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Meta Layoffs

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Re: Meta Layoffs

#151

Post by tomduncalf »

c54 wrote: post #107

> The overwhelming opinion amongst developer types is that remote is better in every way It doesn’t check out to me that this is an overwhelming opinion. People definitely like remote and hybrid work but the tradeoffs vs being in person at least some of the time are well known to the point of being obvious. Partially-remote teams inherently have higher communication bandwidth between the in-office cadre versus the re…

I’ve got 15+ years experience and prefer being in the office. This is definitely somewhat because I live in an apartment in London so a) don’t have a great dedicated workspace (I do have a desk in the spare room but it’s not hugely exciting), b) my commute is actually quite quick and pleasant and c) companies usually will have a nice office here…

I did try full remote with my last role and it just didn’t work out for me, I found it harder to be productive at home long term and I like the change of scene of the office, so actively was looking for somewhere with an office and people in there at least some of the time in a new role - though I also appreciate being somewhere flexible so I can work remote if I need to.

I can see the arguments for both sides but to claim full remote is pure positive seems disingenuous to me, there are clear negatives. FWIW my team are at least 50% fully remote but I still prefer to be in the office even if a lot of my communications are via Zoom/Slack.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#152

Post by shp0ngle »

elguyosupremo wrote: post #28

This piece goes from talking about meta layoffs to an indictment of remote work surprisingly quick. I love remote work, because I grew up in a small city with no companies operating in my industry and when covid hit I was able to go full remote, move back home, and be around my friends and family while contributing to my company and to my local economy. The biggest thing that has helped my dev team thrive and be able…

WFH is very good and convenient for the _worker_! It's great being at your small town, or beach at Bali, or your favourite coffee.

I just don't think it's very good for the company and for the overall productivity.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#153

Post by saagarjha »

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

Hello? Apple Park?

Re: Meta Layoffs

#154

Post by saagarjha »

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…

Who did you share your career goals, people problems, peer feedback, and compensation questions with?

Re: Meta Layoffs

#155

Post by swiftcoder »

> WFH provides the ultimate cover for less motivated people (which in a larger company will always be a percentage of the total) that might otherwise be held more accountable in-person.

Bullshit. Everyone who worked in-office knows folks who spend half their day in pointless meetings, and the other half chatting by the coffee machine. Obscuring lack of productivity in an office setting is not particularly hard - it's a lot easier to "look busy" in person

Re: Meta Layoffs

#156

Post by youngtaff »

peyton wrote: post #68
geokon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That’s a director.

That’s job title inflation!

Re: Meta Layoffs

#157

Post by makeitdouble »

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 give Meta much of my empathy, but could imagine a company with the same goal needing most of their staff in office.

To put it short, it's the same way early Swift engineers were spending most of their time in C++. They had to to build the new language.

Same way I could see a metaverse company needing engineer physically present not just to get access to the newest hardware but also work around the limitations of their own products until it's actually ready to be used 24/7.

Now I'd still see whole classes of engineers not bound by those issues (e.g. backend engineers etc.).

Re: Meta Layoffs

#158

Post by wunderland »

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.

Zuckerberg seems to lack perspective on all of the stuff he’s appropriated. For instance, basically every cyberpunk novel with a metaverse depicts it as a dystopian nightmare.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#159

Post by bvrmn »

> When I came to the valley in 2012, I had a manager who wrote as much code and shipped as much as I did, and prevailing wisdom was that this was a good thing.

My team lost manager almost 8 month ago. And I took additional management role alongside with a TL role by necessity. Burned out completely by now. It's so much more work and information you must operate I don't understand who can ever say managers aren't needed. It's ridiculous.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#160

Post by roomey »

The point about remote workers been less efficient.... I really do hope they accounted that they were probably not shown the ways to game the "efficiency" system.. most people won't tell a new worker who they never met how to do something like game the efficiency metric.

Although and manager worth their salt would know to pass this info along.

And anyway, in a "creative" area, like writing code, inventing new stuff, since when is "efficiency" a good thing, all that does is make the same shot, just more of it.

"Year of efficiency" is year of cost cutting. The blog post has an interesting take on it tho.

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