Uber’s latest ‘feature’ is an in-app recruitment tool for developers

Uber is now sourcing developers from its pool of riders.

On Twitter, Microsoft employee (and possible Lumberjack) Joshua Debner shared screenshots of an in-app experience he had while taking an Uber ride. It asked Debner to ask some fairly routine interview-type questions.

All of the questions related to development, and Debner was even offered a chance to follow-up with Uber after his ride.

Uber is now offering coding questions to potential candidates while you’re in an uber. How did they know I code? pic.twitter.com/W2zn8bmouy

— Joshua Debner (@jdebner) March 25, 2016

It’s not clear how Uber knew Debner was in any way involved with coding (his Uber trip was from home to a wine bar, so it’s not destination endpoints). Perhaps Uber is scraping recruitment sites using an email, then cross-referencing it to profile email addresses.

I don’t know, but it’s either another cool way the company is attracting developers, or one of those ‘Uber is creepy’ scenarios. This recruitment seems to have been going on for some time, too; in Debner’s Twitter thread, someone responded they’d also seen it before.

We’ve reached to Uber about this recruitment policy to discover just how it’s being accomplished, and we’ll update you should we hear back from them.