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Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

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Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#291

Post by keybored »

marssaxman wrote: post #233
michaelt wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It was a rhetorical question; I am aware that people do stupid things with their employers' hardware. More directly, my point was that the supposed privacy questions raised by the AI-training keyboard tracking system do not matter much, because it has never been safe to do anything which requires personal privacy on work devices in the first place. There are other reasons one might reasonably object to keystroke trac…

If only we all could rise to the level of not doing stupid things on company property (praise), or company time (praise), then we would want for no privacy for there was never any to be taken in the first place.

Okay, this is America so fair enough. We can’t reasonably generalize in this context.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#292

Post by walt_grata »

JacobAsmuth wrote: post #289
svachalek wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd say that Google Maps hasn't improved much in the last 20 years?

Id say it improved until about 2016, since then the additions have generally made the software worse.

More overlays and popups More needlessly verbose navigation instructions Less predictable routes.

Thats just the start

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#293

Post by compiler-guy »

throwarayes wrote: post #118

If you get a FAANG job you need to think like a professional athlete. Save most of what you make. Assume it’s not going to last. Do NOT have an expectation that this is “normal” income. You’ll probably end up destroying your integrity or doing tons of BS work just to do anything to maintain that level of income. Expect the norm to be a startup, non tech company, or some other non FAANG big tech corp.

This really isn't true. I'm nothing special and have survived in the FAANG world for going on two decades. Excepting the very new in their careers, nearly everyone on my team has managed good length careers at the various FANNGS, possibly with stops at smaller companies.

It was the startups prior to those that were terribly unstable and where you couldn't be sure your badge would open the door when you came to work.

Meta may be a dumpster fire today, and the others have had bad layoffs, true. But they all have huge headcounts, and median employee tenure that is above average in the industry.

Of course, saving for catastrophe is wise, especially in these times, but that's true no matter if you work for a FAANG or a startup.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#294

Post by intexpress »

JacobAsmuth wrote: post #289
svachalek wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd say that Google Maps hasn't improved much in the last 20 years?

Apple Maps has been better than Google Maps for at least 10 years and nowadays the way that Google Maps improves is often just by copying Apple Maps

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#295

Post by dlev_pika »

JacobAsmuth wrote: post #289
svachalek wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd say that Google Maps hasn't improved much in the last 20 years?

Google: HOW ABOUT SOME AI ON IT?!? You know you want it.

Lmao

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#296

Post by boelboel »

JacobAsmuth wrote: post #289
svachalek wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd say that Google Maps hasn't improved much in the last 20 years?

It's been up and down for about 8-12 years. Problems get fixed and new ones get added without a particular direction, at least that's what it feels like as a regular user. Some come back years after they were first fixed.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#297

Post by dlev_pika »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #257

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.

The irony is that I’d totally test out replacing the CEO with AI - best bang for buck by a million miles

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#298

Post by ElectricalTears »

JacobAsmuth wrote: post #289
svachalek wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd say that Google Maps hasn't improved much in the last 20 years?

Maps thinks it's fine to do a u-turn on the Sydney harbour bridge.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#299

Post by dlev_pika »

jordanb wrote: post #60
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…

> Software developers in the US are seriously expensive, using them for data labeling would be a waste of resources. Zuck basically went to a town hall and explained to his employees that their remaining value to him is as training mules for his AI.

I like the part when he “took full responsibility” for HIS Metaverse mistake, and fired everybody else lmao

Gavin from Silicon Valley did it first

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#300

Post by TrackerFF »

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…

Have you heard about the various startups that specialize in expert data labeling, like Mercor? They can pay $100-$200/hr for highly specialized work, who knows how much they charge their clients. Translated to an annual wage, that's definitely in the SF/SV engineer range

As others have commented, some of the training is very specialized.

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