We are hiring again. Lay off was perf based. Basically those who were close or on PIP
      Oct 9
    • Uber Wmfj76
      Just wait till end of year, dummy. And see how many people they get rid of in name of PIPs. And also you’ll see there will be more layoffs on Monday.
      Oct 9
    • Uber 󠀠
      Good engineers have nothing to be afraid of. Headcount is open all around right now and price point should be attractive enough. Nobody can predict future but lots of optimism in equity analyst circles on target price next year
      Oct 9
  • Uber Wmfj76
    The engineering layoffs were not performance based. Lot of new hires and high performers I know got laid off. I should say stay away from Uber. It is not safe to go there now.
    Sep 23 0
  • Yes there was (is) an effort to rebalance teams.

    However the layoffs were in most cases performance based, and in a minority of cases, based on a stack rank of sorts.

    I heard on the PM side that the layoffs were more political but have no facts.
    Sep 22 4
    • Oracle bmwz
      Partial layoffs are always political. They are perceived as "more" or "less" political depending on how close you are with the decision-makers.
      Sep 23
    • Uber kpCA16
      This is not at all true. No effort to rebalance. We lost our best engineers while rest and vesters stayed. Stay away.
      Sep 23
    • Depends on the org maybe? But from what I saw, each org was given a quota and went from there.

      Rest and vesters were exactly one of the groups targeted by the layoffs. Maybe the formerly best engineers in your org were doing the same.
      Sep 23
    • Oracle bmwz
      That's what happens when every small group is given a quota. Statistically small samples cannot have Bell-curve performance, yet management almost always takes this easy out.
      Sep 23
  • Zero effort to rebalance the teams. I was a high performer for 2 years, about to be promoted.

    One pattern we all saw was the big majority of those laid off happened to be parents.

    Guess they think they can better control and pressure the younger ones to work their asses off.
    Sep 23 2
    • Amazon ugd4un
      If this is true, this is news.
      Sep 23
    • Maybe depends on the org, but they actually looked at commits when deciding the layoffs. People that started off as high performers then slacked off were actually targeted by layoffs (again, maybe depends on the org).

      In some cases I’m sure everyone was performing decently and they had to pick someone for some reason. It sucks, but that’s the way it is.
      Sep 23
  • Oracle / Eng I@m
    Story of every company!
    Sep 22 0
  • Amazon rwL83n
    I would never want to work for Uber now. It's going to be my interview practice company.
    Sep 23 1
    • New / Eng
      xoogler420

      New Eng

      PRE
      Google
       xoogler420more
      still better that amazon...
      Sep 29
  • Uber jdkn3
    Someone’s gotta do the work... and it ain’t gunna be me. Lots of people are full rest vest and leetcode mode. They destroyed morale so probably going to need some major turnover to get actual motivated people
    Sep 22 1
    • Oracle bmwz
      Leetcode bad, motivated good.
      Sep 23
  • Uber PbAx06
    People are leaving because:
    * quarter of the valuation expected a year ago
    * low, dropping stock price
    * new contractor laws
    * Doordash beating Eats
    * marketing layoffs and hiring freeze got everyone interviewing
    * eng layoffs got more people interviewing
    * an expected further dip in stock price when people can sell the stock
    * eng were down-leveled when they joined and it's not worth staying now

    Layoffs help as follows:
    * letting go of new hires to reclaim 100% of their equity
    * using the equity from laid-off new hires to get fresh new hires
    * focus company messaging to engineers to be about "post-layoffs" instead of how the other problems are being addressed
    * rumors of "low performers" and good packages make Uber look good, and keep existing engineers from wanting to quit now to be in the same "pool"
    Sep 23 1
    • Salesforce Bag Head
      Using equity from laid-off new hires to get fresh new hires is a galaxy brain strategy.
      Sep 23
  • Boeing has been doing this for decades. Hire them fire then hire & the cycle continues.

    Companies do this to get rid of highly paid people and bring in new people at a "cheaper" rate
    Sep 23 0
  • Cruise Automation / Eng ⛸️
    Uber has always stack ranked so this is business as usual
    Sep 23 4
    • Lol, Uber never stack ranked except during this layoff season.
      Sep 23
    • Cruise Automation / Eng ⛸️
      I know of someone who was let go in 2015 from stack ranking
      Sep 23
    • That was 4 years ago, things have changed immensely since then.
      Sep 23
    • Cruise Automation / Eng ⛸️
      You can't say "never" then
      Sep 24
  • Amazon
    azmix

    Amazon

    BIO
    Here to share my experience and knowledge inspired by the support I got from minimsft.
     azmixmore
    It’s Expedia v2 out there.
    Sep 23 0
  • Uber shakidaki
    Good time to join. Good complex problems. Stock is low, appetite to succeed is high. Few loud and, most likely laid off voices on Blind are noise.
    Sep 23 2
    • Databricks bunkmate
      Jfc, just stop already. This is the same bs Uber employees have been piling on for the past 2-4 years. Stock is undervalued, extreme appetite, blah, blah, blah...

      I wish you guys the best, but you all are a very brainwashed & annoying lot.
      Sep 27
    • New / Eng
      xoogler420

      New Eng

      PRE
      Google
       xoogler420more
      Uber amsterdam at least didn’t want to give me an interview... but i applied 1-2 mo ago, which was before layoffs
      Sep 29
  • New NgTu21
    If by "High Performers" being laid off you mean "People with high opinions of themselves and the work they USED to do," then yes, they laid off high performers. All but one of the persons in my org laid off were long-term rest and vesters who didn't actually do anything anymore so far as I could tell.
    Sep 23 0
  • Amazon cyrhjrid
    Very presumably. The idiot PMs I’ve seen are safe with BS.
    Sep 22 0
  • No they didn't. Mickey mouse amateur hour. They told people being laid off that they could reapply during exit interviews with hrbps lmao
    Sep 23 0
  • Intuitive Surgical maakasaki
    Those PM I know them very well
    Sep 22 0

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