Declined Offer
Negative Experience
Easy Interview
Application
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 6 days. I interviewed at Uber (San Francisco, CA) in June 2016.
Interview
Very unique experience, heard of Uber rescinding offer, but never experienced or seen anyone experiencing it. Somehow, I really experienced it.
I applied to core infra, and somehow got interviews with money team. Interviews were very easy, and I got a phone call saying they are willing to extend offer just a day after. I just graduated from a top CS program a year ago, and had offers from some top software company and a top hedge fund, comp package were both at 250k+ for an entry level. Uber as one of the most fast growing company, I just wanted to give it a try.
HR asked me for my current compensation, and that is where the weird thing began. I asked him for opportunities in other teams, since my background was not much about money team. Somehow, hr said the most obvious lie, "Uber right now, except for money team, are looking for senior people, with 5 or more years work experience". I insisted, and then he said "you cannot shop around, that is not how uber hiring process work". He also said, if I am not interested in money team, he would not proceed with an offer. C'mon, I was interviewing with uber, not uber money team.
I picked one team among many teams my Uber friends recommended, and told the hr. My friends have friends working in that team, knew they were hiring junior people. After that, that hr was not answering my email or phone call for almost a day, (i had other pending offers due in 2 days), and also failed to deliver the promise that he would generate the offer within a day (it was day 4 now). I was very annoyed, so I asked my referral friend to find the hr for the team I am interested in, and emailed her and cc'ed my current hr. My hr then finally replied, and said again, there was no position in that team. As I have the info from my friends who contacted team members in that team, they were hiring junior people, so basically my hr lied to my face. He also threatened me not to generate offer if I insist on changing team, since it shows my no interest in money team. I pretty sucked up a lot of non-sense he was saying since I was still waiting for the final package.
Later, hr finally said he got an update. This time, phone call was made from his manager, and hr manager told me they decided to rescind the offer. He thinks my inflexibility was not a fit for uber. (c'mon, I said I'd like to see other teams and hr told me I cannot shop around, and once I picked a specific team, that turned to my inflexibility), and he also played along with his employee, lying that the team was not looking for junior people.
I am very fortunate to have offers from other companies and very excited to join one of the greats, also it really makes me thinking how uber treats its employees, like exploiting drivers as well as firing engineers. I dont know anything about these incidents or people, but just from my experience with them, I think my uber hr's behavior is unethical.