
Snapchat Sneakily Uses Its Own App to Poach Uber Engineers - coloneltcb
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2015/04/15/snapchat-sneakily-uses-its-own-app-to-poach-uber-engineers/
======
ryandrake
I 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

~~~
catshirt
Oxford 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
Both '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
sorry, 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.

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pjc50
I'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)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Athletes are known for being extremely successful in collective bargaining and
labor actions, both of which tend to be anathema to the software engineering
community.

~~~
minikites
It tends to be anathema to most "white collar" workers which is a shame, the
concept of organized labor is beneficial to all workers.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Organized labor is great when you've got a local labor monopsony (one-buyer)
which is exploiting your work. This was clearly the case in many company towns
back in the organized-labor movement's heyday, and still has relevance to
groups like public school teachers, but the last figures I've seen say that
economists estimate that the average rate of exploitation in the US at large
is somewhere roughly between 1%-3% (because switching firms is an expensive
proposition).

There's a reason that labor union membership is at an all-time low, and yet
here we are with the labor movement trying to double down on a 19th-century
solution to our 21st-century problems. The concept of organized labor is more
beneficial today to _robots_ than it is to Americans -- robots, and imports
from developing nations.

We won't even get into all of favors the labor movement _hasn 't_ done itself
on various topics, either, like union leaders paid executive-like compensation
or the Teamsters' ties to organized crime.

~~~
fragmede
> economists estimate that the average rate of exploitation in the US at large
> is somewhere roughly between 1%-3% (because switching firms is an expensive
> proposition).

Average, possibly, but that's definitely low for certain sectors, eg workers
on an H1-B visa. It also doesn't help when firms collude to make switching
firms even harder, eg: when Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar,
Lucasfilm and eBay agreed not to recruit each other's employees.*

To think organized labor is antiquated because the economy has moved on from
single-company mining towns is naive. The simple fact is that corporations
don't have your best interest in mind any more than you can claim you always
have your employer's best interests at heart.

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Li...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

~~~
fennecfoxen
> The simple fact is that corporations don't have your best interest in mind
> any more than you can claim you always have your employer's best interests
> at heart.

This is true. It also applies to the labor union, and to the government.

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jusben1369
I 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
That'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-g...](http://www.inc.com/issie-lapowsky/inside-massive-tech-land-grab-
teenagers.html)

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wodenokoto
I 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
If it were simply little Uber cars driving around and nothing else, I would
not take issue with it.

~~~
wodenokoto
Okay, so it's an image of uber cars and some text.

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skuhn
Snapchat 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
It 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
I 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.

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dkns
"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
As 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
>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
_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._

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.

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sethbannon
Incoming Uber notification to everyone dropped off at Snapchat HQ...

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matthewmacleod
I want to be annoyed by this, but it's pretty clever I guess.

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smoyer
I 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).

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cpcallen
This 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.

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amelius
This attitude of "we can use your data for whatever we like" has to stop!

~~~
william20111
well then stop using their application? It asks for location access when you
install it.

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muglug
Clearly 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).

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unclesaamm
It's a prank! Giving a company their own geofilter seems like a fun tribute in
a way.

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jkot
Good way to get ban in any corporation. Snapchat is stealing our data and our
employees...

~~~
vorian
What data are they stealing? The user has to give them permission to access
their location.

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imaginenore
Why Uber?

~~~
fabulist
The 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.

~~~
mahyarm
Travis graduated from UCLA, not stanford.

~~~
fabulist
Whoops, I guess I misunderstood the article.

------
michaelochurch
It 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.

