[brandon272]

I've never heard of a company not hiring a qualified developer because their former employer is "unpopular". Job hopping from company to company based on popularity just seems like a bad career move.

It sounds like you're happy with the work environment, which is not something that should be taken for granted. Stay on board and continue to put in your best effort.

[anexprogrammer]

I've seen a few large, well-known places downgrade candidates from certain places by dint of ability or technology stack in use. Or to be honest, just plain prejudice. So they'd be less likely to get interviewed in the first place.

I'd far rather be an early, perhaps too early leaver, than stick around for six months to not job-hop only to find the Corp blew up. Now there's 3,000 Uber engineers on the market, and quite possibly a lot more bad press.

So for OP, consider carefully, including your insider perspective, before deciding either way! (I'd probably lean towards an exit as the bad PR does seem to have reached critical mass).

[brandon272]

Maybe I'm not paying close enough attention; is there some evidence that Uber is "blowing up" outside of Silicon Valley conjecture and blogs? People I talk to outside of SV don't know anything about Uber's recent internal issues.

[scarface74]

I wouldn't say uber is blowing up but there business model has a lot of unknowns.

Right now, Uber is subsidizing each ride and their marginal cost is high compared to their marginal profit. The only way they can become profitable is either cut drivers pay, increase the cost per ride or both.

If they cut driver's pay, will the drivers stay with Uber? The other side of the coin is how elastic is the demand?

[tedmiston]

The third option is to automate drivers. I don't really see what the unknowns are. Uber has always seemed to approach it as a long game a la Amazon.

[rspeer]

The unknown there is their automation arm being sued by Google.

[wapz]

And it looks really bad if you read the deposition by the WayMo (staff/manager?) employee.

[tedmiston]

Thanks. Somehow I hadn't heard about this yet.

[brandon272]

Right, but that's always been the case with Uber and the employee in this case knew that going in. Uber's overall business model doesn't seem to be his or her concern, but rather recent bad press.

[scarface74]

I agree. That reply was more in context of worrying about "3000 Uber employees" in the market at the same time.

Unless he is a high level executive, I don't see why anyone would tar him with the ethical lapses of Uber

On the other hand, someone mentioned Yahoo. I would definitely ask someone technical why they stick with Yahoo.

[hsod]

> Right now, Uber is subsidizing each ride

How can this be true? I thought Uber takes a cut on each ride. Are you suggesting that they actually pay the driver extra money on top of what the riders are paying?

[wapz]

It's based on total operating costs--not the cost of the driver only. If you include how much they have to pay for everything else (developers, management, advertising, etc), the "cut" they get from each fare is less than how much they spent in other areas. (I could be wrong so please do correct me if so but I believe this is the case here).

[scarface74]

Scale only helps if you have high fixed costs, the ones you mentioned, and the marginal revenue - marginal costs is large. But if your marginal profit is small, scale doesn't really help.

People like to compare Uber to Amazon and how long it took Amazon to become profitable. The differences are:

That Amazon was putting money into expansion and could turn a profit anytime it needed to.

AWS is their most profitable division - a category with high fixed costs and high marginal profit.

They are already using a lot of automation for their warehouses. It will be decades before driverless cars are ubiquitous.

[alasdair_]

In many markets, Uber will pay bonuses based on hitting a particular number of rides.

[anexprogrammer]

Well there's been several pretty negative pieces on the Guardian front page in the last month. OK they're left of centre, so will undoubtedly have a view on the sexism aspect of recent events, but it's not been just those aspects they reported.

I think most also got picked up by Metro.co.uk and the Daily Mail etc - like the CEO argument - so reporting is well outside SV. Not forgetting the whole #deleteuber thing. A couple of months back the only mention of Uber outside of HN, Tech Crunch et al was reports of the driver self-employment case or expectation of driverless cars.

What I can't guess is how influenced non-techies are from current events. It does feel like they've hit a certain mass that those negative events are now being widely reported in the mainstream.

I'm the wrong side of the Alantic to be well up on the SV jobs market, but as I say, were it me I'd be concerned by the apparent change in mood. I'd have been equally concerned by the change in mood, and endless bad press, just after Ratners CEO called one of their products "cheap crap" as a joke [0] - 12 months later Britain's largest jewellery chain was no more.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/22/gerald-ratn...

[waxspin]

Yeah, I am in Chicago and don't know any programmers here who DON'T know about Uber's issues.

[engatuber]

Maybe I'm overreacting to comments on HN and other social media. The CEO of a successful startup publicly said he wouldn't hire someone from Uber.

Many HN comments on articles about Uber share the same opinion. Several of these commenters were founders of software companies.

[DINKDINK]

>The CEO of a successful startup publicly said he wouldn't hire someone from Uber

Would you really want to work at a company where a CEO is so prejudicial? I know I wouldn't (and I find the publicized culture of Uber incredibly repugnant).

If you're happy at your current position and aren't complicit in the abuse that's going on (seeing abuse but not doing anything about it) then stay. If you're concerned that in a subsequent interview that your position will color you, volunteer for a noble cause:

-Encouraging young women to pursue STEM education / careers

-Domestic Abuse NGO etc

[brudgers]

A CEO might prejudge a person coming from one company to another based on perceived risk to workplace culture the same as when assessing someone just out of school or coming from or into enterprise or out of military service or out of prison or back to the workforce from raising a family or when switching vocations or with gray hair or lip piercings.

