I'm sure many of you working in large US cities have used or at least heard of the Uber car service. I use it frequently and think it is absolutely fantastic. I'm literally impressed every time I use it for the simple reason that it is everything as advertised and priced right.
I currently work at one of the top commercial real estate firms in the world (CBRE, JLL, CW) and surprisingly have a really nice gig given my background, non-target, limited experience in the industry. Given what I have now, I received an email yesterday from Uber asking if I would be interested in applying for a job as a community manager. The limited job description makes the position sound interesting, very focused on promoting the brand within the city, it doesn't sound like a position that is anything related to previous experiences.
This is all hypothetical since I haven't even submitted an application but I'd like to hear some thoughts from others about leaving a job with very good stability, very good company, and decent seniority for very much an unknown company. I equate this on a much lower scale to someone leaving a good job for a Google or Facebook in their infantile stages. The people who were employed early on in those companies are obviously in a great position now and took quite a risk many years ago.
Assuming all things equal in terms of present compensation would you leave your current gig to get on the ground floor of something with tremendous (but unproven) upside?
Without any consideration to potential income differences and lack of any actual job explanation, I think that would be awesome. My 2 cents, Uber screams buyout. This is a company backed by venture capitalists and making a killing, get in on the ground floor and swim in the profits.
A buddy of mine works at Uber and absolutely loves it. Up and coming business with enormous growth ahead. If you get the opportunity, go for it!
Interesting question I've considered myself. A fraternity brother of mine was employee #3 at Uber and is now worth hundreds of millions. As a result, I've seen many friends go to join the Uber ranks at the Community Manager level.
Uber has over 500 employees now, so I think the "ground floor" has since passed, and I doubt any community managers are receiving equity at this point. You'd be working for a small company rather than a "start up" at your level of autonomy would reflect that. However, if you are hired as a community manager, you could view it as building your own business in that city, which could be spun into future interesting oppotunities. Uber is facing legal fights in nearly every city in which they operate, but they could also go from 500 to 5,000 employees, which would be interesting for you.
To me, I view it very similar to taking a Groupon job two years ago. You decide if that's a good or bad thing.
Out of curiosity, how would you feel about joining a company like Groupon now?
Not sure if other people that have more insider knowledge about Uber have input, but just going by some of the details in their interview process reviews, looks like a long-hours type job. Some quotes are surprising banking hours.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Uber-Community-Manager-Interview-Que…
Wow, good find. I really can't imagine what the employees do for 12+ hours a day. Their business model is pretty simple and it seems as long as the drivers are doing their job and the app is working correctly there really can't be much more to their business. I understand promoting and customer service are huge deals at the company but how much can you really be doing. Would love some more insider input as well but I don't know if I'm really feeling the cultish vibe I'm getting from those reviews...
To me, I view it very similar to taking a Groupon job two years ago. You decide if that's a good or bad thing.
BINGO
Might be worth a look if you can get equity
A close friend of mine joined during the early stages of Twitter and he's a multi-millionaire in his 20s
Man, seems like there's a fair number of people (friends or friend of friends) that have made it from being at the right place a the right time.
Just curious, what did your friend at Twitter do? Like, is he on the tech side, or more biz dev stuff?
He worked at Deloitte consulting out of college then worked in the biz dev/product marketing group at Twitter. He did go to a good undergraduate school so that might've helped with getting in there.
To pull off of LSO, what's the employee version of a founder hounder called? As in, they look for fast moving ships to jump on to and cash in on the equity stake pop. Point blank, that's exactly my dream.
I highly doubt a Community Manager for Uber is getting any equity. You're basically just managing the brand within your city. Promotions, keeping in touch with drivers to make sure they're happy, etc. The fact that there are Comm Mgrs for each city makes it more akin to... say, the WSO Social Chair position.
