It’s common for managers at Uber to start out as individual contributors, some even on the same team. That’s because when we hire, we hire for the long term. We look beyond just the role you’re applying for today and make sure every new joiner has the skills and personal qualities to grow with us as we grow too.
That’s how Eric Lee, who joined our Uber for Business Sales team 7 years ago, joined as an Enterprise Account Executive and grew to lead the Mid-Market business unit. “The skills I develop on the job will stay with me for the rest of my career, and because there’s more than enough work to go around there are always opportunities to take on more,” he shares below.
Tell us about yourself.
“I joined Uber for Business 7 years ago and have been on the team ever since. Today, I’m our Head of US Mid-Market and based in New York City working from our brand new office in downtown Manhattan. In my role, I lead teams responsible for securing high-margin Mobility and Delivery gross bookings from medium-to-large sized companies.
These days I’m just as busy outside of work as I am at work. I’m preparing for my 2024 wedding, a big fan of the New England Patriots, and love trying as many new restaurants and different cuisine types as I can (there’s endless supply here in NYC).”
When did you decide pursuing a career in Sales was the move for you?
“I realized my knack for Sales in my first job after college on a team responsible for cold calling and sales research. Looking back, my sheer willpower and hustle definitely made up for my skill gaps. Believe me there were many cringe-worthy calls and meetings. I was far from polished. But I committed myself to chasing whoever was at the top of the leaderboard in each metric every day: calls made, emails sent, etc. This propelled me to the #1 or #2 spots each week, and I was able to repeat this consistently.”
What has driven your growth most through your career?
“Goal setting has been something that I have found invaluable. Uber encourages this by providing a number of tools and frameworks for employees. While actual goal setting and achieving lies with me, my experience at Uber has been one where my leaders have supported me by providing clear, tangible feedback when I’ve asked for it.
Specifically, the real-time feedback—both the “do more of this” and “improve in this area”—has helped me continue to grow and achieve career goals that I’ve set and aligned with my leaders. The clear feedback on where I need to improve to achieve my next career goal has had a positive impact on my growth and development.”
You’ve made a couple of career moves at Uber. How has each role set you up for the next?
“My journey at Uber started in June 2016 when I joined as an Enterprise Account Executive, an individual contributor role. After demonstrating consistent success I wanted to develop my people management and leadership skills, and in March 2019 I took on a newly created role within Uber for Business to build our first official outbound Business Development Representatives (BDRs) program. The scope was initially for the US and Canada, but in classic Uber fashion it scaled quickly to a global program of 30-40 BDRs across 5+ teams.
That role helped me develop a new set of skills: people management, stakeholder management, and building and scaling a program from scratch. From there, I wanted to combine this with the sales and dealmaking skills I built prior to Uber and in my early Uber days as an Enterprise Account Executive. This led me to take a role leading one of our Global Strategic Accounts teams in mid-2021 where I was responsible for the full revenue lifecycle (finding, closing, retaining, and expanding) from ~20 of Uber for Business’s largest clients globally. In this role, I honed my analytical capabilities as I used a variety of data points to guide the team, while also learning how to positively impact job functions that were newer to me, like implementation and client retention.
Fast forward to early 2023, an opportunity arose on Uber for Business once again to lead one of our largest business units: US Mid-Market Sales. I recognized that this would enable me to further grow and develop my general manager skill set and decided to take on this new challenge. What I like most about this new role? It challenges me to wear a number of different hats everyday: people leader, client success, strategy, and analysis.”
You’ve been at Uber for over 7 years. Why continue to stay?
“There’s never a shortage of projects and initiatives to take on at Uber. That means I’ve been able to continuously learn, develop and hone a variety of different skills throughout the years. These skills I develop on the job will stay with me for the rest of my career, and because there’s more than enough work to go around there are always opportunities to take on more to help yourself develop the skills you want to.”
How do you work together as a Sales team to achieve goals?
“We move at such a rapid pace at Uber that everyone is laser-focused on executing what’s directly on their plate (the trees). But it’s super important to keep in mind how things on our plate play into the bigger picture (the forest). That’s why the value See the forest and the trees resonates with me most. The success of Uber is the summation of everyone succeeding on their individual goals.”
What’s your Uber rating?
“4.89 stars. I was made aware that I closed car doors a little too aggressively at times (sorry!). A valuable learning for me: German-brand cars tend to have much heavier doors vs Japanese-brand cars. If you’re used to German-brand cars, ease up on door closing and watch your Uber rating rise!“
Interested in joining us? Explore our open roles →
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