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Meta Layoffs

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Re: Meta Layoffs

#191

Post by testplzignore »

sofixa wrote: post #150
midoridensha wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how the world would be different if Microsoft had just let them die. Would it be better or worse? Would we all have slate-style smartphones now, or would they have taken much longer to arise?

The iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smartphone, it was just the flashiest (previous ones were oriented at business users), so IMO we certainly would be in the same place, just slightly later and possibly with more choice (maybe Nokia would have survived with Symbian/MeeGo, maybe Microsoft would have managed to pull off Windows Phone, etc.).

> The iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smartphone

This is correct. The first capacitive touchscreen phone was the LG Prada.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#192

Post by blitzar »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #171
geokon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow. With 30 to 50 people to 1 manager, the manager is spending 15-25 hrs simply in 30 min employee 1 on 1s every week. That’s an absolutely insane number. That means if they spread it out evenly over the week, they will be spending 3-5 hrs every day on 1 on 1s. In our company we also don’t have purely people managers. Even when I was managing people who were working on projects that had nothing to do with me, I had…

> The manager is spending 15-25 hrs simply in 30 min employee 1 on 1s every week.

That leaves them with nothing to do but the crossword for the other 15 hours of the week.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#193

Post by ilikerashers »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #38

> To me, although I’d certainly concede that WFH pares down meeting culture I feel the opposite though I'm an n=1 and don't have any data beyond myself. My company went full WFH during the pandemic and committed to it. Ever since we've become much more meeting heavy (I also have pretty senior IC title sadly.) Why? Along with going WFH we began hiring from other timezones in earnest. Low cost of living areas are cheap…

A side effect too is it becomes much harder to manage focus. 30 mins at 1, 2, and 3 turn 1hr 30 of meetings into at least 3 hours wasted on conference calls.

I've taken to hiding my calendar and not turning up if someone does some inefficient meeting booking.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#194

Post by midoridensha »

testplzignore wrote: post #191
sofixa wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smartphone, it was just the flashiest (previous ones were oriented at business users), so IMO we certainly would be in the same place, just slightly later and possibly with more choice (maybe Nokia would have survived with Symbian/MeeGo, maybe Microsoft would have managed to pull off Windows Phone, etc.).

> The iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smartphone This is correct. The first capacitive touchscreen phone was the LG Prada.

TIL! I never heard of this before, somehow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada

Interestingly, it came out just before the iPhone, and LG even alleged that Apple had stolen the idea from them. Considering how Jobs stole a bunch of ideas from PARC, and Apple really doesn't have a history of inventing anything, but rather taking other peoples' ideas and commercializing them better, it seems very plausible.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#195

Post by gardenhedge »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #2

I've noticed a similar effect from tall management hierarchies in my career. You end up spending hours every week making presentations to managers, working with managers to make presentations to higher-up managers, etc. Everything is done in terms of "What will Jim (the VP) think of this?"

I have the same experience. How can we avoid this?

Re: Meta Layoffs

#196

Post by quickthrower2 »

zelos wrote: post #173
nostromo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other deep irony is that many tech companies ruined the office by forcing open office designs. It was no secret that employees found them difficult places to be productive. And now they wonder why nobody wants to go there.

Exactly. No amount of free food or office social events will make a cramped, open plan office pleasant to work in.

The free food can make it smelly!

Re: Meta Layoffs

#197

Post by quickthrower2 »

geokon wrote: post #100
doktorhladnjak wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

yeah, im trying to figure out why people took Office Space as a guidebook instead of satire Hence my question as to what the parent found problematic with a manager with many reports. Its possible self managed teams of ~5 don't work in many environments. Any larger group and i could see friction

You need excellent team working and communication skills in each team, since there is no team leader and the set-of-5 report to the manager. I bet someone wears a defacto manager hat in each team and keeps things organized.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#198

Post by Dave3of5 »

Reading through the OP and comments it seems like a lot of people have never actually experienced a decent manager. If the only manager(s) you've ever had have only caused problems and micromanaged you with no help whatsoever then yes I guess you want to remove all management layers completely.

The downside to removing all management layers is:

* You'll have to interact with the directors of a company directly. I have experience with this and from this I can tell you that you'll find they don't share the viewpoints of most devs. They will expect things done yesterday and all possible corners to be cut. They don't care about Tech debt. Your estimates will always be too high and they will demand they be cut down to the unreasonable. They leave 0 time for testing as far as they know the dev work is done once the dev says so. They don't care about the complexity of implementation, they only see complexity in what they are asking you. SO if They ask "build me the next facebook" that is quite a simple statement but the implementation is very complex they see that because the statement is simple so should be the implementation

* Good luck ever getting a pay raise or a promotion. A decent manager will track you through those things as you work for a company and push for them on your behalf. A director only sees development as a cost to be reduced

* Much easier to directly blame developers when things go wrong. You bet your ass that if prod goes down there will be hell to pay. Fire the dev that brought it down. A good manager shields the team from this as they spread the blame of many departments making it hard to fire anyone

* You won't get any time for personal development. Kiss all those pluralsight courses goodbye that costs money. A yearly conference ? who's paying for that. Remember that the directors of a company will see money being spent as their own money because every dollar spent reduces EBITDA which will reduce their mega bonus

* Any problems you have with other devs are now yours to fix. Remember HR aren't their to help you they are there to help the company

* Projects will be dumped on you that are way outside your field of expertise. Directors often lump all devs into the same bucket. So for example if there is a new project that involves AI and no-one on the teams got any real experience then tough luck get her done

* You'll have to deal with strange requests. For example given chatgpt has been in the news a lot you'll suddenly be told to add chatgpt to the product regardless if it makes any sense. Normally a good manager would bat these types of things off to protect the dev team

* Time management is your problem. You'll be given an end date and told everything has to be done for that date

Note I get that having too many managers is bad but you ideally want small IC to manager ratio so that you are getting the benefit.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#199

Post by quickthrower2 »

spoonjim wrote: post #51
geokon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

LOL. One person in your team was a manager on an IC salary, and your manager was a director on a manager salary.

Funny I never got paid much/any more for team leading the times I did it so I refuse to do it anymore. Also reflected in the market for new jobs. What people are calling a director here does pay a bit more.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#200

Post by quickthrower2 »

rmk wrote: post #131
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…

Why does there need to be a metric? People with management experience can decide these things based on intuition. It's practically impossible to quantify anything in this industry, but 'data-driven decisionmaking' is fetishized to the extreme. Ultimately it just becomes another buzzword and method for people with little or no experience to override people with experience. Phrasing the whole discussion in terms of 'me…

I agree and I’ve played Goldharts game enough to be fucked off with it all. Sure track bug counts etc. but keep that stuff lightweight as possible on the day to day.
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