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Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

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Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#181

Post by mdavid626 »

rsynnott wrote: post #116
mdavid626 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crying in Germany with 60-85k average SW engineer salary.

Facebook doesn't pay an average US salary, either (which is presumably why anyone stays). Based on levels.fyi, you'd be looking at 300-400k eur for an E5 in Berlin all-in. Not sure I'd recommend it; there are less cartoonishly evil companies who still pay silly money in Europe available.

I don't think they pay you that much in Berlin. Why would they? All other companies pay less - no competition what so ever. Paying >100k is already super good, so they do probably around that.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#182

Post by Humorist2290 »

I'm increasingly convinced that these kind of leaks are the only effective resistance to this surveillance society we're entering. Meta will keep doing this, and other employers will probably follow, and then of course governments will use "appropriate legal processes" to add the data to their dossiers, etc. We are watching in real time the expansion of surveillance cameras, chat control, deanonymization, etc.

Leaks of this data make it obvious to everyone how much a liability it is. Meta Execs have their data in this pile as well; soldiers and congresspeople are in Flock's database. How many senators do you think PornHub has an accurate taste profile for?

Of course there's harm that comes with leaking this data. But is the harm really greater than everyone being surveilled by everyone, everywhere?

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#183

Post by tsukikage »

guessmyname wrote: post #77
sidcool wrote: post #58

Meta must really be paying a lot!

Indeed → https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries • Engineer (E3, entry level) $248.2K avg ∴ https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... • Engineer (E5, senior level) $629.8K avg ∴ https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... • Engineer (E7, principal) $1.69M avg ∴ https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... • Engineer (E9, distinguished) $6.09M avg…

Note that those are total comp numbers. Something like 60% of that is dependent on performance review, which is fed in large part by automatically collected metrics like number of commits, number of code reviews ticked off, the LLM token usage leaderboards etc; creating all the perverse incentives you'd expect.

So you can rely on income to precisely the extent you are willing to destroy your soul.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#184

Post by budsniffer952 »

dozerly wrote: post #19
jopolous wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where should we work instead? I’d really like to leave, but I’m kind of stuck, and I don’t have enough to retire. I have to work remote from a non-coast state for family care reasons, and the places I’ve interviewed at the last few months have balked at hiring a remote employee.

Your options are: 1. Find another job 2. Don’t find another job You can’t say “where else can I work” like you have no agency over your life. Everyone chooses every day to do what they do that day. You don’t get to be morally absolved because you’re choosing the easy path and you’re “stuck”. I’m sure there are plenty of places that pay less that would love to have talented remote employees.

I might agree with this.

But I also think all of the people criticizing Meta should post where they work. I'm sure plenty of people here work for ethically dubious companies, and make the same excuses.

Glass houses and all that.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#185

Post by rsynnott »

mdavid626 wrote: post #181
rsynnott wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook doesn't pay an average US salary, either (which is presumably why anyone stays). Based on levels.fyi, you'd be looking at 300-400k eur for an E5 in Berlin all-in. Not sure I'd recommend it; there are less cartoonishly evil companies who still pay silly money in Europe available.

I don't think they pay you that much in Berlin. Why would they? All other companies pay less - no competition what so ever. Paying >100k is already super good, so they do probably around that.

> I don't think they pay you that much in Berlin. Why would they? All other companies pay less - no competition what so ever.

There are a small number of FAANG-ish companies who pay very high salaries in Berlin, London, Dublin, etc etc.

(And of course Zurich, but Zurich is Zurich.)

> Paying >100k is already super good, so they do probably around that.

I assure you that they pay more than that for halfway senior roles. Note that a lot of it would be in equity; the base salary would likely be in the 100-150k range, but one might get that again in equity.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#186

Post by breppp »

digitaltrees wrote: post #72
lend000 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the original idea (if The Social Network is a trustworthy source) was copied -- Zuckerberg just has a complete lack of vision, but is clearly an intelligent operator with good business sense. Jagged intelligence, like an LLM.

Or he’s backed by the CIA?

Or maybe you are backed by the CIA?

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#187

Post by duskdozer »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #173
dozerly wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your options are: 1. Find another job 2. Don’t find another job You can’t say “where else can I work” like you have no agency over your life. Everyone chooses every day to do what they do that day. You don’t get to be morally absolved because you’re choosing the easy path and you’re “stuck”. I’m sure there are plenty of places that pay less that would love to have talented remote employees.

> there are plenty of places that pay less This exactly. I value working from home and not working for a company that actively makes the world hell, so I make a quarter of what some of my peers at FAANG-adjacent companies make. Which is still a lot more than I realistically need.

Is there any place you look or way of looking that has you in that job? I'm currently happy with my ethical and remote job myself, but I question if it will be around in 10 years, and I especially hate job hunting.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#188

Post by outime »

Humorist2290 wrote: post #182

I'm increasingly convinced that these kind of leaks are the only effective resistance to this surveillance society we're entering. Meta will keep doing this, and other employers will probably follow, and then of course governments will use "appropriate legal processes" to add the data to their dossiers, etc. We are watching in real time the expansion of surveillance cameras, chat control, deanonymization, etc. Leaks…

The harm may be greater when it's not leaked. In other words, it can be used to blackmail people in power. They may not even be doing anything particularly illegal - just making a controversial statement or having an unusual sexual preference - and there you go. Or of course illegal stuff, you know. Or ultimately if nothing illegal, enough to assemble a parallel construction case.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#189

Post by calgoo »

zenoprax wrote: post #45
TZubiri wrote: post #34

I'll be the contrarian here. I think the program was legal and morally fine. Take into account that these are corporate computers, and the tracking is of work that the company is paying for, so the telemetry, which is highly valuable for analysis and automation, is rightfully theirs. I also don't think that the purpose of the move was to manage workers and see if they slack off, it was to gather training data, but ev…

> Doesn't it sound reasonable? If you were hired with this as an explicit expectation, yes. It's one thing to know that your actions can be audited in case there's some sort of incident but imposing unlimited surveillance and using that information for the purpose of eliminating your job could be argued to be intimidation (ie. "we can't afford mass layoffs but aggressively monitoring employees will force the undesira…

Make it opt-in in exchange for more working from home time, then they can disprove the "people are unproductive when working from home" BS.

Re: Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

#190

Post by zipy124 »

rsynnott wrote: post #116
mdavid626 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crying in Germany with 60-85k average SW engineer salary.

Facebook doesn't pay an average US salary, either (which is presumably why anyone stays). Based on levels.fyi, you'd be looking at 300-400k eur for an E5 in Berlin all-in. Not sure I'd recommend it; there are less cartoonishly evil companies who still pay silly money in Europe available.

They pay £271k at E5 for London according to levels.fyi so I presume that Berlin number is wonky.
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