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Meta and Google are cutting staff

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Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#341

Post by WatchDog »

kibwen wrote: post #310
function_seven wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm constantly amazed at how stupid supposed smart people can be when it comes to applying metrics to an organization made up of humans. Stack ranking and related schemes are so obviously going to be gamed, will definitely measure something other than the nominal thing, and will gum up the works. It's one thing to have a Hunger-Games-style hiring process. Bad as that is, there's an expectation that once you've passed…

> I'm constantly amazed at how stupid supposed smart people can be when it comes to applying metrics to an organization made up of humans. Intelligence isn't a spectrum, it's an infinite-dimensional space. Someone can be smart on one axis and a dunce on infinity-minus-one other axes. Every genius ever born was almost certainly mediocre at nearly everything outside their expertise.

While there are different dimensions to intelligence, they tend to all be correlated to each other.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#342

Post by rnk »

UncleMeat wrote: post #278
nightpool wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key component of stack ranking / sorting by performance is that there's no absolute measure of your contribution, only a relative measure by which you have to outcompete everyone else in your team/department. If you fire your lowest 15% of engineers—no matter how good they are on an absolute level—that's a stack ranking system. It's a horrifying Red Queen's Race that punishes high-quality teams. I'm not necessari…

Sort of. I'm at Google, not Meta, but the same "we have an expected distribution of ratings" thing exists here and it causes the same confusion. With large enough populations you see fairly consistent statistical information across time. Little fluctuations even out. So at org sizes of, say, 500 people you'll see pretty consistent ratings distributions between cycles. This is where you get the "we have a roughly expe…

It used to happen at Microsoft back in the day. I was in SQL Server and we openly talked about this happening. They literally told us being in a great, high functioning org like sql server had a certain penalty. Then top management said don't worry, we got extra money for our people. It was kind of obviously silly.

On stack ranking & the penalty for being in a great team - yes, also happened, being in a great team but you still had to rank someone lower, better to be in a worse team to get higher ratings. It had obviously negative impact, but there was some combination or organizational pride that had been cultivated, plus we thought we'd all be millionaires anyway so what did it hurt. But I bet some people had to leave who were the unfortunate victim of these affects.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#343

Post by okdood64 »

yuan43 wrote: post #94

> Among some Meta employees, the process of reapplying for jobs within a limited window internally is known as a sort of human-resources purgatory they call the “30 Day List.” > Meta, as of last year the name of Facebook’s parent company, has long had a practice that employees whose roles are eliminated are subject to termination if they can’t find a new job internally within a month. Many other companies also make e…

Total guess: Maybe so they don't have to pay severance and can say "Look we gave them a chance"?

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#344

Post by okdood64 »

jedberg wrote: post #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.

> It is fairly well known

But is it true? Has this ever been confirmed by an insider or ex-People Ops there?

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#345

Post by djohnston »

olliej wrote: post #56

The other one I’ve seen seems to be semi-regularly getting rid of like 50 people at a time - like essentially just keeping any big layoffs below the reporting level. I’d assume/hope that whatever regulations are involved count layoffs over a period rather than just how many in a given event - but it would not surprise me if it didn’t.

What sort of regulations could exist around the frequency or size of a company's layoffs?

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#346

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #236
musicale wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that they seem to think that software developer performance can be measured meaningfully and accurately in a standard way across teams.

So should they hand out promotions and fire people based on randomness? Take the manager's word for it and go all in on nepotism? What's the better solution?

Honestly if they are targeting percentages of the company, ditching entire products, divisions or slicing diagonally across the org chart is the way to go. Consolidation of like functions and just stop projects. If there are uniquely skilled people in the layoff, give them a chance to interview with other teams. Make it quick and as painless as possible, the longer it drags out with rankings and middle managers politicking the worse morale will be.

Also, any investors out there might hear “one time restructuring charge” in the quarterly results when they talk P&L which will affect the bottom line.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#347

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

znpy wrote: post #90
battery_glasses wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Meta managers can't really get away with hiding low performers. Your performance review isn't finalized by your manager, but rather the manager submits your review to a calibrating board that tries to ensure fairness and maintain quality standards. They will refute at all cost that this is stack ranking but you are absolutely graded on the curve of the other engineers in your department and level.

I was contacted by meta just less than a month ago, and I declined the offer of an interview… I guess i dodged a bullet?

They’re still actively recruiting and interviewing?!? They should have halted most of that and probably stop any contractual recruiting and possibly had HR layoffs.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#348

Post by vineyardmike »

acchow wrote: post #230
vineyardmike wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak formally for any of the companies, of course, but I suspect like another commenter said, its an opportunity to cut fat. Beyond that, the last two years saw many tech companies grow stupid-fast. For example, Snap hired more than 50% of their pre-layoff workforce since start of the pandemic. Google, Meta have both doubled headcount in a similar (slightly longer) time scale. I suspect that despite being ri…

> If the median googler makes 300k The median googler does not make 300k. The median Google engineer/manager in the US might make 300k but Google hires plenty of people in other roles and in other countries.

> Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOG -1.79%▼ and Facebook Meta Platforms Inc. had the highest-paid median workers, at almost $300,000.

Actual number was 295,884

I chose a round number. Wasn’t too far off.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-alphabet-meta-and-other-s-...

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#349

Post by discordance »

lordswork wrote: post #164
insane_dreamer wrote: post #116

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

I don't understand how the article states this and concludes Google is cutting staff: >A Google spokesman said almost 95% of employees who expressed interest in staying with the company found new roles within the notice period. Alphabet had 174,014 employees at the end of the second quarter, up 20.8% from the previous year.

I bet the people who approved the hiring 35,000 in one year will not be in the pool of those being let go

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#350

Post by midoridensha »

gagege wrote: post #206
VHRanger wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or distract that you're writing code for a platform that harms people

IDK, I wouldn't be able to be distracted from the fact that I'm working for Lord Sauron.

Please don't disrespect Sauron with this kind of comparison.
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