In October 2020 I successfully completed all interview steps at Uber and Reddit and landed a job offer at both companies. In this article I will explain how I compared two companies and why I chose Uber.
Job offer — offer one receives after passing all interview steps at the company. Offer includes details such as compensation (salary, stocks, bonus), perks, job title, and employment terms.
Offers
Having multiple offers is great. It gives you the leverage for better offer negotiation. However, when you land 2 offers and you love both of them, life becomes a struggle…
My friend Azimjon sent me a picture that perfectly described my mood back then:
Suffering from success.
Comparison criteria
I compared Uber and Reddit on the following criteria:
- Product
- Culture
- Personal growth
- Compensation and perks
Product
At both companies, I was offered an L4 position.
L4 — level 4 of engineering ladder. Usually given to engineers with 2–4 years of work experience.
Uber
At Uber I was offered to join the Uber Eats store team, where I would work on the storefront of the Uber Eats consumer app.
I was excited to work on Uber Eats — the hottest product during a pandemic! I was told they’re planning to do a major redesign of the app, which is amazing! The opportunity to redesign such a gigantic product in such a big company is very unique — similar to hitting a jackpot!
Uber Eats is a fast-growing product, growing 124% since the last year. Despite this, the team is still small and operates like a startup. And I love working at startups!
Reddit
At Reddit, I was offered to join the Anti Evil team, which will provide consumer safety. That includes fighting internet trolls and making Reddit a safer place for everyone, including minorities.
The “including minorities” part is important. I am a pro-feminist and I do my best to support women whenever and wherever I can. Including on the internet. The Reddit community is male dominant and sometimes it is very toxic, harassing, and abusive. The opportunity to fight the trolls and make the internet a safer place excited me a lot! I felt spiritually proud of working on such a great cause.
But…
…I was worried about the side effects. On the day to day basis, I would have to see lots of negative content, which will affect my mental health. It’s like working in a nuclear plant — you get exposed to the radiation. Great cause, but a high price to pay.
The turning point was my philosophy on ads. I hate ads. Ads are evil. Ads urge people to buy more and more products in their never-ending pursuit of “happiness” through material possessions. Ads are the engine of the greatest disease of the 21st century — consumerism. I will leave it to you to figure out how Reddit makes money.
Culture
Uber
Reputation
Uber is notorious for its bad reputation. Someone even created a website to track Uber’s scandals: uberscandals.org. Things may have changed for the better with Dara’s coming.
Dara Khosrowshahi — Iranian-American businessman and the CEO of Uber.
Below is my fellow engineers’ opinion on Uber:
Speaking of evil.
I wouldn’t consider Uber seriously. They fired lots of people recently and the rumors are — their environment is toxic.
Take Reddit. There are lots of articles about Uber mistreating their employees.
Only Azimjon recommended me to join Uber:
Just go for it!
Company size
Uber is a big company that has over 22,000 employees. A big company usually means more bureaucracy, less impact as an individual and the lesser value of the single employee. However, I was lucky enough to find the Uber Eats team, which is a separate unit and operates like a startup.
Job stability
Uber does frequent layoffs. Since the start of the pandemic, they fired 25% of their workforce. Perhaps that would make someone worry, someone who has a family and wants/needs a stable income. I do not need it. I take risks and play boldly. I am not worried about being jobless (but the family does and I don’t know why??).
First, I have an emergency fund to sustain myself for the next several years without any income.
Second, I worked on 6 month contracts for the past 16 months, meaning I had guaranteed employment only for 6 months and I never knew if contract will be extended or not.
Third, I believe that 10x engineers should never worry about being laid off. If you are worrying about it, then you have flaws that make you worry. Work on those flaws.
Reddit
Activities
Reddit operates like a real startup. It’s small, fast, agile, and fun. I read the company’s blog and saw “Life at Reddit” pictures. I loved the team gatherings and out of work activities they do together.
Impact
Employee individual impact at Reddit is incredible! The user per engineer ratio is over 700k! Whaaat!? At Reddit, I felt that every employee matters and valued a lot!
Founding father
Reddit’s co-founder Steve Huffman works at Reddit as a CEO. I believe that when a company’s founding fathers and mothers are actively involved in its activities, magic happens and the company is filled with an incredible aura! This aura powers innovation and creativity and brings amazing people together to “put a dent in the universe”!
Founders are bold. Founders are fearless. Founders are powerful. Founders feel the company. Founders care about the company.
Many incredible founders remained at the company for a long time and helped it shape. We cannot imagine Apple without Steve Jobs, Microsoft without Bill Gates, SpaceX without Elon Musk.
This magical component is very important to me. It is an honor to work closely with remarkable people on great products!
Personal growth
Uber
Technologies
Uber is a very technically proficient company. They utilize state of the art tools and architecture. Examples are QUIC protocol and RIBs mobile architecture. These are cool things I can learn at Uber by working there.
Mentor
I asked my prospective manager at Uber about the average engineer level in his team. Turns out there are more L5 engineers than L4. This means there are lots of more senior engineers than me, from whom I can learn. Having a mentor is a crucial growth and success factor. I had mentors at Super Dispatch and EPAM. And now I can have one at Uber.
Overall, working at Uber would allow me to push forward my technical skills, aka hard skills.
Reddit
Technologies
Reddit is not as technically proficient as Uber. At the end of the day, it is still a startup. Architecture is a simple MVP. But they do use cool things too, such as Texture to render smooth and responsive UI.
Leadership
At Reddit, I was offered the iOS team lead position. That meant leading all iOS efforts at the Anti Evil team and mentoring other engineers. That also meant being the most senior engineer on the team. Hence, no iOS mentor for me in my team. I am sure I would have been assigned a mentor from another team, but I prefer it when my mentor and I work on the same team.
Overall, working at Reddit would allow me to enhance my leadership and mentorship skills, aka soft skills.
Compensation and perks
Long story short — compensations at both companies were more or less the same. After negotiation of course.
Both companies had generous perks, such as monthly $217 Uber credits or $3,000/year pet care credit at Reddit.
Yet I found perks at Reddit more valuable and meaningful.
If you would like to learn more about perks at Uber and Reddit, leave a comment. I will consider writing a separate article about that.
Final decision
- I loved the product at Uber more.
- The culture at Reddit is incredible!
- Both provided growth opportunities. Uber in hard skills, Reddit in soft.
- Compensation and perks were more or less the same in both companies.
I struggled a lot to choose one company over another and after careful consideration, I decided to join Uber. Said that I still would love to work at Reddit!
So I signed my Uber offer and I let Reddit know about that. After that, I was contacted by a recruiter at Reddit 4 more times. They really want to hire me.
The end.
In the next post, I will write about how I got a job at Uber — interview process, preparation, application.
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Stay home, stay safe, wear masks!
P.S. I hope you don’t suffer, but if you do — suffer from success :)
