Uber

• Genuinely fun people to work with.
• Products are consumer-facing, so it's easy to see real-world impact.
• Great pay and benefits, including a 401k match, good healthcare, and unlimited PTO.
• Hybrid work culture.

Cons:

• Severe drop in engineering culture.
• In the chase to standardize engineer performance, numerous cracks have shown in the product itself.
• WLB used to be manageable, but with recent changes, WLB requires more work just to hit certain performance metrics (meaningless performance metrics).
• No more innovation, just rinse and repeat the same product with barely any updates. Or look at competitors and copy exactly what they're doing.
• Lack of answers regarding the future of the company.

I've been here for 8 years. When I started, the company was pushing new products and reacting to the harsh realities of real-life politics and market conditions. Everyone felt connected and guided towards the mission.

Ever since MSFT management came in, they started turning the eng culture into more numbers-driven rather than product/innovation-driven. A key part of this is mandating diff counts as well as tying performance mainly to that rather than genuine impact or work.

Over time, I have seen this culture drive multiple good engineers away and continue to degrade the mental health of employees who feel like they have to continuously put up meaningless code reviews just to hit a monthly quota.

This isn't how engineers should work or how a company should incentivize engineers. In a world where engineers are worried about being replaced by AI, this kind of culture not only incentivizes it but also rewards those who use it to do absolutely nothing.

I have lost count of the amount of diffs where people ask for stamps with just 1 or 2 lines of changes. Not only is this requirement awful, but it's incredibly inconsistent and seems to play into politics.

I'm seriously considering leaving and would suggest that people who are looking to join consider if this is the culture for them.

For those who are still here and read this review, bring this up with as many upper managers as possible.