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Meta and Google are cutting staff

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141–150 of 408 posts

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#141

> Google has required some employees to apply for new jobs is this the new way to say "fired"?

This was standard practice at my former old school tech company employer. People were "redeployed" and given 30-90 days to apply for new roles, with many unable to get jobs secured in time they were let go with minimal severance.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The hiring market has shifted from ultra-competitive during the COVID economic boom to being much tighter and more competitive during this economic downturn. You can't hire at Meta and Google scale without collecting some mis-hires and poor performers. When the hiring market is tight you might keep them on longer and try to mentor them up to par, but when the hiring market shifts and there are a lot of great can…

I'm confused. It was ultra-competitive before and now it's more competitive?

Given the context of their message, I think the parent switched perspectives mid-stream: ultra-competitive from the perspective of the employers (very hard to hire) to competitive from the perspective of the employees (somewhat hard to be hired).

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#144
It is fairly well known that Google and Facebook have been making defensive hires the last few years. Ie. They would hire someone not because they necessarily wanted them but because they were worried they might go to the other competitor.

Now that hiring has cooled they are willing to drop those folks.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nowhere near the same as "stack ranking" in the way that the term generally used in the tech industry... I wouldn't want to work somewhere at FB scale that doesn't grade you on the curve of other engineers in your department and level, once your departments are large enough that's exactly how it should work. What's problematic is forcefully defining X percent as being low performing, the comparison to peers is…

They have a policy that XX% of engineers in a given department should* be given "Meets Most". If that's not stack ranking I'm not sure what would be. BTW "meets most" likely doesn't sound too bad to non-Metamates. Internally it's a pretty bad mark on your record. It doesn't directly relate to being fired but a ton of people quit when they receive it. I view it as sort of a "pre-PIP" state. (* Managers/directors will…

> XX% of engineers in a given department should* be given "Meets Most"

Hmmm this doesn’t sound like the Facebook I worked at

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#146
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "meets most" likely doesn't sound too bad to non-Metamates. Internally it's a pretty bad mark on your record. The kind of newspeak I've heard from multiple friends and former coworkers that ended up at FB/Meta at some point. Well, the ones that didn't fall into the cult of Mark. It might be because I'm getting older but this is the kind of stuff that makes me want to puke. The co-optation of language to exude an au…

Are you talking about "Metamates"—if so I said that ironically. I don't think I've ever heard anyone outside of the execs use that term when they weren't being sarcastic.

No, I meant in the case of "meets most" being used in an extremely negative connotation.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#147

> Google has required some employees to apply for new jobs is this the new way to say "fired"?

I believe they mean jobs within Google for the folks whose entire team is being dissolved, but aren't being laid off directly. I recall something similar during my time there, when the Google Play team was merged with the YouTube Music team.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hot job market You'd be surprised :). Even Amazon isn't eating up engineers like it was a year ago. No, there is no hot job market, unless you want to take 30-40% pay cut.

amazon is still massively hiring because they already pip people and they have a 4year cliff where people leave willingly cauz they make less. also frugality is already looped in amazon values so they wont overhire like google or meta

At least retail/Alexa is on some sort of hiring freeze as I heard.

Problem is the same, lot of businesses get cut or deprioritized

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#149
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a policy that XX% of engineers in a given department should* be given "Meets Most". If that's not stack ranking I'm not sure what would be. BTW "meets most" likely doesn't sound too bad to non-Metamates. Internally it's a pretty bad mark on your record. It doesn't directly relate to being fired but a ton of people quit when they receive it. I view it as sort of a "pre-PIP" state. (* Managers/directors will…

> XX% of engineers in a given department should* be given "Meets Most" Hmmm this doesn’t sound like the Facebook I worked at

it used to be documented publicly (internally). Last I checked (around a year ago) you could still find the doc somewhere in history. Ask on Blind, they'll send you a link.

EDIT: sorry I see you said "worked at". So I guess you won't be able to verify.

In this thread someone mentions it exactly how I remember the doc describing it: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Companies-With-Stacked-Rankin...

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, and that tends to happen, but the alignment of the manager to their team's mission isn't perfect. So you'll see: "Soft coaching" instead of a PIP. PIPs that end in "retain," leaving the PIP recipient to revert to their previous level of output afterwards. These are often celebrated as management success stories. Working out an "exchange" deal with another team that has headcount or backfill so the under-pe…

Seems like I’ve ruffled a few feathers and ended up -2 on my previous comment here, not clear what rule I violated but that’s beside the point. I have a suggestion: take these findings and send them to your direct report and their direct report too (or whoever the appropriate party is in your organization). You’ve spotted some major issues and I think your organization would benefit from your insights. Include the na…

While that's a nice ideal, it's often not practical. As an IC, you'll rarely be rewarded for pointing out inefficiencies like this publicly - especially if it makes your boss look bad. As a manager, it's often better to expend your social/political capital to advocate for your best employees, rather than to address your worst.

Relevant to the top-level topic here, that's why many managers welcome environments in which the barrier drops for cutting their worst employees. It's nice to be able to do that, when the whole company is going through it, without bringing scrutiny down on your team (and you, specifically, as someone who potentially made a bad hire).

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