The Accountant Turned Engineer – Early Uber Employee Ryan McKillen | The Early Podcast Episode 9

For this episode, we’re going EARLY EARLY… Uber employee #3!

Ryan McKillen helped build Uber from the ground up — literally. He walked in on day one to find a stack of pristine coding books… and one beat-up Spanish dictionary.
“Why?”
“All the code’s in Spanish. Welcome to Uber.”

Ryan went from CPA to self-taught engineer, joined Uber pre-hypergrowth, helped launch Paris in 5 weeks, and was there for the infamous cease & desist moment that put the company on the map. He shares what it was like building through chaos, working side-by-side with Travis, and how the early Uber culture shaped his career — and life.

In this episode, we cover:
• The very first days of Uber — and why all the code was in Spanish
• What Travis Kalanick did after the cease & desist
• How Ryan helped launch Uber Paris in 5 weeks
• What made early Uber’s engineering culture so special
• Ryan’s post-Uber chapter: sailing, startups, and owning the U.S. SailGP team

This one’s packed with real stories, startup grit, and some hilarious early tech chaos. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like to build from day one — listen up.

Episode 9 is live. Let’s go. 🚀

👇 Connect with Ryan
📱 Ryan on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-mckillen/

#EarlyPodcast #Uber #StartupStories #Founders #TechFounders #SiliconValley #EngineeringLeadership #StartupCulture #ScaleUp #ProductDriven #FoundersJourney #Podcast

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🎧 Listen to the full episode:
🔹 Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/13dcsmz27cQ4LZUHxJY1n4
🔹 Apple Podcasts: earlypod.com/apple

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