Is Meta destroying its engineering organization? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#261

Post by qwerpy » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #218

mplanchard wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It must be exhausting having someone like that (the person you replied to) in your life. So negative, judgmental, and filled with hate. Have to be careful about everything you do and say around them or you’ll be labeled as some kind of -ist or destroying the world.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#262

Post by lumost » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:03 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.

I don't think this is really true, there are plenty of engineers/managers who rotate through major tech companies. Many Meta folks will head off to new companies which would pay at similar levels.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#263

Post by ModernMech » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #107

jlengrand wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you care, what you're doing is called causal impotence https://philpapers.org/rec/NORTIO-18 . Then you can also search why it does matter.

Where do you draw the line? You're a TVC in the kitchen at Meta? All you do is give girls depression? You work at a business that buys ads on Meta? Is all you do is give girls depression? Even if you work in a non-profit branch specifically to do out-reach for kids or something?? How far separated from Meta do you have to be to not be reduced to doing nothing but giving girls depression?

A clear line would be if you are compensated directly in shared of Facebook, then your culpability is much higher than if you're just working a salary or buying ads.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#264

Post by gwbas1c » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #249

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.

You can sell your house and roll the equity over to another one in a cheaper area. Depending on how you do it, you might even move into one with no loan or a tiny loan.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#265

Post by ben_w » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #259

ben_w wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you hear yourself? Better than you heard me, given that's not what I said.

It's very fashionable for Westerners to evince belief in the idea that inhabitants of third-world countries have no free will and aren't responsible for their actions. We're told that everything bad that happens in those countries is due to large Western companies or a history of colonization. This is all very silly. The genocide in Myanmar (it's a civil war last I checked) isn't Facebook's fault (legally or morally)…

You're still shadow-boxing with what you want me to have written, not what I actually wrote.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#266

Post by gwbas1c » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

Around 2010 I used to point out to Facebook engineers that "Facebook is the new AOL."

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#267

Post by gwbas1c » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

I think there is a shift here that a lot of people don't recognize.

If you worked in TV in the early days, especially when TV was highly experimental and the standards changed every year, you probably did a lot of hands-on engineering or otherwise worked closely with engineers. Today, there is very little engineering in television.

I suspect the same thing is happening with social media: The product is mature and will have less and less engineering problems to solve.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#268

Post by LarsDu88 » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

There's an aspect to this which feels like part of it is that Zuckerberg himself is sliding into middle age.

Facebook has been around for 20+ years now. The youthful exuberance of Web 2.0 has given way to the exuberance of an even greater more disruptive AI era.

The problem is, it leads to blind imitation. And it's obvious who he's imitating.

It's Elon Musk. From Zuck's perspective, all he ever did was figure out how to monetize a PhP web app - something my buddy in high school could create for our M.U.N. club. Zuck spends millions on VR glasses, low income high schools, 100,000 software engineers, and all he has is the same webapp + some monopolistic acquisitions and a loving wife and child.

Elon is a total dick to everyone, impregnates his executives, gets high on ketamine, does the Nazi salute on live television, but, importantly, launched more satellites into space than any country on Earth. For less than the price of a shitty VR webapp that 20 people used, Elon will solve Global Warming and bring humans into the outer reaches of the solar system. The duality of man.

If Elon started pissing his pants in public or flinging poo at his enemies, Zuckerberg would start doing the same thing.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#269

Post by sleepybrett » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

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…

labor solidarity, in america... we could only hope.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#270

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:12 PM UTC

mxschumacher wrote: post #260

solid_fuel wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How now, that’s not fair. They also make a lot of money giving teenagers depression and selling them beauty products and chatbot companions.

please stop being so mean, they also create echo chambers to kill political discourse (i.e. the foundation of democracy) and show the most inflammatory material to their users to pit them into a shouting match against each other

Truly who could blame them though. They have to trap people in rage bubbles or they might make slightly less money!

I'm so tired of these double standards, nobody ever blames fentanyl manufacturers for making such an addictive product so why is everyone mad at facebook? All they did was poison discourse for a generation and provide material support to an autocrat.