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Meta Layoffs

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Re: Meta Layoffs

#71

Post by XorNot »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #15
paxys wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They built an entire metaverse office with little conference rooms full of avatars. It was comical.

Who doesn't like bringing everything terrible about the real world into the virtual one? Next thing you see they'll be having virtual commutes with virtual cars waiting 40 minutes just to go to your virtual office. But hey it's all metaverse, which means it's awesome and shiny, right?

My core mystery about the metaverse is just how boring everything they show about it is.

"Bold new VR technology, what should we do with it? I know! Let's recreate brutalist grey concrete meeting rooms".

Re: Meta Layoffs

#72

Post by havkom »

My experience as a manager before and after WFH is that WFH:

1) makes it actually clearer what is delivered and by whom

2) requires more from the manager to make sure the right stake holders are communicating efficiently and employees are satisfied - doable but more work load for managers and requires more experience from them

I think #2 is that companies are actually struggling with. It is not about the workers productivity (which generally increases by WFH), it is about the managers comfort, skills and experience.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#73

Post by grogenaut »

geokon wrote: post #59
flashgordon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a team that is meeting their manager consisting only of 5 people if the manager has 30-50 people reporting into them? I wasn't sure if it was a typo or where you actually advocating for a manager to have 30-50 direct reports?

Yes. The manager managed 6+ teams. They had decades of industry experience and were very good at.. Management? dealing with project scope, knowing what clients would find useful, when to change direction etc. Managing a team is realistically not a full time job. He did not write any code or independently make technical decisions nor act as a mentor or senior dev or anything like that. He used to write code, so could…

Manager in my parlance is heavily working on growing me and the others in my team as well as managing or product portfolio. As others said that sounds like a director. Who runs the day to day off the team. Or do you only sync once a week?

Re: Meta Layoffs

#74

Post by charcircuit »

aestetix wrote: post #7

I just have to point out the irony that a company which believes so much in virtual work that they renamed themselves after the "metaverse" is now thinking to require employees to return to the office.

I don't see that as ironic. It in fact reinforces the importance of the metaverse. If there is a benefit to being in person, but not everyone can physically be in person being virtually present would be the next best thing.If presence wasn't shown to be valuable it would mean that the metaverse wouldn't be valuable for work purposes.

Remote work is here to stay in society so finding ways to improve it will be valuable.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#75

Post by emodendroket »

I don't know that three days are necessary but it's hard to deny that sometimes an in-person conversation just gets things resolved much faster. Though considering how many teams are now geographically distributed I find the argument less compelling.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#76

Post by pjmlp »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #61
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One counter argument to this take is: If cube farms or offices with doors are so much better, where are the companies without open-offices and outsized performance financials. I suspect most employees just aren't that productive for it to matter much. There is probably some small percentage who are more productive, and even fewer who are much more productive, but their needs are overwhelming by larger business decisi…

Apple

The company rescued from insolvency with Microsoft money and reversed buy from NeXT, and only managed to get out of red thanks to the iPod and what came later, regardless of the office structure.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#77

Post by emodendroket »

swyx wrote: post #22
aestetix wrote: post #7

I just have to point out the irony that a company which believes so much in virtual work that they renamed themselves after the "metaverse" is now thinking to require employees to return to the office.

there is irony, but it also doesnt have to be a binary all office/no office situation. even 10% of time spent meeting people in "the metaverse" would be a huge shift (i say this as a metaverse skeptic)

But why would people do this if they're coming to the office?

Re: Meta Layoffs

#78

Post by einhverfr »

I think the problem of engineering management is that componentization is a hard problem. One needs to recognize that Conway's Law is an inevitability, but it can be a positive as well as a negative thing. If you design your organization around needs for components, then you end up with limited contracts.

Even the organizations that I have worked for that have been better at this than others have still struggled. Perhaps there is room to just point out that high-level architects need to be involved in people and organization decisions.

In the end, flatter organizations are better, but structure of both organizations and software are hard problems and things that we struggle with throughout our careers on either track. I have usually fought to have ICs report at every level so that part makes sense.

But the question becomes what you replace middle management with? The answer shouldn't be "chaos."

Re: Meta Layoffs

#79

Post by emodendroket »

yellowapple wrote: post #5

> > Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further study, but our hypothesis…

It seems obvious they decided a direction and went looking for metrics to support it but what's the point of arguing on a logical basis?

Re: Meta Layoffs

#80

Post by doktorhladnjak »

geokon wrote: post #31
darth_avocado wrote: post #21

Middle management bloat is real. At one point there were 16 layers of management between me and the ceo when I was at a staff engineer. However the other extreme (like in places like Twitter, since the author mentioned it), you have 20 people reporting to a single manager. That is not a great place to work in. The managers are just stretched thin and the ICs are left to deal with the chaos. This becomes really hard f…

out of curiosity, what issues did you see? 20 to one seems kinda low in my experience. At my last deskjob it about 30-50 to 1 and it felt like a good balance. My team and I (~5 people) met with the manager once a week for a couple of hours. Id estimate they had 2-3 meetings a day with other teams. Project direction and blockers were dicussed and adjusted. It felt optimal, enough to get guidance, but they were too bus…

I don't know how well that works, but I can assure you what you've described is not at all a typical management arrangement in this industry
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