Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#431

Post by wolco » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #406

irthomasthomas wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume all the developers are men? as in members of mankind... All people are men.

This is going to sound stupid but at some point, it's less important what's right and more important how something makes people feel.

When you move into how people feel are we introducing inequality? People feel at different rates. Some can go into a rage in an instant while others can be a rock. Are we rewarding the primate brain over scientific obvervations when we choose to accept personal feeling as the gold standard? Should we be encouraging one over the other?

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#432

Post by wegs » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

anticsapp wrote: post #295

wegs wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a suggestion, point people to a personal web page or portfolio. Especially for a front-end engineer, I would never recruit someone based on a LinkedIn profile. That's doubly-true in this market. To make it through the filter, it doesn't need to be fancy or take a lot of time, but it does need to be tasteful. Of course, fancy and playful go a very, very long ways for separating yourself from all the other people wh…

I'd much rather have a LinkedIn or a GitHub, I can't stand personal portfolio sites with a lot of frippery and it's unclear what they actually have accomplished. He needs to put line items into his LinkedIn, that's for sure. But he was probably dodging recruiterspam.

It's not an either-or. Hiring, you want as many independent data points as you can. An ideal candidate would have:

1) A strong resume / linkedin. Worked on projects which were successful. Worked for companies with rigorous recruiting processes. Didn't job hop randomly.

2) Good references from people I trust. In an ideal case, a personal referal.

3) A nice portfolio. I can see artifacts on github, on their web site, and through publications in academic journals.

4) A strong undergraduate school. Passed undergraduate recruiting.

5) A strong interview

6) A history of interest in what we do.

I don't think I've ever met an ideal candidate, but as an applicant, you want to give as many strong signals on all of those fronts as you can.

If all he had was an on-line portfolio, I probably wouldn't hire either.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#433

Post by phatfish » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

kikokikokiko wrote: post #184

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I had to make this decision because our very future as an essential service for the cities of the world — our being there for millions of people and businesses who rely on us — demands it." This is only one sentence in an otherwise fairly measured email, but it nevertheless annoyed me given the context. Uber is not an "essential service". They made this decision so that they can stay in business to make money for th…

Tell that "Uber is not an essential service" to the millions of otherwise unemployable people that were able to feed their families using it. In countries like Brazil, where I'm from, the fall of Uber will have a gigantic impact. Gig economy apps BECAME ESSENTIAL parts of our lives, there's no denying it. But it was never sustainable. When everybody benefits from a product/service, other than the company that offers…

All the gig economy apps do is ensure the poor stay poor.

When you are working 10-12 hours a day to make ends meet and shoulder the all costs of the depreciating fix assets there is very little opportunity dig yourself out of that hole.

Uber and similar companies are destroying the very small businesses (or squashing their margins into nothing) which traditionally are the environment that the poor can become entrepreneurs and build their own local business.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#434

Post by TheKarateKid » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

matt_morgan wrote: post #376

sandworm101 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You have man-years worth of work going nowhere as projects get scrapped mid-development. That's better than seeing man-years go into features that get deployed. I witnessed one successful control system company spin up a team of new hotshot UI engineers, all right out of the best schools. After months of work the team "updated" the product. Withing hours the call center was hit with hundreds of "You changed the g-…

[flagged]

The OP's intent was not to single out a gender. He/she was using a very common catchphrase. Your call-out was really passive-aggressive and uncalled for.

Do you get pressed everytime someone talks about history, and suggest they use the word "herstory" or "perstory" instead?

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#435

Post by cparsons3000 » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

Is this the last round of layoffs for Uber?

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#436

Post by lr4444lr » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

matt_morgan wrote: post #376

sandworm101 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You have man-years worth of work going nowhere as projects get scrapped mid-development. That's better than seeing man-years go into features that get deployed. I witnessed one successful control system company spin up a team of new hotshot UI engineers, all right out of the best schools. After months of work the team "updated" the product. Withing hours the call center was hit with hundreds of "You changed the g-…

[flagged]

I'm not saying anything about anyone's intent either, but it's also painless and traditional just to refrain from unsolicited corrections of people's word choice when there isn't any ill intent to be talked about.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#437

Post by rauhl » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

SenorSourdough wrote: post #416

irthomasthomas wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume all the developers are men? as in members of mankind... All people are men.

Sure, but the idea of "mankind" is gendered / male-centric in the first place. We just defaulted to male because we always default to male. Training yourself to default to non-gendered language like person-kind and to think about whether a term originates from problematic aspects of gender dynamics is a relatively easy first step towards breaking down some of the insidious aspects of sexism that are imbedded in langu…

> Sure, but the idea of "mankind" is gendered / male-centric in the first place. We just defaulted to male because we always default to male.

That is not actually true. The Old English word for a male human being is wer, as in werewolf; it is cognate to the Latin vir (also meaning a male human being, and the source of modern English words like virile & virtue). That word is no longer in common use in modern English, although I think maybe it survives in some dialects.

The word man(n), OTOH is the gender-neutral Old English word for a human being, as found in such words as woman (from wifman, a wife-man) or leman (a mistress, or love-man), both notably referring to female human beings. It is cognate to modern German mann, again referring to any human being.

The word mankind thus refers to … any kind of man.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#438

Post by desert_boi » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #425

matt_morgan wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can we be species neutral. Person refers to humans and leaves out animals and other substances like carbon which would experience a year in the same manner as a human.

Corporations are people too, my friend.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#439

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

wdb wrote: post #359

chrisseaton wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, I can't drive and still only take public transport. Lucky for you that this is an option. For many people less fortunate than yourself it is not an option and they rely on taxis such as Uber.

Lucky for them they can afford these taxis to get everywhere. I can't and I am happy to walk a while to get to the closest bus stop so I can get to the tube. But I prefer the bus as I can take multiple buses within a hour for the same fee :)

> Lucky for them they can afford these taxis to get everywhere.

They can't afford not to!

> I am happy to walk a while to get to the closest bus stop so I can get to the tube.

You're lucky that you have access to walkable pavements, busses, and a tube. That's a lot of privilege! I'd sure they'd be happy to use those as well! But many people don't have access to those things, and if they want to get anywhere they need to pay taxis.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#440

Post by schnable » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

MisterPea wrote: post #430

schnable wrote: post #393

Are they going to regret having 4,000 micro services now?

Well I think that's one of the benefits of microservices actually. Cut out all the services that have deep tribal knowledge from people let go and replace them with new services if the service is actually important or just remove it altogether.

What I wonder is how often the "remove" operation happens. I'd wager it's more likely there are many services doing variations of the same thing, but existing ones are hard to kill because there is a web of dependencies.