
My Interview at Uber - akras14
https://www.alexkras.com/my-interview-at-uber/
======
TeeWEE
I once interviewed at Uber. I told them I was also interviewing at other
companies, to see what was available. They told me this was not "the people
they where looking for". And it wouldn't be "OK" to say something like that in
America. They where looking for people who really want to work at Uber.

I got an assignment to build a linked-list in language of choice, with a test-
suite. A weird assignment if you ask me. But i build it in Golang and
submitted it a day later.

After that I didn't get a reply for 3 weeks!! I then mailed them asking if
they where going to check out my work.

2 days later I got a reply, it was OK to continue. At that point my interest
for Uber was already gone. If they cant handle candidates well, the company
would probably be chaotic inside too.

I also don't like their arrogance.

An old colleague of mine is working at Uber, and he says the working times are
flexible, but more than 40 hours per week. And they have over 1000
microservices. And its normal to rewrite them often.

To me that seems like a bad architecture.

~~~
moonshinefe
They actually got you to build a linked list from scratch? That's somewhat
hilarious, considering you can get a book within 10 minutes that'll show you
how to do it, not to mention unless you're a terrible programmer who reinvents
the wheel and doesn't know how to google, that situation isn't realistic at
all.

~~~
UK-AL
Nearly every interview is not realistic at all. At least it's better than
whiteboarding.

~~~
moonshinefe
Fair point, but I'd at least expect an original assignment to be submitted
later that isn't like in thousands of data structure programming book out
there. Well, maybe expect isn't the right word, but I'd never run my
interviews with such trivial requests that don't reflect what the actual work
will be (hopefully they aren't writing LLs from scratch, anyway).

~~~
holydude
Do you have an example what would you ask on an interview ? I am just curious.

~~~
moonshinefe
Sure. If it's say a web application, I'd invite them to install the
framework(s) / libs used and to implement a basic feature that could actually
be used in an application they'd be working on. Nothing super complicated, but
something that wasn't "reinvent the wheel that's googled easily". I'm not
aware of many major programming languages these days that are missing linked
lists or similar data structs.

I'd also pay them for their time, regardless if they got the job.

------
fishnchips
I interviewed at Uber in Amsterdam and my experience wasn't great. They flew
me over for just one day (waking up at 5am just to get there on time) and kept
me interviewing between 11am and 7pm with no break for food and no food in
sight. After that they essentially forced me to take Uber back to the airport
once I told them that I just took a train from Schiphol. What's funny was that
the driver was so upset with the company that he bitched and moaned all the
way to the airport.

~~~
hocuspocus
8 hours of non-stop interviewing?! Do they manage to hire anyone?

~~~
fishnchips
I don't know. They didn't hire me.

------
PaulRobinson
In which somebody who didn't want to work for Uber, interviews at Uber, is
unimpressed, and they with him, but this realisation is kept secret until a
story about Uber culture blows up all over the web over a weekend.

By the way, it's spelt "suit", not "suite". I believe the e on the end has
escaped from "belive", which appears later in the article.

~~~
cyberferret
Yeah, just a tip OP: You might want to re-read your article for typos - there
were quite a few which detracted from the actual story for me.

But as an aside - I was looking forward to hearing more about what you could
learn from their corporate culture from the interview rounds. You mentioned
that they were almost always running in 'emergency' or 'fix it' mode and
expected staff to work long hours, but did you see it in the conduct of the
staff you met? Did they seem tired or frazzled?

Also, what did you manage to learn about the management structure and how they
treated employees there? Did you notice that people respected their managers,
or feared them, or felt disconnected from them?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
From the article:

    
    
        The guy interviewer was so tired from “staying up
        last night working” that he drank two energy drinks
        during our interview and forgot his laptop when he left.

------
OoTheNigerian
Dear Americans,

Being expected to tip a person for a service you just paid for is NOT normal!

Yes, in the EXCEPTIONAL situation where you want to give a person money for
whatever reason, please do so but do not change a default setting for
something that warrants it 10% of the time.

How does one justify going to a salon, being given a price by the barber,
paying it and still be expected to "tip" the person you just paid what was
asked for?

Uber including tipping will mess up the experience. Period. It will influence
ratings. Cos, how would a driver rate 2 passengers with equal service but one
tipped $20 and the other $0.

