I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Uber (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2016
Interview
HR emailed me and arranged a phone call with me the next day. The interviewer was pleasant in her tone and asked me a lot of questions including my expected salary, why I was leaving academia, if I was okay with relocating, who else I was interviewing with, and what stage those interviews were at. I felt that it was a little inappropriate when she tried to get the name of the other place where I was interviewing. When I said I was not comfortable with revealing it, she later tried to get information on whether or not it was a tech company. She also made it clear this was NOT a 9-5 job.
I felt that the interviewer was not familiar with the role I was interviewing for. She did not really seem to know what I would be doing day-to-day, examples of research projects, or the managing style of the team leader (she thought for a while and told me that the team leader was "very thoughtful in who she brings onto the team").
An hour or so after the interview, she sent me the 2-hr essay test (in which I wrote a research proposal). I found the task pretty fun and easy, but I did not move onto the next stage. I was told via email that the hiring team thought my skills and experience are a good fit, but other candidates are a better fit. The entire process took only about a week.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is the name of the other company that you are interviewing at?
What are your pay expectations?
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Uber
Interview
The conversation with HR and hiring manager went very well. The next round was asking me to work on a case and sent back my code and PowerPoint to them within 48 hours. They sent me rejection letter a week later. I'm really frustrated with their feedback. They want to hire someone with some kind of skills. The case I worked on had nothing to do with those skills. Every candidate spends lots of time and makes every effort to prepare for job interviews. PLEASE respect other's time and effort.
The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Uber in Nov 2018
Interview
I had a call with a recruiter, followed by a technical coding interview, a technical research interview and a culture fit interview with current research scientists. All were over the phone/internet.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The coding interview was a straight forward question where brute force + dictionary was optimal. This was followed by some slightly harder follow-up questions on modified assumptions about the input data.
The research interview was a pretend first research meeting on a topic given by the interviewer. We brainstormed together and the interviewer probed (fairly lightly) my knowledge on the fields that we touched upon.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Uber
Interview
I did not make it past the first initial call with HR. If I had continued, the process would have included an interview with a manager, a problem to solve, a portfolio review, and an onsite interview
Although I did receive positive feedback from the recruiter during the interview and I was told I was moving on to the next round, this turned out to not be the case.
I'm not entirely sure what went wrong, but it could be that I did not send a thank-you note until the following week, which might have been interpreted as lack of enthusiasm. Regardless of your personal feelings about superficiality, I recommend that in your interview with Uber you act extremely excited about the company and the product. And send a thank you note immediately.