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content/log/2023/7-years-at-uber.md

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+---
+title: "7 Years at Uber"
+date: 2023-02-10T01:54:23+02:00
+slug: 7-years-at-uber
+---
+
+This month turned 7 years since I joined Uber. Since it will be the last (a bit
+more on it in the next paragraph), I though it's good to write a retrospective
+on how it looked like.
+
+On 2022-09-07 it was announced that Uber engineering site will be shut down on
+2023-06-30. Whoever is willing to relocate are welcome to do so. The rest will
+be laid off. The "easiest" offices for relocation are where our organization
+is: Aarhus, Amsterdam, Seattle, New York, Sunnyvale and San Francisco. In my
+case, I have a good life in Vilnius and want to keep it that way. So my days
+are numbered.
+
+Note that this started *before* the "layoffs of 2023" in the industry. Given
+the conditions (9 months notice!), it does seem like a strategic move, not a
+cost-saving one.
+
+Chronological summary of my employment and projects at Uber:
+
+- 2016-02-01: joined in Amsterdam, Marketplace Topology team.
+- 2016-10-30: moved to Vilnius, Lithuania. Joined "Foundatoins Platform" team
+  (probably it had a different name back then).
+- 2017-2018: worked on an internal project in infrastructure. Not much to say
+  about it, it is gone now.
+- 2019-2021: worked on interesting and important infrastructure work: OS, host
+  access, user+groups NSS module and distribution layer. An exploratory
+  personal project with the same theme is [turbonss][turbonss].
+- 2022-2023: bootstrapping arm64 for compute. [I wrote a bit about this]({{<
+  ref "log/2022/how-uber-uses-zig" >}}). There were many past-2022-April
+  developments, and I am working on an official Uber engineering blog about
+  this. Should come out in a couple of weeks.
+
+What was so noteworthy?
+-----------------------
+
+I met and worked with many amazing people. If I were to single out *one*, that
+would be Dan Heller, who hired me in Amsterdam, and who I've been working on
+and off ever since. Among other things (a book!), he wrote [10
+tenets](https://medium.com/@daniel.heller/ten-principles-for-growth-69015e08c35b),
+which I regularly use and recommend to others. I am not putting a second name
+here, because where do I stop?
+
+I used to do 2-3 yearly 5-12 day US trips. At the beginning almost exclusively
+San Francisco. After ~5'th trip or so I started to look for things to do during
+the weekends and (quite by accident!) found likeminded individuals who are
+willing to join for crazy drives/flights/weekend trips with me. And oh the fun
+we had together during those short stunts.
+
+{{<img src="_/2023/7-years-new-mexico.jpg"
+    alt="A selfie of two male individuals with two parked cars and a desert in the background."
+    caption="One of the best weekend trips with Rick boone (right) and Bob Nugman (not in the picture) in New Mexico just before a hike in the desert."
+    class="half right"
+    half="true"
+    hint="photo"
+    >}}
+
+The engineering culture is very strong, I learned many valuable lessons: both
+from anecdotes and actual experience of:
+- Built something that nobody needs. I spent my sweat, blood and tears doing
+  it. I had a small child at a time, and, unfortunately, sometimes my
+  priorities were not chosen wisely. I am older now and hopefully wiser.
+- Built something the organization really needs: an [NSS][nss] module with a
+  distribution layer. I saw the steady uptick in use. The edge cases, scaling
+  problems, lots of customer support (and documentation improvements). Lessons
+  of ossification, client-side metrics, privy of my dependencies.
+- Tried the corporate promotion lottery. 3 times! The third time was
+  successful. I originally thought it was a lottery (when I "lost" it). Turns
+  out it does not matter how much competence I show, or work I do, on a project
+  that does not matter as much for the rest of the organization. I got my
+  promotion for NSS and host access, things that others actually needed and
+  valued.
+- We did [Crane][crane], god damn it. A 5-year org-wide project that completely
+  changed how we do infrastructure. Lots of technical and organizational
+  complexities. We had very strong leaders, a clear vision and stamina to keep
+  going. Crane was finished[^1]  on the week of this blog post.
+- Onboarded a new novel technology (zig) and established a relationship between
+  Uber and the Zig Software Foundation. Zig is currently on critical path at
+  Uber, *probably* the second most-invoked compiler after Go. I am proud of
+  that and hope it will serve as a beachhead for the conservatives. If the
+  previous sentence does not make sense, look up ["crossing the chasm
+  beachhead"][ddg]. Thanks to my weekend drive during the previous business
+  trip (probably my last with Uber), I met Andrew Kelley in his home town
+  Portland. We had lunch in the food court and went for an exactly 2-hour hike.
+  Besides learning and onboarding new technology, I feel very much part of the
+  community.
+
+{{<img src="_/2023/7-years-portland.jpg"
+    alt="Three people eating in a busy foot court outside."
+    caption="My last business trip in Portland. From the left: Andrew Kelley, Rick Boone and my manager Rolandas Tamašauskas."
+    hint="photo"
+    >}}
+
+The end is near
+---------------
+
+There is much, much more to cover than the above, I had a great time. Great
+people, experiences and organizational awareness. I even did 5 trips as a
+driver during working hours, and this was encouraged by my manager and the
+team. I am still having a good time, but, given the expiry date, it is
+different: the office is shrinking, colleagues either leave the company or
+relocate to Amsterdam or the US.
+
+I will take the summer off. I may do some consulting in Autumn. So if you want
+to talk build systems, systems programming or arm64, [contact me]({{< ref
+"contact" >}}).
+
+[^1]: The last host in the "legacy stack" was decommissioned.
+
+[nss]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_Service_Switch
+[ddg]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=crossing+the+chasm+beachhead
+[turbonss]: https://git.jakstys.lt/motiejus/turbonss
+[crane]: https://www.uber.com/en-ES/blog/crane-ubers-next-gen-infrastructure-stack/