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Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

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Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#151

Post by tetromino_ »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #122
98codes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've held a short list of organizations I wouldn't ever work for, for a long while. Meta is on that list, but so are most of the big tech companies you see in the various anagrams. It's getting to the point where selling my soul to the highest bidder is going to be absolutely required for any big tech job going forward.

A company's impact on the world isn't a good/bad binary, it comes in degrees. In the case of Meta, they are _aggressively_ promoting far-right wing propaganda (or at least that's my feed, and what appears to be the general consensus on the Internet), and they are clearly very close with the far-right Trump administration. Never mind "ordinary" bad things like pushing ads, building addictive ad tech, etc.

> they are _aggressively_ promoting far-right wing propaganda

In my feed, they are aggressively pushing an approximately equal mix of woke propaganda, far-right propaganda, funny memes, and discussions of literature and philosophy. It just depends on what the Meta model decided you and your friends are into.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#152

Post by burnte »

When your employer has a vested interest in you using a specific tool above all others, even if it's worse, then success is no longer measured with a rational, objective metric. Once you do not have objective metrics to gauge success, you will always fail in the long, and the long run tends not to be very long. In every single company I've ever worked for or with, I've never seen a "I demand it be done like this" policy ever succeed. I've seen it close businesses, but never succeed.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#154

Post by ModernMech »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #122
98codes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've held a short list of organizations I wouldn't ever work for, for a long while. Meta is on that list, but so are most of the big tech companies you see in the various anagrams. It's getting to the point where selling my soul to the highest bidder is going to be absolutely required for any big tech job going forward.

A company's impact on the world isn't a good/bad binary, it comes in degrees. In the case of Meta, they are _aggressively_ promoting far-right wing propaganda (or at least that's my feed, and what appears to be the general consensus on the Internet), and they are clearly very close with the far-right Trump administration. Never mind "ordinary" bad things like pushing ads, building addictive ad tech, etc.

Right, in the tech world it’s a continuum between “do no evil (fingers crossed behind back)” and “They trust me. Dumb fucks”

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#155

Post by CobrastanJorji »

PaulHoule wrote: post #144

Sad. I thought Meta did a lot of things right when it came to using engineers, especially compared to Google. If I had a choice between React (Facebook) and Kubernetes (Google) I would pick the former anyday. Kubernetes has held back cluster technology for the last decade and prevented a better alternative for smaller companies or companies that can't piss away monopoly profits on unwieldy technology and process. It…

Why would you compare React to Kubernetes instead of comparing React to Vue.js?

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#156

Post by jacques_chester »

jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

This sounds bad to say, but it's difficult to feel bad for any meta engineers who lost their jobs. You undoubtedly had other options, yet you chose to work for one of the most well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organizations on the planet. Former employees will deflect and make the comparison to United Fruit workers, despite the obvious difference in employee-optionality and influence. You made your bed. I hope you…

As I learned while burning through all my savings in the 2023-2024 timeframe: You are free to have principles, but principles aren't free.

I am ashamed I worked there.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#157

Post by ifwinterco »

fabian2k wrote: post #4

> 30-50% of engineers on core teams have been forcefully reassigned to data labeling and RLHF, upsetting folks even more. This really doesn't sound believable to me, but who knows with all the craziness going on. Software developers in the US are seriously expensive, using them for data labeling would be a waste of resources. And the percentage sounds very high, unless "core teams" is only a small subset of the total…

From the article it sounds like what they're actually doing is reviewing LLM-generated code, for that you do need good software engineers.

Although it goes without saying that good software engineers won't enjoy doing this very much

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#158

Post by michaelt »

marssaxman wrote: post #92

"If you log into your personal bank account, does the tool track you? What about when you’re writing a personal email, or responding to a personal call?" Why would you ever do such a thing on a device controlled by your employer? I guess there's a whole generation of devs who don't remember the Microsoft antitrust trial, and haven't learned the "anything you do at work may come out in discovery" lesson.

> Why would you ever do such a thing on a device controlled by your employer?

It is in fact common to do personal things on work PCs.

The senior manager spending 5 days visiting that foreign office is logging into his personal netflix account, and video calling his wife and kids. He ain't carrying a second laptop to do it.

That middle manager, with a report who needs a widget delivered tomorrow, and purchasing aren't fast enough to get the order in? He's logging into his personal account and paying with his personal card, then making an expense claim.

That in-office worker wearing headphones? Good chance he's logged into his personal music streaming account. Maybe he uses youtube music, so he's logged into his entire personal google account too.

And the sales guy who's constantly stuck in hotels for business travel? Oh boy you don't want to look his 11pm web browsing.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#159

Post by pesus »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #122
98codes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've held a short list of organizations I wouldn't ever work for, for a long while. Meta is on that list, but so are most of the big tech companies you see in the various anagrams. It's getting to the point where selling my soul to the highest bidder is going to be absolutely required for any big tech job going forward.

A company's impact on the world isn't a good/bad binary, it comes in degrees. In the case of Meta, they are _aggressively_ promoting far-right wing propaganda (or at least that's my feed, and what appears to be the general consensus on the Internet), and they are clearly very close with the far-right Trump administration. Never mind "ordinary" bad things like pushing ads, building addictive ad tech, etc.

Also notable that they willingly and knowingly allowed FB to be used to facilitate genocide, which makes them culpable in it.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#160

Post by slibhb »

jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

This sounds bad to say, but it's difficult to feel bad for any meta engineers who lost their jobs. You undoubtedly had other options, yet you chose to work for one of the most well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organizations on the planet. Former employees will deflect and make the comparison to United Fruit workers, despite the obvious difference in employee-optionality and influence. You made your bed. I hope you…

The idea that facebook is this "well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organization" that has caused "damage to the world" is a perfect example of scape-goating.

When you step back and try to explain exactly what the company has done that's so bad, there's nothing there.

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