It soon became clear that women were not seen as high performers. Several months later, the company bought leather jackets for all 120 male engineers, but not for the six women in the team. It was so absurd that I laugh about it in retrospect, but at the time, it made me realise how little the company valued its female employees.

And it was a regular source of discussion for LadyEng – an informal group for women in Uber’s technical teams, which I had joined. The other women revealed they had experienced similar sexist interactions – some at the hands of my manager – so I escalated the matter to the chief technology officer. But he told me the same thing as HR – even though it clearly wasn’t his ‘first offence’. The same manager who, by then, had told other colleagues that I reported him because I couldn’t ‘handle’ a man like him.

It was at that moment I realised this ‘script’ on how to respond to harassment went all the way to the top and there was nothing I could do to change it. That took a toll on my mental wellbeing – I became anxious and would end up crying in the toilets after meetings with male managers who would threaten and insult me, telling me I wasn’t ‘working hard enough’, or I was ‘the problem’ despite delivering everything they asked of me.

The stress began to seep into my personal life. I’d argue over something trivial with my boyfriend and feel so defensive and attacked that it left my heart pounding. A disagreement with my mother caused me to have a panic attack.

Meet Susan Fowler, the woman who took on Uber over sexism and harassment