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On Leaving Facebook

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Re: On Leaving Facebook

#121

Post by 2457013579 »

fallmonkey wrote: post #94

"A common question I get is about work/life balance. And I view it a little different too now. At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying that it spilled the frustration in the “life” part" This is the golden piece for me. I too recently left a big corp to a smaller place, expecting to sacrifice WLB and my free time - yet I ended up feeling happier and spending less t…

This hit home for me as well. I’m currently at a large company and looking for a smaller one where I can work more hours Thor the same money doing something more meaningful. I have a min/max mindset, probably like most people here, so it took me a long time to come to the realization that working longer hours for the same pay was a good thing.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#122

Post by sockgrant »

elb0w wrote: post #79

It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…

I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about someone being hired that couldn’t write simple code.

It’s easy to study leet code, and it’s relevant because it shows the interviewer you can write code.

I’ve had non-leet code interviews, like write some feature in 60minutes. It was fine. It tests code and knowledge as opposed to just algorithms and tricks.

I dunno I’ve always felt that the people who can’t leet code are the ones that complain about it. The ones that can just spend a bit of time to practice and ace the interview.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#123

Post by floodyberry- »

dahdum wrote: post #70
xmprt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, one could easily work at Facebook for 10 years and have enough saved up to retire immediately depending on what their living expenses look like. So taking a 30% paycut to work on something that you find more interesting is less about being able to retire and more about working on something interesting until you decide that you'd rather retire.

The kicker for me is based on my age, savings rates, and planned spending, a 30% drop from FB level comp could put retirement nearly twice as many years in the future. I’d have to really hate my job to give that up, especially since he noted it’s easy to rest and vest with a few hours of work per day.

If a 30% drop from insanely overpaid to highly overpaid doubles how long you have to work until you "retire" _and_ you feel the need to whine about this fact in public, the solution is simple: thank god every day that being an entitled asshole is not a crime

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#124

Post by booleandilemma »

jackblemming wrote: post #8

This man had 8+ years at Facebook and they still made him do programming questions? What is wrong with our industry?

Anyone can put n+ years at Facebook on their resume regardless of whether they worked on Facebook or not. Maybe they’re banking on a background check not being run. And if I know anything about people, I’m sure there are people out there doing this. Frauds abound.

Check this out: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yahoo-investor-ceo-lied-about-t...

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#125

Post by vanusa »

pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though?

Rather than focusing on how an association with FB would be viewed on your resume -- you may want to ask yourself whether that company lives up to your own moral standards, and whether (just to yourself) you would feel proud of yourself for working there.

Many people have come to the conclusion that it is an extremely cynical and unethical company:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_contro...

And that even aside from the specific episodes of abusive behavior, that its core product is basically toxic:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036519/facebook...

Meanwhile, some of the founder's behavior in his early adult years can best be described as nakedly sociopathic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Early_years

Whether any of this matters to you is ... up to you. But it is definitely a question you may want to investigate before you start working there -- rather than after you've signed the dotted line.

Being as asking your recruiter or your interviewers these questions -- isn't likely to get you very far.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#126

Post by unmole »

zionic wrote: post #109
code_biologist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll match your anecdote with mine. I'm an engineering leader at a small company that has worked at FAANG. I have personal mixed feelings about working at FB, but it's a very strong positive signal about someone's engineering ability (and comp expectations lol). Send any good coders you toss out because they worked at FB my way!!

I’ll match your anecdote with mine. I’ve been everything from CTO to lead engineer. I’ve made sure we always pay well above average for every role because I’d rather have one exceptional engineer than 10 regular ones. FAANG on your resume is an instant disqualification.

Can you please name your company? I haven't worked at FAANG but I most definitely would not want to work for a company like yours.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#127

Post by zionic »

comp_throw7 wrote: post #106
pkdpic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint appreciated. Any chance someone could expand on this? Not sure how serious the commenter was.

I can't imagine a single person where I work factoring this in when scoring a candidate. I guess someone could lie and say a candidate performed worse than they did, but unless the candidate actually performed poorly on other rounds, that isn't an automatic rejection (sometimes we'll ask for a follow-up round). Candidate performance tends to be pretty strongly correlated across rounds (unsurprisingly), so sharp outli…

> I can't imagine a single person where I work factoring this in

Then it’s entirely possible you work for an immoral mega corp and your judgment has been compromised by your paycheck.

Let me put it in a more blunt way you are more likely to understand. Your team is interviewing someone who was a process engineer on the deep water horizon oil spill. You’d probably feel gross hiring someone whose incompetence poisoned the Gulf of Mexico.

They did a fraction of the damage that FAANG engineers do to our society on a daily basis.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#128

Post by solarkraft »

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #39
pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

Unpopular opinion: Facebook is widely disliked by the loudest voices in the room (for good reason), but the vast majority of people still just treat it like a fancy forum. It's not going to stain your CV. Plus, Facebook-the-app is far more disliked than Meta-the-company especially now that's a formal distinction. I imagine it's still relatively cool to work on Instagram, for example.

> Facebook-the-app is far more disliked than Meta-the-company

My impression is the opposite, not just in my technical circles. Facebook is boring. Meta is (arguably) malicious.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#129

Post by ensan »

throwaway3137 wrote: post #23
pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

(throwaway account for the obvious reason) I've been at Meta for 3+ years. I'm also interviewing. I have somewhere between 4 and 8 offers right now (not a humblebrag, just the facts). Not a single interviewer (from junior engineers to directors and VPs of engineering) asked me anything remotely like "Why are you still at an awful company like Facebook?" The plural of anecdote is not "fact", but that's my experience:…

“somewhere between 4 and 8 offers right now”

How can the number of offers be indeterminate?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#130

Post by [deleted] »

yla92 wrote: post #81
rsynnott wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it kind of fascinating how into the idea of early retirement many people on this site are. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, but… I don’t really get it. I don’t think I actually know anyone who has early-retired. What would you do with yourself? Is it not better to work for a longer time at a job you like than a shorter time at a higher paying one that you dislike?

This is how I see it. It could also be more towards "financial freedom" instead of "early retirement". Financial freedom in a sense that you don't have to work for money anymore and can live on your investment/saving with some fix withdrawal every year. That also means that you can choose to work at the places of your interest but don't pay much and you will still be okay!

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