We from the rest of the world are very uncomfortable being forced to perform
this "optional" task.

~~~
plaidturtle
1\. I don't think the drivers can see how much you tip.

2\. In case of restaurants in the US, generally servers make very little
without tip. When you pay you are paying the restaurant and not the person who
serve you food. I know it's different in other countries but that's just how
things are here.

~~~
sagivo
> generally servers make very little without tip

So pay them more. isn't the whole point of paying for a meal is to include
expenses like paying employees? By paying tips you actually contributing to a
system that doesn't pay to employees.

~~~
Notre1
But, if you decide not tip someone, especially a food service worker that you
know is only making $2.35/hour, then you are punishing that worker. Punishing
them vastly more than you are punishing are system or the employer. If you
really don't want to support tipping culture, don't use any service/store that
allows for it and petition your legislature to change the laws.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_a food service worker that you know is only making $2.35 /hour_

This varies by state. For example, in Oregon the minimum wage is $9.75, and,
importantly: _Oregon is one of the few states that does not allow employers to
take a tip credit. Employees must be paid at least the full state minimum
wage, whether or not they also earn tips._

Despite this "high" wage, there is no shortage of restaurants in Oregon.
Somehow good restaurants do manage to stay in business here.

[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/oregon-laws-tipped-
em...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/oregon-laws-tipped-
employees.html)

------
rezashirazian
Nothing in this article really stood out for me. Anyone who has interviewed in
the valley is bound to come across disorganized recruiters, overworked
engineers, demanding hiring managers and an overall chaotic environments. This
is the norm.

The issues raised in Fowler's however is not normal and is something that Uber
should figure out as soon as possible.

------
beaner
This article seems to be capitalizing on the popularity of Susan Fowler's blog
post earlier today, which was rightfully popular for its outrageousness.

This one is just a weird uninformative rant that is mostly just a description
of an arduous but not particularly horrible interview day, plus some comments
about not liking the app.

It doesn't contain anything particularly new or insightful or damning about
Uber.

------
simplehuman
I wonder why the author feels those engineers waste their time compared to
Facebook and Google which is all about ads. Is this what they did studied
engineering for? To show best ads? Name one person who enjoys ads. Yet I can
be you millions who enjoy cheap timely taxi rides.

Terrible judgemental article. The author has preconceived notions and wants to
capitalize on the Uber hate wave.

~~~
akras14
Good point, my judgment was mainly based on engineers being
overworked/underpaid.

Re trying to capitalize... I want to contribute to the discussion, since the
time seems right for Uber to actually listen.

~~~
simplehuman
Sorry, I got a bit riled up there and my last line was probably unnecessary
:-)

I liked your article but would have liked it more if you had left out the
comparison to facebook part out. I have multiple friends at the big G and
facebook and trust me if that's not a waste of good engineering talent & life,
I don't know what is.

------
atemerev
Looks like a regular startup company interview.

I have no objections to Uber's business model, and a friend of mine earns
$5000/month being an Uber driver (that's in Switzerland, but still impressive
-- it helped him a lot when he had financial troubles).

Sexism, of course, is unacceptable, but that's from another story, not this
one.

~~~
icantdrive55
$5000/month is very impressive. Could you share his work routine?

I know one guy who leased a Prius. He didn't get the calls he was promised. He
ended up ruining his credit.

I hear these big numbers thrown around, and don't know whom to believe.

Five grand a month is great! Is there something different in Switzerland that
would account for his/her success?

