What does your day-to-day as an Engineer look like?
“At Uber, no two days are ever the same! I usually start by checking emails, meeting my team, and completing outstanding tasks. One of the things I love the most about working here is that I get to code every single day. I take the time to mentor students for the Uber Career Prep program in addition to engineers on my own team and from across Uber. I also enjoy conducting interviews and try to be as helpful as I can to future Uber team members. Usually I then follow up with each of my team’s projects to see if there is anything I can unblock. As the day ends, I tend to refocus on my coding.”
What are you focused on today and what are the most interesting challenges you need to solve?
“Today, I’m focused on working with the Financial Products team to launch several products for our earners. The scale we operate at globally provides an opportunity to learn and be challenged every single day. I’m learning so much about a wide variety of things and because of that, I feel I’m living a Software Engineer’s dream.
Speaking of the challenges, I think that dealing with such a large scale at all times is the most challenging, but rewarding, thing I’m dealing with right now. As engineers, we must create and model systems that can be used in different countries across the globe and handle that variety at scale."
What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned at Uber?
“Definitely how to design large scale distributed systems. Also, working with people from different countries and backgrounds. This is one of the reasons I actually joined the company; to work with people from all over the world and learn and improve as an individual and as a professional.”
What is a Bar Raiser?
“The Bar Raiser Program is designed to train Engineers how to moderate an interview debrief and reach consensus for a hire decision. It’s a very important part of our hiring process and a huge responsibility. Being a Bar Raiser means reaching consensus by removing any biases and giving candidates the best possible judgment solely based on their technical skills and prowess and on what they’ve shown during the interviews. As humans we all have different implicit biases, so it’s important to remove those biases from the equation when assessing a candidate’s skills. My main goal as a Bar Raiser is and will always be to give our candidates the best possible experience. I want them to leave the interviews wanting to work here and for the right reasons. I’m approaching my interview number 400 and I’m hoping for many more to come.”
What is the benefit of having a Bar Raiser Program ?
“Bar Raisers help Uber have the best possible assessment without bias. We assess a candidate’s skills based only on what they have shown in the interviews and without any assumptions. The advantage of this is twofold: the candidate has the best possible experience while we keep a high bar for our hiring process. It also guarantees that the hiring process is fair and just and that candidates from underrepresented groups can have the same opportunities as candidates for groups that usually have more representation.”
Any tips for people looking to join Uber as an Engineer and go through the Engineering recruiting process?
“Watch our videos about it (we have many mock interviews recorded and I’m featured in some of them!) and also read every document and review every link that our Recruiters send out during the interview process. We spend a lot of time preparing these materials so you are able to know exactly how everything works. Preparing for the interviews is key, regardless of how many years a candidate has in this industry, and reviewing some concepts to have them top of mind is essential.”
Anything else we should know about or that you want people to know?
“Uber is an incredible company. We live our values and I can be myself. Working with people from different backgrounds, countries and cultures is a blessing and not all companies can give you that global exposure. We have some of the best engineers and having the opportunity to learn from them everyday is incredible.”
