All tech companies put most of their engineering under “research and development”. It lets you capitalize your expenses and smear them out over many years.
Kinda, they can classify the activity of the engineers project work as r&d, and capilise the appropriate amount on the balance sheet (i.e. does not show under r&d expenses). Over time that would then be shown as depreciation, not r&d. You can't captilise an engineers time that is maintenance work.
A quick look at Ubers annual report states they do not capitalise r&d costs and instead expense it as incurred.
A quick look at Ubers annual report states they do not capitalise r&d costs and instead expense it as incurred.