My friend who leased the Prius lives in the Bay Area.

~~~
atemerev
He is a professional driver with stellar Uber rating, and tracks all events
and other potential price hikes, being exactly where he's needed the most (he
also chose one of the most expensive cities to work in, and lives in less
expensive area). But this is a full-time job with some research and planning.

------
khazhou
TLDR:

His interviewers were young and seemed stressed. One guy implied you should
work long hours. He realized mid-interview it wasn't for him. Finished
interview. He feels bad for drivers.

------
lettersdigits
> The driver said that Uber gave him more business, but he didn’t make as much

I asked many Uber drivers (outside and inside my own country), and they all
LOVED uber (bottom line - more jobs, more money, even if smaller profit
margins per job)

I think in general it was much more appreciated in third world countries. (And
also by me, safety-wise. regular yellow taxi drivers could be extremely
dangerous in these places. so many tricks to make on tourists).

I truelly cannot remember a negative comment about it.

> I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the
> one I’ve seen in the Lyft app

I think that the rating system is much more powerful (even economically) than
a $$$ tip.

A 5-start rating is even better than a $ tip - you will (in the long run, if
others rate you high as well) make more jobs (thus more money) if you have a
great rating.

Same goes the other way around: Giving 1-2 stars is even more criticizing than
not leaving a tip - if your average rating is lower you will get less jobs. if
it's below some threshold - game over.

I myself would prefer (if I were an Uber driver) that you just gave me a
pampering 5-star rating and then have a nice day :)

(edit: new lines) (edit2: responded to a different quote from the article)

------
underwater
It seems weird to me that the author was so uninformed going into the
interview. I do everything I can to tip the balance in my favour during a job
hunt.

------
horsecaptin
There seems to be a conflict in the article. The writer questioned Uber's need
to pay less in real dollars and more in funny money, but is happy to stick to
Lyft "even if it costs me a few extra dollars".

I understand if one company is a better culture fit than another, but if the
motivation is to make more money, then wouldn't it be better to work for
someone who will actually pay more money?

~~~
jaredsohn
I don't see a conflict or even see what those statements have to do with each
other.

It seems to me that the writer includes his values when making a decision
(willing to pay more for Lyft, not interested in working at Uber due to a
culture mismatch) and also doesn't weigh Uber's financial package as highly as
some other companies because of their stock situation.

I didn't see the writer say that his motivation was to make more money, but
even if that is the goal, my impression is that it looks like other companies
that allow selling their stock and/or offer higher compensation would be
better ways of doing that in his view.

------
Kiro
> I was planning to tip him well, but couldn’t find the tip option like the
> one I’ve seen in the Lyft app.

The best feature of Uber compared to Lyft if you ask me.

------
diminoten
I think some of the stuff in this story reminds me of the crazy MBA interview
shit someone was telling me about going through just recently.

For example, Amazon had a "bar raiser" who'd be somewhat intentionally
offputting and as part of the interview they gauged your response to this
person's mannerisms. Same with the frequent and seemingly chaotic interview
situation. Two different "tactics" meant to determine how you handle
unexpected situations.

"The Interview" is such terrible black magic, there's simply no way these
techniques provide reliable predictivity towards someone's success in their
job. I would _love_ to hear about specific metrics regarding expected vs.
actual success, and while I know it'd be impossible to know how someone would
have done had you hired them, you can at least know how well someone did who
you did hire, based on your expectations. Like, if someone scores "well" on
the "Is it cool if I take my shoes off during this?" stress test, does that
actually make them more likely to be a good employee?

I currently believe no one in HR knows the answer to that question, though the
assumption is largely, "Yes."

------
wallabie
Long post warning - this is just a perspective about shitty HR in the vein of
this post, not sexism, like the original Fowler post.

Late last year at 10am on a Thursday, I got a call asking if I wanted to
interview for a HR position with Uber in Australia. He wanted the position
filled ASAP, so we organised an interview for that evening.

I had already accepted an offer from another company for a summer internship
in software dev, an area I was actually interested in, but I was beguiled by
the Uber brand and was practically willing to give up a lot to work for them
as a result. I am not interested in HR by any stretch, and believe that HR
staff are better put to use removing staples from about-to-be-recycled paper
or other more productive ends.

I 'passed' the initial interview and was asked to do the following:

\- Draft a cold email to a potential hire, with the goal to fill an existing
vacancy in the company;

\- Pass an extensive, three-hour 'data analytics' test (see: basic-
intermediate data manipulation and analysis in Excel) hosted on HackerRank.
This was actually fairly challenging because you're purposefully time-poor
throughout the test;

\- Create a PowerPoint presentation outlining a plan to target university
grads. This was also challenging since if I was given a template with pre-made
slide designs, it would be pretty easy. But I designed a slide deck from
scratch completely in line with the Uber design guidelines, including
typeface, color and other design requirements, on top of my recruitment
strategy;

\- Trawl through their current Uber Careers website and list as many possible
ways that it could be improved.

