What it does: Provides various types of transport services; ride-hailing, food and package delivery, freight transportation, and electrical bike, and motorized scooter rentals.
Mission: To help people go anywhere and get anything and earn their way.
Size and presence: 29.300 employees.
Best known for: Ride-hailing and food delivery service platform.
The good bits: Great opportunity to learn for tech and science students. Great deal benefit packages.
The not-so-good-bits: Fast-paced work and fast-changing environment.
Uber’s foundation was rooted in the idea to share a ride to reduce regular transportation costs. The idea came up to Garret Camp—a Canadian entrepreneur—when he hardly found a ride in Paris during his visit in 2008 with Travis Kalanick, an American businessman who later became Uber CEO. Then in 2009, the two developed a smartphone app that allows people to find a ride as easily as tapping a button.
Uber’s beta launch was held in 2010 in San Fransisco, this event was including Uber’s first trip request. Initially, the company use the name Ubercab in its early years. But change its name to Uber a year later after it received complaints from San Fransisco taxicab operators. Also, Uber’s first operation only allowed its user to hail a black luxury car.
The company’s growing fastly, and in three years of operation, Uber managed to launch internationally in Paris. And in 2012, Uber initiated another significant development by launching UberX, a ride option that allows drivers to use their personal vehicles to provide a cheaper rides for its user. In 2014, Uber launched Uber Eats, a food delivery service.
Uber has no vehicle, its asset was the technology within the application. The company opens partnership opportunities for people who own vehicles to work with them.
In the short span of 2012 to 2022, Uber gained massive, worldwide recognition, followed by expansion and service launching in other countries. Uber became a public company and held an initial public offering in May 2019. And several major updates and upgrades in the app had been made to facilitate passengers’ needs. As of recent development, Uber now served 72 countries and approximately 10.500 cities. Its headquarter is located in San Fransisco, California.
Uber is a goal-oriented tech company. Thus, it has a highly dedicated and engineering-driven workforce. The work will mostly be fast-paced and the environment will fastly change. Though, many current and former employees stated that achieving a work-life balance is possible at Uber. Even for those who work in the tech department and have tight deadlines and demanding workloads at some point. Employees claimed to have a great opportunity to learn, though it is depending on how they interact and build a relationship with their co-workers.
Uber is quite open about its hiring process. The company clearly stated that it has three rounds of interviews. After you apply on their website, the first step you will partake in is an interview with Uber’s talent acquisition team, it will continue with an interview with the hiring manager, and then a team interview with cross-functional colleagues. The length of the whole process is ranging from days to months.
Students or graduates who wish to apply for its internship program will find the opening information on its website. For the internship and co-op program, you can apply in September-November, the same goes for the UberSTAR internship program (tech and science students). While for the MBA internship program, you can apply in October-February.
Aside from its everlasting opportunity to work as a driver, Uber is a prestigious place for tech students and graduates to start off their careers. However, career prospects at Uber go beyond its tech department. Uber has 14 departments, for example; business development & sales, communications, community operations, finance, legal, marketing, operation & launch, engineering, design, data science & analytics, and many more. You may find the right place that fits your expertise.
Software engineer, hardware engineer, product designer, data scientist, data analyst, strategic finance associate, accountant, and communication designer are several roles you may want to consider if you are interested to work with Uber.
Uber also has a Talent Acquisition Academy Program specifically for human resources and recruiters. A 16 weeks training program designed for graduates with no experience to learn about Uber’s hiring process.
Uber offers a paid internship for 12-24 weeks. In a recent record submitted by former interns, it is stated that Uber is giving salaries ranging from $3,000 to $9,000 monthly. A software engineer receives up to $9,000, a business development intern receives $6,000, a hardware engineer receives $8,500, a data science intern receives $9,800, and an account representative receives $4,100 monthly.
Salaries for permanent and full-time employees are higher, especially for those who work in the tech department. A software engineer's salary will be in the range of $143,000 annually, a data analyst's around $111,000, an account executive salary will be around $74,000, a product designer will receive around $143,000 annually.
Uber hires a lot of drivers and it uses a lot of cars for its service, which raises concerns about environmental impact due to the usage of fossil fuel and the emission it created. It is the reason why Uber’s main corporate responsibility initiatives are mostly about its effort to create a sustainable and ‘greener’ ride. Uber provides options for its driver to get involved in its zero-emission target. Through its Green Future program, Uber gives provides $800 million to support drivers who want to switch their fossil-fueled vehicles to electric vehicles. The incentive will be given to drivers who use EVs in the amount of $1 (up to $4.000 annually). Uber also partnered with several companies to provide discounts for drivers who want to switch their vehicles, both for buying new vehicles and charging sessions.
As a company that relied heavily on its driver partners, Uber received a lot of critics regarding its ethical practice over years go by. The issue of how Uber should treat its partner better as a permanent employee than a mere partner is still being talked about to this day. However, Uber got itself into a bigger scandal recently. In mid-July, the media published various articles about the Uber file leaked which contained numerous amounts of records, including 83.000 emails and 1.000 other files including conversations spanning from 2013-2017. The files reveal how Uber’s secretly lobbied top ministers to help them with the campaign to disrupt Europe’s taxi industry.