Is Meta destroying its engineering organization? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#251

Post by svachalek » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

ironman1478 wrote: post #70

Having worked at meta, something I noticed is that the orgs that were well run were ones that were bought. WhatsApp, reality, insta, etc. I worked in an org that was not associated with those products and was purely homegrown and it was awful. Things got done but horribly inefficiently due to over hiring and extreme requirement and schedule shifts. I believe that the cultures that were developed outside of Meta are u…

I had a similar experience at Google, they were so convinced they were the only good engineering company in the world and had to protect themselves from all the wrong-thinkers outside and yet the only progress they made was via acquisitions.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#252

Post by gr_norm » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #243

gr_norm wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, sorry, I have absolutely had the option to do something similar and emphatically declined. I generally don't care to tell anyone this, either, outside the rare instances when it organically comes up as it did here. I want to see myself as a good person with a positive effect (as much as feasible) on the world, and taking such jobs is deeply incompatible with that.

Nope sorry, you still aren't having a positive effect unless you live a barebones selfless life dedicated to helping others. You purchase products from companies, use services, and do things for entertainment that all somehow negatively affect someone in some form and way. Oh, you think that the arbitrary line your draw in your own life determines the standard for being moral? Well, welcome to the club with the rest…

This is tired and reductivist reasoning deployed only by those rationalizing wrongs, and immediately recognizable by nearly everybody as such. My kids could tell you what's wrong with this thinking. I believe that working a job where I would knowingly contribute to mass mental illness (including but not limited to inducing teenage depression and body image issues leading to suicide), the destruction of liberal democracy and free society, mass surveillance unlike anything constructed before in the history of mankind, and even genocide falls on the wrong side of the line. If you have convinced yourself otherwise, this is a weight you must carry. Acting so callously against your fellow humans always exacts a price, knowingly or not; it requires destroying part of your capacity to care for other people.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#253

Post by sterlind » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

vanuatu wrote: post #29

monster_truck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any examples of this actually working? I keep seeing this fantasy repeated but have not seen a plausible explanation for how they wouldn't be contibuting to the pile of negative examples which are just as valuable if not more.

its fantasy scale ai's value prop was catching people like this

what about just... becoming mediocre? engineers are already infamously lazy at reviewing PRs. how is Meta incentivizing these Data Labelers to give a shit and actually scrutinize the AI-generated code they're supposed to be reviewing? what's the reward structure? what prevents engineers from flagging minor nitpicks all day while they look at LinkedIn?

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#254

Post by malfist » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

giantrobot wrote: post #132

tennfown wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if your only business is selling ads to scammers to prey on the elderly? Don’t forget failed, mentally ill, manic rebrands that cost billions and go nowhere. Oh, and enabling human traffickers.

> Oh, and enabling human traffickers. Also the genocides.

Hey now that was an accident! They created a taskforce to prevent that from happening again, ignored all their recommendations and then laid them all off.

I'm sure meta learned their lesson

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#255

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #250

slibhb wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We shouldn't give Burma the internet because they might commit a genocide" Do you hear yourself? Let's not give them electricity and fossil fuels either. Just keep them in dark age conditions so they don't hurt anyone.

> Do you hear yourself? Better than you heard me, given that's not what I said.

This is an uphill battle, I'm afraid. As evidenced from their other comments, slibhb struggles a lot with basic moral concepts like "you are responsible for the things you do".

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#256

Post by dzonga » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:45 PM UTC

every engineer is hands-on with 'A.I' - yet we are not seeing quality software out in the wild.

no are there bootstrapped / funded startups by Meta alumni hitting the shelve every week.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#257

Post by throw-the-towel » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

I think the gloating in this thread is very misguided. Meta is evil, sure, but that's not the point. The point is that this kind of AI psychosis might be the new normal for our industry, or at least one of the new normals. My last workplace absolutely did a jump in toxicity when the CEO got obsessed with AI, instituted token leaderboards, told us all to drop all non-AI work for a time, etc. We were no Meta.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#258

Post by dzonga » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #62

Facebook and Instagram are such strong businesses that they could completely stop development work and the businesses would still be unbeatable monopolies for years to come. But what I don’t understand is how screen recording / keyboard recording is useful AI training data? It seems like a lot cost and a lot of pissing off people for something that is actually not very valuable.

> Facebook and Instagram are such strong businesses that they could completely stop development work and the businesses would still be unbeatable monopolies for years to come.

maybe, but I disagree. a lot of businesses - keep sinking money into social ads - yet don't get results coz if you don't know what u r doing, Meta will use a massive amount of ur budget on your current customers instead of bringing in new customers.

which is also the reason Amazon Ads Unit has grown lately - it works. Whereas paid social / paid search are becoming relics. yeah they might print money in the near future - but the full assault from native ads, media n amazon etc where first party data/pixels count n you also respect privacy.

I know this - cz I own a small martech business that's a competitor to ga4 n expanding into native ads.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#259

Post by slibhb » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #250

slibhb wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We shouldn't give Burma the internet because they might commit a genocide" Do you hear yourself? Let's not give them electricity and fossil fuels either. Just keep them in dark age conditions so they don't hurt anyone.

> Do you hear yourself? Better than you heard me, given that's not what I said.

It's very fashionable for Westerners to evince belief in the idea that inhabitants of third-world countries have no free will and aren't responsible for their actions. We're told that everything bad that happens in those countries is due to large Western companies or a history of colonization.

This is all very silly. The genocide in Myanmar (it's a civil war last I checked) isn't Facebook's fault (legally or morally). Facebook has surely made mistakes, but that doesn't make them to blame for people killing each other on the other side of the world.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#260

Post by mxschumacher » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #231

tennfown wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if your only business is selling ads to scammers to prey on the elderly? Don’t forget failed, mentally ill, manic rebrands that cost billions and go nowhere. Oh, and enabling human traffickers.

How now, that’s not fair. They also make a lot of money giving teenagers depression and selling them beauty products and chatbot companions.

please stop being so mean, they also create echo chambers to kill political discourse (i.e. the foundation of democracy) and show the most inflammatory material to their users to pit them into a shouting match against each other