Uber is huge. Their HQ is right down the street from me and can confirm employees are still in office late into the night :/
That said, still a cool gig to say you've done, esp if you're sick of your current job ;) They reached out to me too and I honestly considered doing it.
Why did you decide against it?
Anyone have any clue about the comp levels for a Community Manager?
Haha, 80/hr a week... I'll pass, this company is not going to give some new community manager equity, why would they?
depends what the role is ad what you'd be doing. i probably would work there
I think a lot of people get those community manager job emails. Also, Chicago just held a "Happy Hour" that was organized by Uber community managers. It turned into a presentation on the current legislative battle against UberX drivers, and how Uber users can help rally to keep Uber as is.
Maybe see if you could intern or work part-time on weekends. You'd learn about the industry and get a start up feel without quitting your day job.
Uber is an incredible company to work for. I've been with the company since November 2012; feel free to check out my thoughts! blog dot blainelight dot com (I can't post links because I'm new to WSO)
Never. The only way I would ever jump on board any situation remotely similar to the one you are describing is if it was DIRECTLY related to the current work I already do and hopefully involving a promotion.
Guessing you didn't make the jump (I hope) but I got the same emails and even had an email giving me a "project" that I should complete if I wanted to bypass the first round of interviews and show initiative. Did some research, a community manager is basically working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, and getting paid hardly anything compared to the hours worked. The work is not exactly difficult or stimulating, and the interview process from everything I've read is terrible. You're definitely not getting equity either. Absolutely would not do it.
I have a friend who left S&O Deloitte last year for Uber as a Community Manager in the major market. I currently work for a competitor of Deloitte and he has been pushing me to apply to Uber. He told me that his current pay is slightly under what he was making at Deloitte, but he is awarded equity. And this is him joining the company not too long ago.
he might be a special case. most of the people i know who joined didn't get equity. they're already valued at ~10bn plus, not sure why they would have any incentive to dilute their original stake.
also, most of what you hear is true, the interview process is extremely robust (take home exam/project, consulting-ish interviews, many rounds), and people work 10-12 hours a day.
interviewed with them, extremely unprofessional group of people, their HR has no clue whats going on. they had multiple HR people contacting me for the same job. I'm pretty sure they dont have a centralized HR process.
You can get a huge load of feedback on Glassdor. In just a few words : Working at Uber is tough! Don't be afraid to pull some allnighters and work on week-ends. However, people are smart, the app is crazy hot, business is growing fast and easy access to equity plans. However, from a financial standpoint, don't fool yourself. They promise a lot on the equity but are a bit more agressive on lowering your fixed salary....Imagine a future down round or a valuation below the current crazy levels and your equity will be valued zip....I'd rather get cash bonuses in wall street than working as much elsewhere and getting nothing.
Isnt the whole point of going into ib nowadays to get enough money to buy a Ferrari and then Uber the shit out of that thing?
seeing this was posted last year, mind sharing what happened after? did you get an offer and did you decline/accept and why?
I'm asking this because i just got a call from a recruiter about a role with them and I'm going through the same debate myself.
Uber - Any recent experiences? (Originally Posted: 09/02/2015)
Given the growth of the Uber and the increasing # of individuals leaving banking/consulting jobs for positions at Uber, could anyone provide any insight into working at the company?
Most ex-bankers/consultants seem to navigate toward the Operations and Logistics position and it would be great to hear some input around pay, moving into a different culture, etc.
I've long considered moving into a consulting or strategy role in hopes of both working internationally and running my own company one day, and it seems as though this would be a respectable stepping stone.
Thanks!
Could you provide some details on where you found that a lot of bankers and consultants are leaving their jobs to work for Uber?
Did not say "a lot", but rather that a decent amount of Op & Logistics folks have backgrounds in banking/finance, certainly more than the last time this question was asked.
Bump
I don't know anything about Uber recent hires, however, former Blackstone CFO Tosi has been appointed Airbnb CFO recently https://www.airbnb.com/press/news/airbnb-announces-laurence-tosi-as-chi…
Interesting info Bat. Anyone else?
