Uber, at 16,000 FTEs, is at least twice the size it needs to be to earn a profit. Deduplicating engineering efforts is a good step, but it isn’t clear what the redundant teams will be doing going forward. Feels like lay-offs must be coming.
“Basically a question came up. Why is everything so hard and why are we spending so much on engineering?” said an anonymous Uber engineer. “Kalanick always considered engineering an investment. Someone might be finally looking at it like a cost.”
Source: With Project Ark, Uber Aims To Consolidate Its Splintered Engineering Division