I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Uber (San Francisco, CA) in Dec 2015
Interview
I was not actively looking but was contacted by Uber via LinkedIn. I agreed to an informal chat with a hiring manager to learn about management opportunities. It was clear from the initial conversation that the recruiter could use help in identifying a matching position. I picked out 3 openings that were similar to my current job. Instead of considering the 3 openings, he singled out one because it belonged to the department he recruited for, thus, only lining up the hiring manager for that one opening (doh...).
In the phone screen, the hiring manager showed tremendous interest in one particular project, a technical project! He showed no interest in my managerial abilities. At the end of the phone call, he offered me an onsite interview for an individual contributor role. I reminded him I was referred for a management position. He then said if he let me manage a 3 person team today, the team would grow to 50 people in a year. Therefore, he needed to hire someone who had already managed 50 people (doh...). I politely declined his invitation for an on-site interview.
The following day I received a rejection letter stating how disappointed I must feel and how difficult a decision it was for them (doh…). What was supposed to be an informal chat turned out to be a total waste of time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would you have to do differently if you come work for Uber (compare to your current job)?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Uber (San Francisco, CA)
Interview
Went through the standard process of a recruiter finding me on Angellist and getting a phone screen lined up. The manager I spoke to was informative over the phone, albeit a little cold.
Got an onsite relatively quickly. The panel was mixed with engineers, engineering managers, a director, and a product manager.
The culture in the office is what really left a bad impression for me. An interview question that stuck out was when a director asked me when I'd put someone on a PIP. I told him I'd work with the engineer to find the root of the issue and help him/her to speed up performance. After two attempts I'd then consider putting them on a PIP. That may take a quarter to go through that process. He looked annoyed and said that was the wrong approach and that basically I should fire that person in weeks.
It's not a company I see that will foster creativity and innovation. The feeling in that office was cold and militant. The people I interviewed with, with the exception of one of the engineers, came across arrogant and sometimes rude (one manager asked why I live in the South Bay because they saw it as where all the "dinosaurs" of tech live)
While I didn't get the job, even if I did I would be hesitant to accept. And if I did accept I probably would have quit as soon as my year anniversary passed
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Uber in Oct 2015
Interview
Recruiter contacted me by email. Had a 10 minutes chat with another recruiter. He arranged a 45 minute phone screening. The screening was odd. The screener was another engineering manager (could not be found in LinkedIn) who did not know to which exact position the interview was for. Neither she could tell who was the hiring manager telling that "Uber just does general talent acquisition".
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Background, management philosophy, how do you manage (3 times), who are the competitors of your current company, how do you manage projects, how do you manage down/upstream dependencies, how do you manage risks, what are the risks, role play to convince a candidate who has got 20% higher offer from another company, what is difference between blocking and non-blocking service.