Huge pay downgrade, better hours.
60-80k, pretty in-line with what you'd expect for an experienced ops role.
The only people being paid a premium @Uber are the software guys and UI/UX designers.
The finance and consulting guys are either coming in at a director-level role or they're coming in as data scientists/engineers (do you have big data and programming experience - Hadoop, MongoDB, etc; do you know SQL, etc), and even then, it's at best a wash vs. a comparable-experienced role in finance (associate, VP).
I've seen the overall comp package for experienced devs and it looks good ($300k+ annualized including the RSU's) ... but not for ops / finance / logistics guys.
And at this point, even if you're a software guy, you are no longer getting in on the ground floor... i.e. realistically how much upside are you looking at from $50bn
S
People should join that company just for the stock options. Imagine the wealth creation after the IPO salivating.
interviewed there while doing my mba for a GM role and it clearly isn't a great place to work by any stretch. hours are brutal (80+ per week), while comp is nowhere near competitive and at this valuation, you have to really believe in Santa Claus to think you'll get rich with options.
I'm not plugged in to the Uber situation, but I did intern at a "hot" startup / growth stage company during my MBA. A few things to keep in mind:
Conclusion: manage your expectations if you're moving from finance to the tech world. You will no longer be treated as a rockstar. In fact, most of your coworkers will not give two shits if you worked at Goldman or Blackstone.
Thanks for the input. This position itself would actually be on the operations manager side of the startup rather than finance. Working with driver supply and user demand of the business.
a.k.a. the real world
Awesome stuff dude! Thanks.
I recently interviewed for an entry level position with Uber in their Operations department.
From what I could tell, a position in Operations is one of the few positions they are willing consider candidates coming straight out of school -- the rest of them required some sort of professional work experience. My interviewer told me that the Operations positions are kind of a misleading title because it's a highly analytical role that requires quantitative and technical skills -- Excel, SQL, etc -- but was more focused on improving driver operations efficiencies as opposed to an emphasis on finance.
She also mentioned that the only candidates that they were considering for this position were financial analyst background from tech companies, banking kids, and some consultants (assuming MBB tier). They're in hyper growth mode obviously and are really looking for candidates who are super into buying into Uber and Travis Kalanick's vision. They break their comp into 4 diff categories: base salary, performance bonus, equity (even at junior levels) and perks. Hope this helps.
Shit money and really douchey culture in the larger offices.
I'd like to hear more.
Their finance team (FP&A) consist of mostly ex-bankers and people working in finance at other tech companies. The interview process is fairly long and competitive, starts with a couple of phone interviews followed by a case study to be assigned, then a call to discuss results and then most likely more steps before an in-office interview.
As far as comp goes, it doesn't seem to be very competitive, at least in the sense of other tech companies and IB. You do get equity, but lets be real on how small that package probably is for a junior employee in a less respected area of the business. Hours seemed relatively high.
All in all, most of those interviewing for Uber are doing it to get the name on their resume and be a part of the vision. Don't expect the start-up upside at a company of this size.
I've seen this too. Guys from silicon valley TMT IB teams at GS with 10 years experience going over to Uber at senior finance roles. And these are financial controlling, business finance, FP&A type roles rather than corporate finance roles. I couldn't imagine Uber being competitive on annual comp terms (cash and bonus) and given the RSUs and the stage of valuation I can't imagine the upside being as great as staying with GS or going elsewhere. Would be interested in hearing concrete numbers on the total comp for these FP&A roles pay at Uber and what a silicon valley IB TMT guy expects to get out of a move into Uber?
Can always rely on Happy for some kernels of truth :)
Seems like a good opportunity if the goal is to be removed from banking and into an entrepreneurial future, but for long hours and moderate pay starting out. Would be interesting to see how long hours really are? 9-9?
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