Photo-sharing app Snapchat is getting creative to nab car-hailing service Uber’s engineers.
Snapchat users taking pictures with the app near Uber headquarters have found a built-in message aimed to entice Uber employees to come join Snapchat’s team, Forbes reports.
Snapchat’s tactics are as follows, per Forbes:
“This place driving you mad?” read the filter, which can be applied to Snapchat photos before a user sends a disappearing message to friends. The photo filter, which can only be found if a user is in the vicinity of Uber headquarters, also shows a web address to Snapchat’s jobs page and drawings of Snapchat’s trademark ghost driving a cab while making frustrated and sad faces.
Snapchat spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker told Forbes that the efforts are “a unique and playful form of recruiting.” Tech firms often poach one another’s engineers, but this appears to be a new strategy for doing so. Interestingly, both companies have investors that overlap: Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a situation that might reduce competitive hiring between them.
The company describes its geolocation filters as “special overlays for Snaps that can only be accessed in certain locations. Simply choose the geographic area you want your filter to be available in and upload an image asset.”
Snapchat is reportedly valued at $19 billion. Uber’s last funding round put its valuation at more than $40 billion, ranking it among the most valuable private companies in the world.