Of course it could also be based on direct empirical observation, or just liking to hear the sounds of one's own tweets. On the other hand, the would-you-want-to-work-at-a-company-where position probably falls flat in the case of Uber...it already ate the cake.

[panarky]

Fact: Uber has a well earned reputation for tolerating or even encouraging a work environment that is hostile toward women.

Fact: If you're a male Uber employee, you're somewhat tainted by this association. Maybe just a little, or maybe more.

Conclusion: If you're competing against another candidate who is identical in all other respects except they don't have this association, you're at a disadvantage.

It's not fair to you, but that's the inescapable conclusion.

The bigger question is, do you believe that Uber is ultimately a force for good?

In addition to your salary and benefits, is it important to you that your efforts contribute to making the world a little bit better?

[brudgers]

I don't disagree with the potential for it being seen as a disadvantage. I don't think 'I saw it as a force for good' is ordinarily going to dissuade someone who sees it as a disadvantage at best it might be an excuse. The problem with excuses for one's own behavior is that they are often taken as a mark of character (whereas excuses for others' behaviors are often seen as a hallmark of judgment).

[taway_1212]

> Conclusion: If you're competing against another candidate who is identical in all other respects except they don't have this association, you're at a disadvantage.

How many hiring managers actually care about this? I know it's PC to say that you care, but I doubt it would affect the actual decisions of many managers.

[thehardsphere]

> The CEO of a successful startup publicly said he wouldn't hire someone from Uber.

1. "A successful startup" is one company. Fortunately there are thousands of companies who could employ you and the vast majority of them will not care.

2. CEOs don't typically make hiring decisions for engineers at any company that is "successful" because they have more important things to worry about. I would argue that you should avoid working any where the CEO is engaged in this sort of micromanagerial moral preening.

> Many HN comments

HN is a bubble. That bubble tends to be a bit more... umm... extreme... in more than one way, than the rest of the software industry or the world.

[obsidience]

Yes, you would be overreacting.

If a CEO is going to classify all male Uber employees as male chauvinists and not hire them I would see that as stereotyping and discrimination of a class. The world is not black and white and I would definitely not want to work for that CEO.

That being said, I see issues with Uber long term. Not just Travis issues but also in the business model. Eventually all car manufacturers will have level 5 autonomy. At that point the car manufacturers will be Uber. They will be able to produce the car at cost and watch it drive away from the car manufacturing plant to be rented out wherever it's destination state/country is.

Uber doesn't have a chance in the long term.

[brandon272]

I'm not long on Uber either, for several reasons. But there exists a possibility that Uber's legacy could be that it served an important and pioneering role in the evolution of transportation and that is something that current employees should consider before they want to jump ship due to perceived brand popularity.

[obsidience]

I agree, Travis did indeed disrupt the taxi industry and had to fight tooth and nail to get Uber to where it is today. I respect the hell out of that but unless Uber has enough money saved up to buy a small car manufacturer they are toast in the long term.

Regarding brand popularity, there's a quote from Gladiator that I love: "The mob is fickle brother". We're living in an age of the mobile phone app and there's no such thing as brand loyalty anymore. We as consumers and contractors can UNinstall an app such as Uber or SnapChat in 5 seconds. The only thing preventing that with Uber is likely the same thing that keeps Walmart in business: $$$.

[brandon272]

It sounds like you are basing the opinion of the company you work for more on online comments than your own experience of working there!

Things change quickly. Uber has had some hiccups lately, but reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. There is a strong chance that "sexual harassment" and "toxic managers" will not be attributes people think of when they think of Uber in a year from now, assuming the company works to resolve those internal issues in an effective manner.

[ergo14]

Well, I'd say those are jerks that I would not want to work with in the first place.

So because Uber made some mistakes it is OK to blame random workers board failings? Fuck logic.

Google, FB, $INSERTWHATVER here can also make a mistake, as a worker you should not be punished because of that.

Discriminate someone because their employer probably discriminated someone - so tolerant...

[savethefuture]

Yes you are, stay with Uber and stop listening to everyone else and listen to yourself.

[EduardoBautista]

Well then that company probably has a terrible culture as well.

[brudgers]

I'm not sure "unpopular" is the way I would describe Uber's perception because I think many people's perceptions are framed with consideration of how they might act or feel in the circumstances that have been described.

I've observed that companies make quick judgments about hires based on where they have worked all the time. That there are favorable and unfavorable companies to have on one's resume is among the premises of career management. Keyword search bakes that premise into the hiring process.

It is worth looking at a case where it is known that working for specific companies excluded candidates from consideration: Silicon Valley's no-poaching cabal. If those companies used key-word search to exclude candidates there was nothing illegal in and of itself in that act (it was the collusion among companies that was illegal). It is as easy as flipping a bit to divert a resume with 'Uber' to the bit bucket as to the advance buffer.

[myth_buster]

Well there are biases involved.

If we flip it I do see companies hiring developers because their former employer is "popular". But I do agree with rest of your opinion.

[daodedickinson]

I think Uber won't turn off too many but I obviously work for the Trump campaign is going to significantly change how well your resume works for you.

[donohoe]

I have heard of it. Also, when there are more than one candidates for 1 spot it can be what makes the difference.