Axel is using his military experience to excel at Uber 

After spending 2 years in the military, Axel del Lago joined Uber to apply the skills he had learned as a Lieutenant to a new career on the EMEA Customer Support team in Lisbon. 

“I was looking to relocate to another country to start a new chapter and saw this as a great opportunity to explore a different culture while still being close to home and family. Moving to Lisbon also allowed me to experience the high quality of life the city has to offer and for me to step into a completely new area professionally,” he shares below.

“I joined Uber firstly as a customer support agent in Lisbon after moving out of my previous professional experience in the military, where I’d graduated from the military academy and spent time as a Lieutenant in the Infantry. 

I was looking to relocate to another country to start a new chapter and saw this as a great opportunity to explore a different culture while still being close to home and family.”

“After spending 3 months as an external support agent for restaurant support, I joined the Lisbon Center of Excellence for Uber Eats in 2019 and July of this year marked my 4 years anniversary at Uber. 

I spent the first couple of months of my career on the French Uber Eats support team providing support to eaters, couriers and restaurants, as well as participating in the onboarding training for new agents joining French, German and Spanish speaking teams. I really enjoyed sharing knowledge and best practices as I got more confident with the use of our internal tools. 

~6 months later and just before moving to working fully remote due to the pandemic, I got the chance to start a new position in March 2020 as a compliance subject matter expert for drivers. This new role consisted of assisting French Rides operations teams and allowed me to strengthen my stakeholder management skills as well as my analytical mindset.

In 2021 I joined the French Incident Response Team, leading the support team for non-urgent incidents at first, and 6 months later, the Urgent Safety Investigation team. This experience helped me develop multiple skills within mentorship, performance management and overall leadership. 

I am excited to share that I am now taking on a new position as an EMEA Quality Program Specialist. This new chapter will bring me to a more specialized and process-oriented role, where I’ll be able to leverage my years of experience at Uber and knowledge from multiple LOBs as I now join a Central team. The main goal of this role is to lead end-to-end complex and large-scale quality initiatives. I will be responsible for aligning capacity, onboarding, tooling, execution, KPI monitoring, success measures and stakeholder management of these initiatives.”

“My experience from multiple trainings, missions and interdisciplinary relationships at the academy, as well as being assigned to a regiment of French Foreign Legion, turned out to be extremely valuable for my career journey at Uber.

As a global company, with an inclusive culture and a strong people development program, there are tons of highly talented people which makes the workplace such an interesting and positively challenging environment. Coming from the military, where both mental and physical training are very demanding, and where in order to get promoted you have to work hard while also maintaining a teamwork mentality, I have been able to keep a strong engagement while always having an open mind to feedback and self-improvement. 

I have also benefited from having a very curious mind, digging deep into all resources available. But instead of trying to learn everything, I’ll resort to a rigorous organization of my bookmarks, which allows me to be more efficient and knowledgeable.”

“It definitely taught me to be resilient and how important each individual in a group can be, and also knowing when to lead and when to delegate. Communication has always been key to my leadership style, whether it was in the military or at Uber and I always try to include some sort of light-heartedness, even when performing in a highly sensitive/stressful environment.”

“Joining the Employee Resource Group (ERG) for Veterans at Uber was a turning point in my career. Being in close contact with global leaders who are part of this same network within Uber helped me gain confidence in speaking publicly, taking part in a wide range of projects and meetings, such as a panel discussion broadcasted live externally. 

I’ve really enjoyed learning from the best, and the kindness and presence from the people I’ve met in this ERG while getting things done, was an important part of my learning experience and certainly a boost in my career journey.”

“Stand for safety, because I strongly believe that as a platform connecting millions of people physically around the world, safety is one of the most important aspects.

Another value, “Great minds don’t think alike” too. I love thinking outside of the box, especially when it turns out to be more efficient. Every major discovery or revolution came from a person or a group of people that tried something differently. Sometimes it works and the other times you learn something, so it’s a win-win.

And of course, “Build with heart”, as I believe that a global company only thrives through passion and inclusion.”

“My proudest moments do not necessarily include my accomplishments or promotions, even though they feel great and come with a lot of work and perseverance. I feel really proud about our positive impact on the world and whenever Uber supports community or social action––during COVID for caregiver transportation, and moving families during natural catastrophes and even wars.

The possibilities of the Uber Eats and Rides platforms combined with new products and a community engagement are endless and really make the whole organization worth being one of the most impactful companies in the world.”

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