(Folks this is just a FYI from an Uber engineer. This is not a PR post - this is a voice from people who feel unfairly judged to be bad people) What may seem surprising to some: Uber has a great work environment with many talented, hard working folks who are respectful to each other. And solving hard problems - having a huge positive impact on society - providing a platform to millions of people to earn off it and moving things efficiently in the world, reducing pollution/congestion, etc. It may seem weird and self-serving to say this - but it has to be said since the media has unfairly painted a picture which is polar opposite of what is actually inside and what is real. Note that Susan Fowler blog talks about a few people - while the company has 15,000 employees!! The blog post was generalized from 2-4 folks to 15,000 by the media which I feel you can understand was crazy. But: Uber accepted fault and has tried to do a lot to become a lot better. Their deep investigations resulted in firings of 20 people and warnings to other people, so we got rid of all kinds of bad apples. Uber has added a lot of processes in HR so that any complaints do not get missed in the future. We are also working hard on improving the workplace culture now. (Rapid growth had caused certain problems). There were some values being used to justify bad behaviors which have been removed. Uber is now becoming a very employee friendly company. They are even changing the entire perf review process based on employee feedback. Which frankly I have never seen any other company do even though the perf review process is broken at most companies. Company is working hard to improve diversity and inclusion (its numbers were comparable to other Silicon Valley companies even then it was unfairly blamed, but we are now aiming higher) We are trying to make Uber 2.0 the best company to work for. No kidding. We have been the fastest growing and most disruptive startup, now we are taking employee culture head on. I have worked in top tier companies in the Silicon Valley for past 15+ years. And I have never seen a company try to do much to listen to employees and improve. (Now a plug, feel free to ignore: This is the best time to join Uber 2.0 as we are trying to make the company the best ever ;) )
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Is Uber still offering crazy RSU? Any advice for the on-site? I'll have an on-site there soon.
Its getting better, but honestly I fear we are gonna become over sensitive and start rewarding cry babies with an agenda. The core of Uber us hustle and meritocracy, let's keep that intact.
I hate it when that happens.
this is not your problem right now
Way to go, Uber folks! Keep up the good work and the great service and everything will be fine.
You don't want us to generalize Susan's experience to the rest of the company. Why are you then telling us to generalize your experience to the rest of the company? I'm also guessing you are not a girl working at Uber, could be wrong. That being said. There is a difference between deciding things need to change because you are getting bad PR vs pushing changes when employees come to HR complaining about sexual harassment. There are many companies that are not filled with angry sexually frustrated dbags. Why take the risk when you are in demand and most companies pay top dollar?
I am talking based on experience of hundreds of people I interact with. And the changes Uber is making is clear to everyone in the company. Uber made a mistake - when it was growing very fast the HR devoted more resources to recruiting rather than employee relations. However they have rectified that and also improved HR complaint resolution processes so that will not happen again. If you think Uber is filled with "angry sexually frustrated dbags" you are simply generalizing from a very, very few folks to the whole company; which is obviously wrong. Whoever they were, they have been fired.
I am generalizing from all the Uber employees that post in the Tech Lounge.
Susan Fowler was an entry-level employee who could barely last one year at her job. Instead of doing actual work, she spent most of her time self-promoting, playing the diversity card, emailing HR, squabbling about jackets, writing her book, and taking remedial CS classes. As many problems as Uber may have, Susan Fowler is the last and least credible person on earth who could convince me that Uber had a bad environment.
I was not convinced one bit by Susan. I was convinced 100% by the Uber employees in the Tech Lounge over the last year or so. Even if everything they say is false, to have so many employees trying to sink the ship is surely telling of some cultural issues within the company. For so many people to be unhappy to the point where they bash their company every day on Blind...
^ ironic coming from someone who works for a website which employees use to bash about their companies.
Ok then hire me please. Referrals appreciated!
Pm your resume
Uber getting better, and I belive that is really the case despite all the negative sentiments flowing around, benefits all of us in the first place. I would also love Amazon to improve where they have room for improvements because they are amazing business. And I hope Microsoft to increase their stock compensations to matcb other top tier companies. And I wish all the best to Snapchat, to grow their user base and build the great and successful business.
Anything else you'd like to throw into your Christmas wish list?
Yeah, AI to slow down
We are becoming much better but also way too sensitive. All the recent interviews are diversity candidates, and our org had 3 offsites in the last few weeks.
Yes that's true. But I guess we will probably err on the side of becoming too sensitive until we weather the negative PR storm - then things will normalize to be more balanced. I also feel we are hiring too many diverse candidates. But when the next years diversity numbers show strong improvement that will normalize too I think
Yeah but I think what E13 is saying is that we are resorting to tokenism to remediate things. I've been in interviews where we are lowering bars to hire diversity candidates. We are a business at the end, we should hire the most qualified.
Tldr
congratulations
Not everything is good yet, and I can only speak of myself. but I personally feel it's miles better than Amazon now. I feel happy at Uber. We will be unfairly judged, it's okay.
agreed. obviously not perfect but much better than my time at msft.
now you know what it feels like to work at a place you like but everyone throws shade at ¯\_(ツ)_/¯