Is Meta destroying its engineering organization? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#241

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #239

solid_fuel wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might as well blame this on Tim Berners-Lee. You clearly don’t understand this, and maybe you never will (it seems beyond some people), but moral responsibility is assigned here because of the actions facebook and their employees took. It is not assigned to Tim Berners-Lee because, again this is important, Tim Berners-Lee didn’t spend years spreading targeted genocidal propaganda in a country with a violent his…

Based on this garbage-level post I have a strong feeling I've read more moral philosophy than you.

Great counter argument, it really illustrates your thought process - or lack thereof.

It’s really sad that you don’t comprehend basic morality, but unfortunately not much can be done in cases like this.

The will for change must come from within, but if you ever do find yourself feeling empathy or even sympathy for other humans I promise there are lots of resources available to help you learn and understand more about living like a responsible human. All it takes is asking for help.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#242

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:19 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #126

ryandrake wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started doing this, but so many companies are bad that it's pretty career-limiting. Ultimately every company is, or one day will be, solely focused on "maximize shareholder value forever" as their one and only imperative. You just have to find the least bad ones.

I would love to learn if people have structured approaches for identifying companies that are in that "least bad" band, but yeah, I agree that as long as we have a system based on extreme wealth inequality, it's going to be pretty difficult to find moral work. At the end of the day most of us are working to make billionaires richer--in the best case we do that by genuinely creating value, but frequently it's about ta…

Imagine yourself describing to your relatives how the company has made money and see how embarrassed you feel.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#243

Post by ActorNightly » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

gr_norm wrote: post #234

ActorNightly wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Id honestly wager that at you and most of the people who are agreeing with you in the comments don't make the meta SDE salary, and if offered the 300k/year positions at Meta, even for a limited time, you would absolutely take it And you would be stupid not to. One one hand, you can be that guy that says you declined a Meta job, and be stuck at your current salary level, watching people make more money around you, and…

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 of us. Its easy to make an argument that shifts the blame away from Meta - they offer a product that is completely optional, its up to the individual person whether to use it or not, so working for Meta is not immoral. Thats a line someone could draw in their own life, and there isn't a single argument you can make based in any sort of grounded framework for them being wrong.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#244

Post by fsflover » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #126

ryandrake wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started doing this, but so many companies are bad that it's pretty career-limiting. Ultimately every company is, or one day will be, solely focused on "maximize shareholder value forever" as their one and only imperative. You just have to find the least bad ones.

I would love to learn if people have structured approaches for identifying companies that are in that "least bad" band, but yeah, I agree that as long as we have a system based on extreme wealth inequality, it's going to be pretty difficult to find moral work. At the end of the day most of us are working to make billionaires richer--in the best case we do that by genuinely creating value, but frequently it's about ta…

One way to decide is whether the company has a dedicated Wikipedia page with criticism, or, for the next level, a section.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#245

Post by pokstad » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #156

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…

As I learned while burning through all my savings in the 2023-2024 timeframe: You are free to have principles, but principles aren't free. I am ashamed I worked there.

That’s a choice. This isn’t a story about someone poor who needs to work at McDonalds to make ends meet to feed their family. We are talking about the top earners in the world who made a decision to make more money than working at a competitor (Google/Apple/Microsoft/etc) where they would still be in the top 1% of earners.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#246

Post by bradlys » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:27 PM UTC

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.

Man, are people on HN still this unaware of how personalization algorithms work at all?

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#247

Post by ihsw » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

davebren wrote: post #136

monster_truck wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The belief that engineers are not doing anything for x amount of time that could be better spent on other immediately measurable things is as old as the profession itself. Ironically this vanishes when the tables are turned and we ask for things like better hardware or software. There are plenty of us here with stories of how much effort it took to convince employers that SSDs were worth it when they were new, small,…

One of the funniest things is how hard it was to get approval for a $100 software license but now people are being encouraged to burn thousands on tokens.

[dead]

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#248

Post by trhway » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #125

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.

>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. Can you expand on this? Aren't there plenty of "not-amazing-but-definitely-not-evil" organizations out there which need talented engineers?

For example the just mentioned Cursor. Looks amazing and not evil. Couple years there probably would have made unnecessary any other job after that.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#249

Post by closeparen » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 9:35 PM UTC

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.

In other words, do not buy a house or start a family within 2 hours of any of their supported work locations.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#250

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

slibhb wrote: post #237

ben_w wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Facebook subsidised the internet in Myanmar via the internet.org initiative, only 1% of the population had internet. The way Facebook chose to operate in the country made rumour indistinguishable from verified news by its users. Myanmar's Facebook community was also nearly completely unmonitored by Facebook, who at the time only had two Burmese-speaking employees. If TBL had managed to fund a huge rollout of t…

"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.