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Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

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Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#211

Post by solid_fuel »

pjmlp wrote: post #190
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…

You mean like React? Agreed, what a damage to the world.

No kidding, the damage react has done to front end engineering will be felt for decades. Bloated, slow applications that don’t conform to system conventions and burn power like crazy have been the norm ever since React caught on.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#212

Post by tagyro »

Meta laid off around 2,000 employees this year and in April they announced a further 10% planned cut in their workforce [0].

Employees were told to work from home and were sent emails at 4AM informing them they've been let go. Those that weren't impacted have software on their computer that tracks their every move. Remaining employees can now opt out of being tracked at work for half an hour [1]. Meanwhile, @Meta is raking in record profits.

ClickUp reduced headcount by 22% - and the CEO tweeted that the "business is the strongest it's ever been". In the same tweet, the CEO motivated this cut by their intention to build the "100X organization" ...[2] A week before the layoffs, they posted this video [3].

Webflow fired most of its staff, with some finding out about it after more than 24 hours [4] (while being on a locked visa, which means they'll have to leave the country!).

Cloudflare laid off 1,100 employees (~20% of its workforce) [5] and hired over 1,000 interns (one could say replaced).

My question for anyone still working at these companies:

Why are you still working there?

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/technology/meta-layoffs-a...

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93x0k194yno

[2]: https://x.com/DJ_CURFEW/status/2057522382315929802

[3]: https://www.tiktok.com/@clickup/video/7638681657058364702

[4]: https://nypost.com/2026/05/28/tech/bloodbath-at-california-t...

[5]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/building-for-the-future/

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#213

Post by gulugawa »

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…

How do you decide to use useContext, useReducer, useState, or a third party management tool to manage state?

(I know useContext isn't great for state management, but I've worked on a web application where useContext was used to store complex global state).

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#214

Post by starik36 »

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.

What groups do you subscribe to? My feed is mostly relatives, friends and their photos. Occasionally there are panels with people I don't subscribe to, which you can press X on and you won't see them again.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#215

Post by spencerflem »

fzeroracer wrote: post #178
thepryz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but your rant comes from a place of naive privilege when you assume meta engineers all had options. I know a number of people that accepted roles with companies they vowed never to work for after being laid off and unemployed for a year. The reality is that when you look at tech in abroad context, there really are very few ethical and/or noble companies.

There are plenty of options. I for example am one of those unemployed engineers that has been looking for a job for about a year now. Meta recruiters have came to me trying to poach me, and I've said no every time. The reality is that more engineers need to be able to grow a spine, have longer term thinking and actually stand their ground when it comes to these companies. You could not pay me enough money to work at…

Downvoters are wrong. Everything here is true. As someone who compromised their morals (not Facebook but other big tech) after being laid off, it was a choice

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#216

Post by spencerflem »

gulugawa wrote: post #210
fzeroracer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of options. I for example am one of those unemployed engineers that has been looking for a job for about a year now. Meta recruiters have came to me trying to poach me, and I've said no every time. The reality is that more engineers need to be able to grow a spine, have longer term thinking and actually stand their ground when it comes to these companies. You could not pay me enough money to work at…

What options?

I was considering pretty heavily getting a teaching license

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#217

Post by xboxnolifes »

pessimizer wrote: post #169
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…

You seem to have selected specifically people who are not likely to know the full implications of their behavior, and I agree with you. I don't even like doing stuff like this on my phone.

> You seem to have selected specifically people who are not likely to know the full implications of their behavior, and I agree with you.

You mean every person in the world who doesn't actively work on the stuff doing the tracking? This isn't selection bias, selection bias is thinking those are the abnormals.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#218

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mplanchard wrote: post #193
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At one end of the spectrum you have very talented, smart engineers who could easily get a job anywhere Not exactly... > devoting their lives to targeting ads, surveillance, brain-hacking the masses with the algorithm in order to sell more ads, etc. Nice try, but most of engineering at Meta has almost as much to do with this as the food staff... So the question remains - if you're an engineer working on nothing rela…

My answer already addresses this? I didn’t say every engineer works on those things. I said it’s a spectrum, with the people working on those things at one end. I also already answered that they all contribute to the edifice, with different levels of moral culpability, which it’s up to them to hash out how they feel about. Meta’s business is enabled by (practically) everyone who works for them, otherwise they wouldn’…

> If you’re comfortable knowing that your job is paid for by destroying society,

It's so easy to reduce things!

I'm still trying to figure out if my cousin who decorates offices for FAANG is destroying society or not.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#219

Post by b212 »

pjmlp wrote: post #190
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…

You mean like React? Agreed, what a damage to the world.

What alternatives to React do you propose? I found Angular even worse…

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#220

Post by [deleted] »

jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #177
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing they value is money and giving teenage girls depression. You really think if they didn't work there, someone else wouldn't? You really think them and only them are the people capable of doing whatever technical things are causing the problems you perceive?

But your honor! If I didn't sell heroin, someone else would!

[deleted]
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