by Staff writer
Asking for career advice on the internet is great until your would-be boss gets involved.
An engineer who was weighing job offers from Uber and Zenefits, both startups in San Francisco, mused about the pros and cons of each in a public post on Quora, the question-and-answer site.
A few hours later, one of the offers was revoked.
The engineer said the best reason he wants to work at Uber was its reputation, which would “really help him move on to companies like Google and Apple, which is something he wants to do in the distant future.”
The negatives were that Uber didn’t seem to need him all that much and wasn’t willing to negotiate on salary.
Of Zenefits on the other hand, he said they had “great people, accessible leadership, seemed to really desire the engineer, and was offering more money.”
But it didn’t seem as a compelling a “buzzword” to have on a résumé when applying to a company like Google in the future, the engineer said.
That reasoning didn’t sit well with Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad (who is also a user on Quora).
Replying to the question on Quora titled, “What is the best way to start my career: Uber or Zenefits?”, Conrad said: “Definitely not Zenefits.”
He also said the company was revoking its job offer to the engineer, though later removed that part, saying it “didn’t seem fair” to make that public.
According to QZ, a spokesman for Zenefits confirmed that the job offer was revoked and that the reply on Quora was truly from Conrad, the company’s CEO.
