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

271–280 of 1001 posts

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

#271

Post by home_boi »

knucklesandwich wrote: post #133
calcsam wrote: post #15

In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment: relationships within a reporting chain are generally prohibited, for both legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Sex becoming part of the effective job description crosses both legal and ethical lines, and team effectiveness is hindered when people wonder whether someone is getting special treatment because they're sleeping with the boss. A manager…

Tech workers (across all disciplines) need to unionize to combat this kind of thing. As has been pointed out below, HR that is staffed and incentivized by the company management only serves the interests of the management. A union is the only structure that can actually win demands for workers by organizing workers to withhold their labor. It's not a panacea, and there are several historical examples of union leaders…

I'm of the opinion that the average software engineer in the USA is already overpaid and underworked with excellent benefits and low incentive to unionize.

I'm simplifying it a bit but if you don't like your job, just grab a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview and apply to big companies. The big companies pay very well, have good benefits and interview everyone because of the need for a high head count

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

#272

Post by School-Cotton »

twblalock wrote: post #34
tsunamifury wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dig into the package, a lot of the value is locked up in unsellable shares. Vs immediately liquid RSUs of any public company.

I'm referring to the cash salary only.

Stock is exactly the same as cash to me, since I always sell all of it on the day it vests. Why would you only compare cash salaries when evaluating compensation? That makes no sense.

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

#273

Post by mikeash »

karussell wrote: post #93
sokoloff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my positive thing. Taking a cab to the airport from my house in Cambridge, MA runs about $42 before tip, so call it $48 or so. An UberX costs $24.30 right now and UberPool costs $14.30 right now. Additionally, I can summon the ride more easily and get better feedback about the arrival time, giving me more confidence/less anxiety that I'll have a problem getting to the airport on time. As a consumer, by reducin…

Wait until no one else is in the market. Then have fun with your positive thing/thinking :)

I don't see that happening. There's no natural monopoly here and almost no barriers to entry. The moment Uber tries to leverage being the only one left, someone new will undercut them.

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

#274

Post by bootload »

"When I joined Uber, the organization I was part of was over 25% women. By the time I was trying to transfer to another eng organization, this number had dropped down to less than 6%. Women were transferring out of the organization, and those who couldn't transfer were quitting or preparing to quit."

Uber is bleeding engineers to other startups. Will the replacements be of the same calibre?

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

#275

Post by projektir »

bootload wrote: post #251
projektir wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a pro-drinking culture at my company due to the nature of the business and I haven't found that it's causing any problems. It's generally done outside of work or for specific events, and I've never felt unsafe on any gathering where a lot of drinking was going on. This is a red herring, if anything. I think there's a difference between a culture where people drink a lot vs a culture where people get black out…

"We have a pro-drinking culture at my company due to the nature of the business and I haven't found that it's causing any problems." Anecdotal. If drinking is done outside work/events this isn't what is being described in the article. What about the personal who a) don't drink or b) harassed by those who do? Drinking at work tells me the place isn't interested in performance or their customers.

> 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 saying it doesn't have to.

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

#276

Post by spuz »

logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

I think it's worth pointing out that this kind of male dominated culture doesn't just put off female engineers but male engineers too. As a male I've worked in environments with a high male to female ratio and it makes for a stifling homogeneous type of culture. I've never experienced the kind of sexist culture described at Uber but I imagine that must feel even worse as a male employee. I definitely see few women as a warning sign when interviewing.

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

#277

Post by blhack »

bootload wrote: post #211
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…

"Culture was extremely heavy on the drinking;" For me this is a red flag. Booze + programming == pissed programming This leads to bad code also bad team dynamics. Ultimately this will reflect on the product and bottom line. For individuals this reads like a culture where the barrel is creating ^bad apples^. Not a good look on a resume.

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), and while it is certainly a lot of fun being there brainstorming things, I don't understand how anybody gets actual code written after drinking.

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

#278

Post by wheelerwj »

home_boi wrote: post #254
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…

The booze thing gets exaggerated at many places. It is usually the marketing/HR/business dev/sales teams that indulge in that culture. The engineering team is usually much more constrained in their alcohol consumption, although the media groups them with the frat boys from sales.

i don't know many BD/sales people who contribute to hackathons...

seems like the person above you was speaking specifically about engineers.

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

#279

Post by kbenson »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #233
kbenson wrote: post #176

The saddest thing about this to me is that she decided to stay for so long, and let the incidents stack up. I'm not sure if that's indicative of her personality, or what women in the industry have come to expect, and thus have a much higher tolerance for bullshit of this caliber. Unfortunately, from the repeated stories we hear I suspect it's the latter, and that's fucking tragic .

Sadly, this is par for the course for many women in tech and finance fields, and America in general right now. Look no further than our president for evidence of tacit approval of this behavior. I learned how to "bro" at a young age as I went to an all boys super preppy high school. Even though I'm a minority, I'm one of the "good ones" , so they feel comoftable not speaking in pc terms to me. The things I've heard a…

Wow, that's a jarring shift to heavy sarcasm that would be solidly in Poe's law territory without your first statement.

> so they feel comfortable not speaking in pc terms to me.

I think Donald Glover covered that fairly well in the first episode of Atlanta in the Flo Rida scene (both of them), but I'm not really one to judge the accuracy... (why is it so hard to find clips of that show?)

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

#280

Post by bootload »

Balgair wrote: post #270
bootload wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Culture was extremely heavy on the drinking;" For me this is a red flag. Booze + programming == pissed programming This leads to bad code also bad team dynamics. Ultimately this will reflect on the product and bottom line. For individuals this reads like a culture where the barrel is creating ^bad apples^. Not a good look on a resume.

... ahem , the Balmer Peak disagrees: https://xkcd.com/323/

duty calls hey?

https://www.xkcd.com/386/

Post reply on HN