
Uber Freezes Hiring of U.S. Tech Staff as It Seeks to Cut Costs - raiyu
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-09/uber-freezes-hiring-of-u-s-tech-staff-as-it-seeks-to-cut-costs
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valleyjo
Huh. I had a phone screen scheduled for next week. The recruiter emailed me to
say they had some updates to share. I guess this is it...

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xxxpupugo
Just the beginning of the ending of the round of tech boom we have seen.
Overhiring might be a cause of it, but big companies overhiring isn't
particular unique to Uber, and when they start to curb hiring, some
fundamental correction of perception is probably under way.

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pm90
Uber is not a big company

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jpeg_hero
22,000 workers not big?

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vadym909
So almost $4B of their losses were were from stock costs to employees. All
hell might break loose if the drivers ever found out how much Uber employees
made/make!

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techntoke
I don't think so. Drivers are looking for short-term opportunities that are
mildly rewarding. I think they already faced the reality that making $25,000 a
year to drive around and get to meet and network with people is a better fit
for them than a factory job or fast food work. I don't think this fits the
profile for all of them, but I also don't think they compare their jobs to IT
employees and would only be bothered by it if there was an opportunity to
unionize behind it to see some benefit.

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fnord77
Seems at their scale, they could operate their app/infrastructure by charing
drivers 10% per ride or less and still rake in the money.

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n_ary
tl;dr:

1\. laid off 400 "marketing" staff(global)

2\. hiring freeze in U.S.(& Canada) for engineering(software) & PMs, due to
reaching hiring quota for this year

3\. $5.24B net loss(biggest ever)

4\. hiring continues for logistics, autonomous-car etc..

Interesting facts indeed.

Why does Uber(& the likes) need to continue hiring engineers/PMs really?
Unless they are opening new products every year, can't their existing
engineering handle all of the existing products? Given how well they pay(heard
info), am curious whether engineers still leave after a while, needing
constant replacement every year?

Am not demeaning anything, am really curious. I assumed places like
Uber/ABNB/Lyft don't lose staff easily.

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walshemj
They do have to replace the churn, I haven't heard the Uber has radically
different average tenure for engineering.

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zed88
Recession is in the air and the tech gravy train fueled by the VC culture
stops here (Hopefully!).

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jsnider3
It turns out that selling things for less than it costs is a bad business
model.

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jjeaff
For those in charge, it probably worked great. VCs likely dumped their shares
on the secondary market right before or after the IPO. (thus completing the
"dump" portion of the traditional "pump and dump" scam.)

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raiyu
With the number of board members resigning post IPO there is a high chance
that many shares will be sold once the lock up expires. They wouldn't sell
before the IPO as would depress the stock price significantly.

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porker
They could save a substantial amount of the salaries by offshoring their
technical team.

Even to the UK, where tech salaries top out around $100k.

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throwitaway2364
> the UK, where tech salaries top out around $100k.

Citation needed.

I work in a FAANG in London. I am a middle-performer in a non-senior position
and not even a "real" software engineer (I code, but its not my main job
responsibility) and I am £84K/$101K basic, £149K/$180k total-comp. If I were a
proper engineer, I'd expect to get at least 15-20% more than that, and if I
were promoted to a "senior" position I'd expect a similar 10-15% pay rise too.

There is money to be had in London.

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throwaway082729
Total comp for a middle engineer at Uber is $450k.

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sonofaplum
Do you have direct experience or knowledge of this? Cause this doesn't square
with my anecdotal knowledge or my sense of the bay area labor market. For
instance levels.fyi quotes total comp for mid level engineers in the 250
range, which tails much closer to Google, Facebook, etc.

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throwaway082729
Yes I do. I know someone that got this offer and recently joined. I helped
them negotiate and pick offers. This was a staff engineer but the person had
only 6 years of experience.

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aardvarklegend
Staff (l7) is no where near middle engineer. L6 is senior, l5 is engineer and
l4 is entry level. L6 is also split into two bands 6a and 6b. As a 6a my total
comp is around 240 and on par with my coworkers. The l5s were closer to 200.
L5 is a middle engineering level.

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kerng
L6 is staff at Uber. They have this weird 5a/5b thing. Meaning Amzn/goog/fb L7
= Uber L6. Msft would probably 65/66 map to Uber L6.

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goatinaboat
Let’s be honest, Uber massively over hired in tech, either to create the
illusion of being a tech company (to help raise VC), or because some within
the company truly believed they were. They are no more a tech company than
WeWork or Airbnb is. The company blog gives a clue to this, they seem to do an
awful lot that is cool and fun and completely unrelated to regulatory
arbitrage (or booking taxis). Uber could ditch anywhere between 50-90% of
their techs tomorrow and it would not impact their operations one iota.

Anyone working in tech there needs to polish up their resume and hope that the
many scandals at Uber hasn’t tainted them too.

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ulfw
Not that I want to defend Uber. I do agree with you.

Yet the same can be said about most large companies though. Even large "real"
tech companies. Googles revenues wouldn't drop a bit for years if 50% of
engineers were gone. That's just the reality of large enterprises.

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pkaye
There is a lot of "make work" kind of project at some of these companies. Lets
design a whole new logging infrastructure or database instead of adopting or
improving something that already exists. Or lets overanalyze the the font that
we use for our webpage or design a new font because we have a lot of VC money
and nothing better to do.

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r00fus
I see it as cargo-cult facade that they hope will attract the kind of
engineers that work for FAANGM.

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OrgNet
the start of the end? nice. what a scummy company...

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dehrmann
It's complicated. They provide better service than incumbent taxi services,
but they were only able to do that because Travis Kalanick build a culture
that's not too concerned with legalities. And Lyft was only able to do it
because Uber led the way.

I'm not as concerned with how it's been devastating to medallion holders and
the state of the gig economy. Bad government policy was responsible for those
problems, Uber just took advantage of it.

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ghaff
One of Uber's most impressive accomplishments was that they were able to
generate sympathy in many circles for the incumbent cab companies. It took
real ingenuity for them to get themselves painted as the bad guys given how,
in most markets, essentially no one likes cabs. OK, people are fine with
private cars and cabs in a few cities like London (mostly) but they're
expensive.

Uber and Lyft really are better experiences than random cabs most of the time
but their culture still managed to turn off a lot of people who worry about
such things.

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sbarre
> Uber and Lyft really are better experiences than random cabs most of the
> time

For the passenger yes, but not for the drivers, and they are people too.

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ViViDboarder
I know this is anecdotal, but I often ask this to drivers who used to drive
for cabs. 9/10 they say they prefer Uber/Lyft because of their ability to set
hours.

Though, that was mostly a few years ago when a lot of the drivers came over.

Lately I’ve heard a lot of complaints about their commission percentage, but
fewer drivers who used to drive cabs, so I’m not sure how they feel in
comparison.