So I was given this Thursday night. He wanted the tasks done asap, but I told
the recruiter that I had an assignment due Tuesday, and that it would be quite
a crunch. He 'relented' and gave me until Sunday night. As I write this, I
realise that he was unabashedly using my enchantment with the company to his
favour.

I did nothing that entire weekend but work on those items, and handed them all
in Sunday evening, right on time, to the detriment of my assignment. I found
out later (through a contact in the company, not from the recruiter) that I
scored over 80% in the online exam, and that all the other items were very
well received.

Despite this, I never received anything back from the recruiter at all.
Nothing except a boilerplate rejection email, featuring photo of Diversity
Hire #1 and #2 laughing over coffee and 'Thank you for your application.
However, we cannot proceed with your application at this time...' The
recruiter insisted that they tried to call me (again, I heard this through the
contact) but lo and behold, despite being glued to my phone for over a week,
my phone didn't ring once. The incredible disrespect I felt from this
experience will mean that I'll never apply to them for any role, ever.

Tl;dr - my perspective of Uber is that they are entitled to your best work,
and have no intention to reciprocate.

~~~
geomark
I think you got played. I saw that before as a hiring manager at an old school
company when other departments would exercise candidates and sometimes pick up
a nice little gem of an idea or two for their own use. Especially that part
about revieiwing their website - that's paid work.

~~~
wallabie
I certainly had this in the back of my mind. But I knew someone who got hired
doing the exact same thing - my contact. So I had good reason to think that
this effort would be worth something, and Uber can certainly afford to pay for
those kinds of services. Of course, like you are saying, nothing stops them
simply just using what I did and telling me to fuck off, which is what
happened.

------
sokoloff
> I work at Apixio and we are hiring. Please hit me up if you would like to
> join us.

This seems like an odd juxtaposition with an article detailing the author's
interview at another company...

------
plaidturtle
Poorly written (probably because it was written in a hurry to piggy back on
Susan's article). This doesn't contribute anything new to the conversation.

~~~
chipperyman573
If you look past the typos the article does bring up a few new points.

(BTW, the author said he was ESL, which might explain the typos).

~~~
plaidturtle
More than the typos, I was more put off by the structure and sentence flow
which made me feel like it was haphazardly put together, but didn't know he is
ESL. Thanks for pointing that out. My apology to the author.

------
_bpo
The tldr here is that this is a nice recounting of personal experience
interviewing with Uber and being frustrated by it, pointing out the many
warning signs seen in the interview about a toxic work culture.

The post was prompted by the phenomenal writeup by Susan Fowler on her year
working with Uber. If you can read only one, certainly read hers. If you can
read only two, consider reading Susan's twice as it's exceptionally good
writing. This is a nice (not exceptionally original) personal account of a bad
interview experience.

~~~
moonshinefe
I'm not familiar with the other write up you've mentioned, but I enjoyed this
blog post. It's nice to know warning signs for potential companies you could
work for. We have to stick together in IT and not let companies take advantage
of us.

If doing 80 hours of work in 40 and all the other warning signs is no big deal
to you, by all means, gun for an Uber position in that area. I'd like to hear
about that though before I waste my time, so well done by OP.

~~~
akras14
[https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-
on...](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-
strange-year-at-uber)

~~~
zxmys
lol!!

------
ar15saveslives
I can write the same blog post about onsite interview at Google, which was a
horrible 6 hours marathon with people that copying to their notes all that you
draw/write on whiteboard.

Questions/problems are pretty lame, btw. Do one geeksforgeeks problem a day,
you'll be able to crack it in a year.

~~~
akras14
I have also unsuccessfully interviewed at Google in the past. My biggest
complain there was that people felt a bit snooty.

But I did not get a sense of such extreme underpaid/overworked culture as I
got from Uber.

------
cft
And yet, despite all these politicizing attempts, Uber has essentially
transformed urban transportation in the 21st century.

~~~
watwut
They did not transformed all that much, they are taxi service like any other.
Where they were actually forced to follow the same rules as everyone else
(Germany), they do not have better prices. Basically, they are good in taking
advantage of corrupt system and make the corruption work for them.

~~~
vmateixeira
This one is the key. If it wasn't for corruption and breaking laws they
couldn't practice such prices. Plus the fact that they manage to get revenue
from both riders and drivers.

