Meet the Bay Area Safety and Insurance Engineering Team

by Chelsea Kelly

Our fast-growing Safety & Insurance Team builds innovative technology designed to help protect the safety of everyone who uses Uber. From biometrics, to identity verification, to machine learning, to insurance tech, our products span across the Uber lifecycle — onboarding, on-trip, post-trip and customer support. Our mission is to build tech to predict and prevent safety incidents while empowering users to feel protected in every single interaction along the user journey. Come #StandForSafety with us.

Shimul Sachdeva, Engineering Manager

What do you do at Uber?
“I manage Safety & Insurance Engineering teams, which aim to redefine what safety in Ridesharing and Delivery means on a global scale.”

How long have you been with Uber?
“Almost 7 years, although the real answer is – not long enough! There are days when it feels like 2 years and days when it feels like 20. Time certainly warps when you’re moving fast.” 

What is your favorite part of a typical week?
“1:1s. Being surrounded by smart and driven people leaves me energized and full of ideas!”

How do you ensure you’re continuing to grow?
“I learn the most from our engineers. We have a weekly architecture review forum for all new products the team is building. We also do tech talks which is a good place for knowledge sharing. These forums are a great way for me to stay connected with the latest and greatest. I also try to take up initiatives beyond the day-to-day execution to keep myself challenged: promoting new product ideas, driving new tech adoption, and championing engineer experience improvements.”

How would you describe the Safety & Insurance Engineering team? 
“Dynamic. Uber operates at a global scale in an increasingly regulated environment and a rapidly evolving industry. Our teams need to continually adapt to business needs. We also work across the Uber lifecycle, which necessitates the need for our engineers to operate across the stack (from frameworks and data platforms to mobile-facing features and frontend tooling) and with a range of skills – big data, telematics, machine learning, distributed systems, developer APIs, funnel optimization and customer support, to name a few. All this to say, there’s never a dull day.”

Krishna Sajja, Android Engineer

What do you do at Uber?
“I am an Android Engineer on the Safety Media and Driver Identity teams.”

How long have you been with Uber?
“Almost two years.”

What is your favorite part of a typical week? 
“In addition to the exciting projects I’m working on, we have these Teach & Learn sessions where the team gets together and shares the interesting things they learned recently. This enables us to grow together as a team and makes sure we don’t miss the new tools or processes. We also have social hours where the team plays different online multiplayer games which is super fun!”

Why did you join Uber?
“I was fascinated by the scale at which Uber operates. It’s very thrilling to be working on products that touch the day-to-day lives of millions of people across the world.”

How would you describe the Safety & Insurance Engineering team? 
“A very passionate group that genuinely cares about the safety of the people that use the Uber platform. This reflects in the way everyone owns the products they are working on and asks important questions throughout the product lifecycle to help ensure that Uber users feel safe when using our platform.”

Jin Yang, Software Engineer (Backend)

What do you do at Uber?
“I work on products that derive insights from the telematics data on Uber trips. With the Road Safety team, I have built on-trip crash detection and launched products designed to give drivers more insights on their driving.” 

How long have you been with Uber?
“A little more than two years and still really enjoy the cool products I get to build with awesome teammates!”

What is your favorite part of a typical week?
“The daily standup when we discuss what we are working on and casual updates about our daily lives.”

How do you ensure you’re continuing to grow?
“By attending the tech talks and also volunteering to present the work that our team is doing. In addition, the Fixit week is also a good time to learn new things and work on some interesting optimization.”

How would you describe the Safety & Insurance Engineering team? 
“Purposeful. Since we are working on products related to the safety of the Uber platform, you really feel like the work you are doing is meaningful. The working culture is collaborative. It is always easy to find useful information. People are friendly and also fun to work with on the S&I team! We used to have monthly photo contests and cook-off competitions and cool offsite events, and now with the pandemic virtual White Elephant gift exchange, virtual happy hour, virtual cooking class, etc.”

Ernesto Rubio, Senior Engineer (Backend)

What do you do at Uber?
“I’m a Backend Engineer on the Safety Controls team. We work on user-facing safety features like Emergency Assistance, Rider/Driver COVID checklist and driver safety insights.”

How long have you been with Uber?
“Almost 2.5 years; I joined Uber in December 2018.”

What is your favorite part of a typical week?
“The social meeting we have on Wednesdays in Safety Controls. It’s a time for the team to talk about any topic that is not work-related. Now that we are all working from home, this gives us a space where we can strengthen our team and get to know each other better.”

How do you ensure you’re continuing to grow?
“By joining company development programs like the Engineering Sponsorship & Development Program (ESDP). I joined this program last year, and one of the best parts of it was all the 1:1s I had with the mentor that I met through the program.”

How would you describe the Safety & Insurance Engineering team? 
“The team is full of amazing engineers that are always there for you if you need help. One of the best parts is when new projects start and we have design discussions at our ERD meetings. It’s great to see what other teams are building and being part of the design process for almost all projects in S&I.”

Blaine Gilbreth, Frontend Engineer

What do you do at Uber?
“I build web safety tools. Anything from internal safety web apps and customer experience safety enhancements to help.uber.com features like dashcam footage uploading.”

How long have you been with Uber?
“I have been with Uber for almost two years. It’s been a great experience and interesting ride. I’ve been able to expand my knowledge of cutting-edge frameworks and meet some great people along the way, along with creating a safer Uber experience for everyone.”

What is your favorite part of a typical week?
“My favorite part of the week is meeting with my team to decide on a different zoom background theme. This is something we have picked up during the pandemic which surprisingly has been an awesome conversation starter.”

How do you ensure you’re continuing to grow?
“Web technologies are always changing — attending the monthly Uber web guild meetups has been fantastic. It’s a place for all web engineers to discuss new technologies and showcase all the cool stuff we’ve made. It’s definitely a great place to learn new things and grow as a web engineer.”

How would you describe the Safety & Insurance Engineering team? 
“Our team is really a cohesive whole. We are supportive of each other and create an ideal environment to be a productive engineer. I definitely feel lucky to be a part of the team!”

Mingwang Tang, Senior Engineer (Backend)/iOS

What do you do at Uber?
“I build driver insurance compliance verification, optional insurance products, and claim processing services.”

How long have you been with Uber?
“I have been with Uber for 4.5 years now. I started as a Uber data infrastructure engineer and then changed to a backend developer role in late 2018. It makes me feel closer to our customers and I get to connect with cross-functional teams.”

What is your favorite part of a typical week?
“My favorite part is the sprint demo session. It’s a time to showcase the cool stuff that we have built. Meanwhile, it’s exciting to see how a project evolves to a real product in the team.”

How do you ensure you’re continuing to grow?
“I set up different goals for each quarter and reflect on my learnings and growth at the end of the quarter.” 

How would you describe the Safety & Insurance Engineering team? 
“The team is full of energy and enthusiasm. It’s running at startup speed and powered by our strong leadership team and tech stack. A lot of cool things can happen here.”

Interested in joining us? Explore our open roles ->