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Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

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Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trivial and harmless? First, there's history. Second, the POTUS himself - self proclaimed enemy of divisiveness - yapped "pandemic of the unvaccinated." Which was a lie. A lie for which he has yet to acknowledge, let alone apologize for. The point is, people with an appreciation for history, and a willingness to exert their God given rights were being manipulated and maligned. That's not cool. That's not unifying.…

Not everybody on this website is American, you know.

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Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#242
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So why does their management - which should be able to read the writing on the wall, since that's part of their job - not issue a strict hiring freeze [...] Why do they go from hiring to firing in the blink of an eye? They did have a hiring freeze, and didn't really go from hiring to firing in the blink of an eye: * In May they froze hiring for engineers and low-level data scientists. * In July they announced that…

Doesn't have to inevitable, though. They literally have all the data.

> Doesn't have to inevitable, though. They literally have all the data.

Even if you have all the data, lets say there is a 4 person team being reduced to 3 during this redundancy - What do you do? Fire Anne instead of Peter purely because Peter joined the team more recently? Sure that sounds more fair for Peter, but it's less fair for Anne.

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#243
These scenarios don't just apply to being laid off. Another scenario which happens is that company ownership or control changes, and some key promises which were made to prospective employees get broken.

I relocated to a big unpleasant city for a job early in my career, and the big promise from the hiring folks (all good people) was that "we hire at a low rate, but we give big raises fast". Their prime example was another young "star" like me who doubled his salar in less than two years.

What the managers (and I) didn't know is that the recent acquisition of the company by a much bigger company meant that significant changes were coming. In my first six months, a lot of the developer perks (free lunch, but just normal food... nothing like a Google lunch) started to get scaled back or eliminated entirely. And then at my six month review, when my first raise should occur, my manager was honestly regretful to inform me that despite my excellent performance, he was only able to give an 8% raise because any higher increase had to be personally reviewed and signed off on by the CEO... and nobody was doing that.

So not only did I burn 6 months at a place that was heading downhill, but it took another 6 months to be sure of this when the next review/raise period came (and disappointed). Meanwhile, I had other peers who had gone to some big accounting firms and were already enjoying nice perks, travel opportunities, and rapidly increasing pay.

None of this was life shattering, but it is life days or months misspent. The feeling is that one has been cheated, even if there was no malintent on the part of the company. Aka, "bum deal".

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#244
post #172
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So why does their management - which should be able to read the writing on the wall, since that's part of their job - not issue a strict hiring freeze [...] Why do they go from hiring to firing in the blink of an eye? They did have a hiring freeze, and didn't really go from hiring to firing in the blink of an eye: * In May they froze hiring for engineers and low-level data scientists. * In July they announced that…

It probably would have been cheaper and less effort to make sure the hiring freeze actually properly works as intended - rather than interviewing, hiring, relocating and firing someone (including relocation and severance packages) for just two days of work.

Eh, large redundancies are usually planned semi-confidentially and executed immediately for obvious reasons, which makes these sort of things pretty inevitable.

The obvious reasons aren't just from a corporate perspective, it's also for an employee welfare perspective - Sometimes it's better that 13% of people immediately know rather than 100% of employees worrying about their job before 13% are eventually sacked.

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#245

I'm horrified by so many of the comments here that seem to lack even the most basic of human decency. Allow me to fill people in for those who have never uprooted your life and moved across the world for a job. It is a massive commitment on the part of the employee, where you sell the majority of your earthly possessions, property, cars, etc. Then you go through an immigration process which even if its handled by FAA…

> where you sell the majority of your earthly possessions, property, cars, etc.

I think this bit is actually a good thing. The rest of the story is indeed unfortunate, but having to eliminate possessions is probably more positive in life than negative. We tend to accumulate so much, and then our stuff becomes an invisible burden.

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#246

I'm horrified by so many of the comments here that seem to lack even the most basic of human decency. Allow me to fill people in for those who have never uprooted your life and moved across the world for a job. It is a massive commitment on the part of the employee, where you sell the majority of your earthly possessions, property, cars, etc. Then you go through an immigration process which even if its handled by FAA…

Simple solution: Only agree to relocate if your contract guarantees you employment for at least X months... Or a termination payment of Y dollars if employment lasts less than X months. Anyone who moves across the world for an employer without getting a term like that in writing simply is naive - and we shouldn't offer them sympathy after the fact. It's like someone having their house flooded when they deliberately d…

Have you tried that? Has it ever worked? How many people do you know that have done that? 1%? 5%? 10%?

What you're saying is fantasy land except for executives.

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so many of the comments here that seem to lack even the most basic of human decency Reading them, so am I. There is no sign of empathy: that understanding of another individual, the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes, that is fundamental to a healthy society and (IMO) personal integrity. I read a comment a few years ago that no-one thinks of themselves as a bad person. To yourself, you are always okay.…

> I read a comment a few years ago that no-one thinks of themselves as a bad person. To yourself, you are always okay. From my focus on emotions and conflict over the last 10 years, I'd say many people actually think they're bad people (or at least that they might be). I think one of the hardest things is to defend our own good intentions and I've found that as I get better at doing it for myself, I tend to also defe…

I wonder if it's not a bit like the Dunning-Kruger effect. The good people around us struggle thinking that they're bad, while the bad people blithely go around thinking they're good.

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#248

I'm horrified by so many of the comments here that seem to lack even the most basic of human decency. Allow me to fill people in for those who have never uprooted your life and moved across the world for a job. It is a massive commitment on the part of the employee, where you sell the majority of your earthly possessions, property, cars, etc. Then you go through an immigration process which even if its handled by FAA…

> so many of the comments here that seem to lack even the most basic of human decency Reading them, so am I. There is no sign of empathy: that understanding of another individual, the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes, that is fundamental to a healthy society and (IMO) personal integrity. I read a comment a few years ago that no-one thinks of themselves as a bad person. To yourself, you are always okay.…

Having worked in tech for 25 years it doesn’t surprise me. Some people I’ve worked with are barely human.

A colleague a few years ago went as far as to suggest that this is how you ended up with nazis.

I hope with ubiquitous communications now that we tell these people that no it’s not acceptable to behave like this! Compassion should be awarded.

Re: Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

#249
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true if you're working entirely or mostly synchronously, which might be an indicator of inherent anti-patterns in your work culture and processes, e.g., lots of meetings instead of written documentation.

The problem with this approach is that reality is the opposite. Good/best practices are rarely followed, maybe 20% of practitioners actually follow them in any field. So that means that on a daily basis, about 80% of people need to work in those "broken" environments.

Still, it's the environment that is broken. Hence, it's the environment that needs to be fixed.

Having people relocate to another country, because your organization isn't able to fix its own internal problems, means you're simply outsourcing your own costs to your employees.

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