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Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

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Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#511

Post by nobs_hn »

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]

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#512

Post by freeone3000 »

jakemal wrote: post #483
schnable wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they're hard to kill because there are a web of dependencies then I would argue they are doing microservices wrong.

Ah, the no true microservices idea of webservice architecture. If the idea is that you code to a webservice interface and then providers implement that interface, well, you're going to end up with the same problem, but with different interfaces. If the client specifies the interface using GraphQL or the like, that moves the problem from the incompatible interface to incompatible data naming. And so on. You need global coordination to untangle a mess of interrelated services, or you need continual migration work to adapt from one team's implementation to another.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#513

Post by [deleted] »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #308
Aperocky wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what business leaders think. Then you get to the critical component where you fire the lead architect/programmer and then it keeps working fine for few weeks, but you find more bugs and you need to upgrade/fix it. Only to find out the documentation if they exist don't help at all and the first 2 tries builds fine so you put it in production only to see everything destroyed. And after 1 year of back and forth y…

I bet the number of developers that are working on the business critical stuff is very low. Years ago I talked a lot to people at Oracle and Apple and it was always amazing how small the core development teams for the big products were.

[deleted]

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#515

Post by danans »

scarface74 wrote: post #490
bdcravens wrote: post #205

Developers at unicorns: even in the best of times, do you feel more expendable than you've felt at other jobs? We always are amazed at the number of developers at companies like this. (the numbers I've seen are old, but I guess out of 22,000 employees, it was something like 5000 engineers?) While that allows you to build in a more robust way than a smaller company, it seems like there's no shortage of developers work…

All developers are expendable. If 5% of all developers at any of FAANGM's got hit by a bus, the company would keep moving. I work at company with less than 100 people, I know where many of the bodies are buried, etc. But if I get hit by a meteor tomorrow, they would send flowers to my wife and open up a req and keep moving.

> But if I get hit by a meteor tomorrow, they would send flowers to my wife and open up a req and keep moving.

You don't have a group life insurance policy through your company? Sudden unexpected death is exactly what that supposed to cover. If not, that's unfortunate, especially since it's fairly common among white collar jobs at least.

If you do, it should cover at least your funeral costs, which should be pretty minimal if your cause of death is meteor strike. It would likely cover a percentage of the income you would have earned for your remaining years of work.

But opening a req seems totally reasonable when you are demonstrably not coming back.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#516

Post by freeone3000 »

dbancajas wrote: post #402
himinlomax wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Paris, and I could easily afford a new car (or two) with my income as an SRE. But then I'd have to park it, and just that would double the monthly cost. And then I'd probably use it once a month on average.

So use the taxi for once a month? Uber doesn't have to exist for you to address your problem.

Okay, yes, Uber can be replaced by a taxi service with a good app because Uber's a taxi service with a good app. Gold star.

A taxi service is an essential complement to mass transit, and Uber provides that service in areas with poor taxi service (essentially everywhere).

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#517

Post by [deleted] »

pc86 wrote: post #339
ransom1538 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Developers at unicorns:" Prato principal crystallized. Look at any big repro or any large company. There is usually about ~5 ish people that know wtf is going on. I think uber could be ran with 10 people.

> Prato principal crystallized You're wrong, and not just about the Pareto principle.

[deleted]

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#518

Post by scarface74 »

danans wrote: post #515
scarface74 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All developers are expendable. If 5% of all developers at any of FAANGM's got hit by a bus, the company would keep moving. I work at company with less than 100 people, I know where many of the bodies are buried, etc. But if I get hit by a meteor tomorrow, they would send flowers to my wife and open up a req and keep moving.

> But if I get hit by a meteor tomorrow, they would send flowers to my wife and open up a req and keep moving. You don't have a group life insurance policy through your company? Sudden unexpected death is exactly what that supposed to cover. If not, that's unfortunate, especially since it's fairly common among white collar jobs at least. If you do, it should cover at least your funeral costs, which should be pretty m…

Group life through most companies are 1x salary. That amount is a pittance to buy on your own.

But the point is everyone is expendable. I worked for a company around 2009. They laid a lot of people off that had more seniority than I did. I wondered why they kept me around.

Three months later I found out. The founder had written a bespoke development tool chain in C++ using MVC and assembly. The board push him out and the CTO told me that I was now responsible for maintaining the tool chain because I was the only one who knew C++ and assembly.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#519

Post by [deleted] »

all_usernames wrote: post #429
bradlys wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am at a Unicorn. Engineering is 20-30 engineers total. This person is definitely confusing Unicorn with some generic big engineering heavy company. Many companies scale very differently. Some scale with large engineering efforts - mine doesn't. The change in number of engineers has barely moved in the last 2 years. That said - to the question about unicorns: You're always expendable. Same as any job - same politics -…

Hmm, sounds like you've got some dyfunctional managers. I've never personally witnessed management faking urgency on a project just to get productivity on it. Management is generally charged with making sure ICs know what the priorities are as set by Product. It's possible that Product changes its mind often, confusing everyone. But if Product, Management, and ICs are confused about what your "critical business funct…

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