Back to the São Paulo office with Ulysses Braga

Uber launched in Brazil in 2014 with our first office in São Paulo. Less than 10 years later, we were breaking records for both rides and delivery worldwide and kicked off a variety of unique operations. At the end of 2018, we opened our first-ever Uber Tech Center in Latin America in the heart of São Paulo, focusing on solutions to support the safety of our platform. Now 5 years later, Uber Brazil has embarked on a new mission. We spoke with Ulysses Caetano Braga, a Sr. Production Engineer from our Safety & Insurance team, to learn about what it’s like to work at Uber Brazil today and our work hybrid philosophy, which lets Ulysses spend half time in Uber’s São Paulo office collaborating onsite with the Engineering team and half time working from home. 

“Our office is in a central location in São Paulo. We’re close to where everything happens. Our office is very conveniently located next to a metro and bus stations. Regardless of the area you’re living in, it’s fairly easy to get to. The neighborhood is full of good places to eat and we have happy hours, lots of good options for all kinds of preferences.”

“At Uber, we work hybrid, which allows us to have a lot of flexibility to enjoy the office while having a strong work-life balance. After almost 2 years of working fully remotely, being back in the office is exciting to finally have the chance to meet my colleagues in person and build our relationship. Growing professional relationships is extremely important to me. I strongly believe that building trust—based on facts, not beliefs—between teams and within teams is one of the most important pillars in achieving our own professional goals, as well as the company’s business goals. So meeting people face to face, and knowing the person behind a screen really makes it easier. And of course, the personal side of it, during coffees and lunches I’ve already learned lots of cool stuff, met nice people, books, and travel recommendations.”

“Choosing to go to the office is also related to the office environment and amenities. It’s a place where we can work comfortably, collaboration spaces, and everything else needed to do our best work. Even on the busiest days, people are always respectful, avoiding noise or other distractions.”

“São Paulo is home to employees on a variety of teams, including Corporate, Sales, Operations, and Technology.

Returning to the office has been highly beneficial in regard to building relationships and has opened the door for new learnings. Almost every single time I go in, a coworker sitting around me has helped me quickly solve a problem. More than once, I’ve found it easier to collaborate in person than virtually and build connections with people beyond my immediate team, whom I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to meet. Not long ago I helped some Order Platform folks to build and improve their observability and monitoring of a product domain. More than that, it’s quite common to observe people interacting between themselves and solve things which would take longer to be solved only virtually.”

Being in the office allows all the Tech employees to also have the best facilities to communicate with other offices around the world, which is very important due to the global impact of their work. It was inside the Uber São Paulo office that features such as the video recording were developed and launched.”

The hybrid policy is still under implementation for São Paulo. As of now, Ulysses and all the members from our teams can select the days that they’ll go to the office according to their own and their team’s needs.

Join our team in São Paulo today →