Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

susanjfowler.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 1001 posts

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#501

Post by [deleted] »

billconan wrote: post #312
uber_eng_throw wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking this top comment to provide some personal experiences. I started as an engineer in the spring of 2014 and this was definitely the case there. Top engineers were being poached from Google/FB and these people were trying to carve out territory in a quickly growing engineering team. The misogynistic culture, in my mind, comes from most of the early employees being former frat bros. Culture was extremely heavy…

I went to visit the instagram office on the fb main campus and saw a huge liquor exhibition.

[deleted]

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#502

Post by throwaway729 »

kartickv wrote: post #430
owenmarshall wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies operate on the myth that the people responsible for doing work are interchangeable cogs that can be eliminated and replaced by a new doer with little to no impact to how the company functions. So if you have enough traumatic brain damage to buy that line, stack ranking makes a ton of sense.

I had this exact same conversation with a manager who seemed suprised when I told him people are not interchangeable cogs. He said that some people may be quicker at a particular technology / domain / whatever, or quicker to ramp up, or do slightly better work, but smart engineers can and do learn anything needed and do work that's good enough after a ramp-up that's short enough. Beyond that, he says, there are minor…

" I don't doubt that has been true on all the teams you've managed. My experience differs significantly, and there's a lot of data which indicates my experiences may have been more representative. Caveat Emptor, of course

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#503

Post by KirinDave »

It's quite unfortunate that it requires someone to take a huge public risk to bring attention to this, despite the fact we all live around it every day.

Many companies have this problem. Everyday we can make it better, make it less prevalent, and change how management, engineering, designing, hiring, recruiting, and socialization are done.

Nothing is going to change if all that comes of this is folks hemming and hawing on chat forums. Not much will even change if you decide that this is the final straw to delete Uber. What will make a change is if you go to work on Tuesday and ask your HR rep, "What is the protocol for this?" Make sure they have it in writing. At a small company? Ask the founder to make sure this is covered. Make sure that everyone agrees that these actions cannot go unpunished because people are "high" performers.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#504

Post by ChuckMcM »

grey-area wrote: post #281
ChuckMcM wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Top engineers were being poached from Google/FB and these people > were trying to carve out territory in a quickly growing engineering > team. It is always a bit sad when one of the top characteristic of an engineer from organization X is their political ability to carve out an empire. I'm a bit surprised she doesn't have at least one law firm trying to get her to be the lead claimant in a class action lawsuit. See…

I'm a bit surprised so many people want to give her advice. She's already taken a really bold step and written cogently and in a balanced way about her situation, the toxic culture at Uber, and made it clear she's moved on to a better place. Why talk about what she should be doing and hasn't done as if there is only one way to resolve this? Why not give thanks to the writer for writing this and putting up with all th…

I think this is a good point.

The discussion here really highlights how people combine what they are reading with what they are thinking into a combined message.

I was reading her account and the GP comment from the uber throwaway and making observational comments about people who spend time on political maneuver versus doing excellent work. I've known a number people over my career who got promoted often and achieved great "success" but did so by manipulating the organization and not by doing anything particular noteworthy.

In my experience, that sort of behavior can really only be stopped top->down. There isn't any way that I have found to help someone see that they are incorrectly evaluating employee contribution from a position below there grade level. And like the author found, if the bad behavior continues above your manager, then that is a level of brokenness you can't fix. And as you point out she got out and was moved on.

I also phrased it as an observation, but I am sure that on reading her account there may be lawyers looking for a big payday (Uber is vulnerable) who will approach her. It's what lawyers do. Generally more established companies have a tighter rein on their illegal management practices to make it harder on the lawyers :-)

Uber was wrong, on every level, and that was status quo. And the cost of naming that wrong and speaking of it is high. It is sad that they are not unique in that wrongness.

There is only one way to make this better, and that is to tie this sort of behavior to a loss of money. There are many things we might advocate which impact Uber financially; One is to sue them, One is to give witness to their wrongness so that others will not work there, One is to boycott them as a customer or driver.

Sadly, there is no way to "fix" them because this appears to be cultural. That is the worst part for me, knowing about the rottenness in a company, knowing it "could" be addressed by a strong leader providing incentives for good behavior and disincentives for bad behavior, and knowing that no fixing will happen. That said if their competitors have a stronger (and better) culture, then they will be able to attract top talent in the space and dominate the market. We'll see if that works in this case.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#505

Post by crooked-v »

softawre wrote: post #431
crooked-v wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have literally never seen stack ranking mentioned in any context but horror stories and toxic company culture. What on earth possesses people to keep using it?

Because you have to do it on some level? How do you choose who to let go when for whatever reason you have to cut 10% of your staff?

There's a substantial difference between "using stack ranking" and "using employee evaluations".

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#506

Post by madeofpalk »

bootload wrote: post #290
projektir wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anecdotal. Sure, but I'm not entirely sure what else you expect. Isn't your statement also anecdotal? > If drinking is done outside work/events this isn't what is being described in the article. Sorry, what article? It's not mentioned in the main OP, and the person a few parents up is talking about what sounds very much like events or after work happy hours. I can absolutely see how that can turn bad, I'm just sayi…

Are you really supporting drinking at work? Tell me about the great experiences through the eyes of other people. "talking about what sounds very much like events or after work happy hours" The number of engineers bleeding from uber suggests, drinking isn't ^the problem^ but one part of a bigger culture problem. Do you work at Uber?

> Are you really supporting drinking at work?

Yup. 100%. Because I'm an adult and I and my coworkers know how to drink responsibly and not make a fool of ourselves and keep things relatively professional.

It's not like I'm taking shots of vodka at the top of every hour - it's maybe having a beer or two at the end of Thursday and Friday, or having a boozy lunch every now and then to celebrate a success or birthday or someone leaving.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#507

Post by z0r »

st3v3r wrote: post #355
blhack wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to be honest, I know a lot of people who claim that they can write really good code if they've been drinking. I just absolutely do not understand how that is even possible. If I have ONE beer, it throws off my ability to write good code, or hold all of the concepts in my head. One of the weekly coworking meetups I go to always ends at a brewery (there is a brewery next door to the hackerspace where it is held)…

For me, it can be a matter of actually doing it. I often suffer from analysis paralysis, so being a little tipsy means that I will actually write the thing. It'll be terrible, but it'll get done, and then sober me can go back and clean it up. Or I'll go to far, write it, and it'll be unusable.

I used to do this sometimes in university. Haven't done it since entering the workforce, but they say sleep deprivation results in similar performance to being drunk. Not proud of it but I've found myself cornered into nightmare sleep deprived coding marathons by analysis paralysis / procrastination a number of times over the last few years. Alcohol might be preferable.
Post reply on HN