Meta’s biggest culture problem is definitely “not enough masculine energy”.
I get that the money is good but holy hell I don't understand why anyone still works at Meta.
"You can..."
"Yes...we are allowed that privilege"
Not sure what to do next, I know it probably won't pay as well, but damn I want out
Im thinking about getting certifications to become a drone pilot. Try and get on with a GIS firm to do aerial surveys for farm land or mining companies or something
There's no excuse anymore for being ignorant of how this industry works, the mask has been off for years.
In the US, there's the expectation that when you use an employer-provided device that any and all activity on it can be fully monitored/recorded and used against the employee for any reason. In practice, however, few people worry about reasonable amounts web-surfing, being on hacker-news or doing life-activities on their work machines. Oh, here I am on hacker-news when I should be working.
With AI, this changes significantly since the man can now employ a robot to categorize and finely scrutinize every little thing with the pretext of "training" (to take your job). We will soon have to brace ourselves for an absolute draconian level of tracking.
And the location, yes, your physical location as well
But not all managers think that your learning sources are valid, and care more that you spend time on their learning paths. Even if it's your off time.
(Yes, there is a story attached to this haha... and more importantly, several different writeups[1][2][3] on how random internet wanderings have been more beneficial to my overall technological capability than people who insist on the importance of a CS background when building dashboards and client UIs. In practice, thanks to a dev box with insufficient RAM, and your typical tabbed-browsing problem, I used `pkill` over `ssh` -- something I picked up from toying with Over the Wire levels in my off time -- a lot more often than I used linked lists at that job.)
[1] bhmt.dev/blog/scraping
[2] bhmt.dev/blog/ctf
[3] bhmt.dev/blog/feeds
Why don't you quit this very toxic company, and start working at another place or even on your own? I genuinely don't understand...
Let just Meta die!
A few years on a salary like that and you may find that you can live fairly comfortably for a long time… in a place where the cost of living and housing are inexpensive.
I have an aunt who is quite old, who has been living for decades in a trailer in Eloy, Arizona. I suspect few people reading this will think that's any kind of an "escape plan", but I have been jealous of her seemingly contented and relaxed retirement for a long time now.
Perhaps you have to weigh it against, "working in the industry you hate for an other decade or two." Could you enjoy yourself in your retirement in your trailer? Is there something more you need to enjoy your retirement?
The message is: Fuck you if you're a software developer. Your skills are irrelevant. You should be grateful that we haven't made conditions even worse.
"Employees are able to turn off tracking".
Sure, but there is a power imbalance, and employees will come to understand ( although never stated in any handbook ) that the rate at which they disable it will be taken into account in performance reviews.
Just like "unlimited PTO" is not a benefit, because employees self-regulate their use down to less than they'd get if they negotiated a fixed amount.
It's a twisted legal trick to get out of an obligation.
This is the United States, land of the free and home of the slaves. Workers are subhuman here.
That's just too bad and Meta does not care. If these employees don't like it, just leave Meta. (They won't).
But that idea was shot down real fast by the unions, who informed the employer that it with great likelihood also would clash with data protection laws, and GDPR (this was not in the US). So it was quickly abandoned. Among workers that was one of the most dystopian ideas we had heard of.
53 minutes per week.
53 minutes. Not even a full hour. It was specific enough that you knew some bureaucrat went out of their way to hyper optimize this, creating a maximum slap-in-your-face effect.
This 30 minutes thing feels the same way.
In many cases they pay really well I heard, so I'm not too bothered by it. If you are a high paid specialist and you do not like how you are treated, you can go and find another, friendlier, job.
For low paid workers I have more sympathy: if you have no options but to be tracked and pee in bottles and ... whatnot; that's just sad. We need better labour law to protect them.
Also all corporates that did anti-unionizing and never got punished for this are simply criminals operating above the law at this point. We know many FAANG++ did it.
Sometimes using a company device is even a risk for the company... They shoot themselves in the foot by allowing IT to silently remote takeover/view a device, or install key loggers.
They don't like your age and prefer some fresh face to pull with no family alnighters and work for half the money? The performance review will show you as lacking motivation or some such shit.
And any review that's based on hard metrics, can be manipulated by the reviewer just as well.
I love building software, but I can't stand working in the industry.
It's such an unholy combination of bad corporate culture and questionable moral principals.
If people don't like building tech that's one thing.
But the problems most of this thread are discussing are just people and organizational problems.
If you want to live and make money you're probably going to have to put up with some level of bullshit.
Find the company with the least of it and enjoy the rest.
Switching industries is a romantic idea but it is very difficult, especially going from the tech world with big money to the normal world with small money. You can still work to keep yourself busy but thinking about it as retirement will better help you plan. Going part time in tech is usually more sustainable than trying to switch industries.
A good place to start is thinking about what you want from life without work. Where do you want to be? Where does your partner and your kids want to be? What do they want out of life? From there you can assess the financial needs and plan accordingly.
The right answer should be "until you are able to do it".
That's the whole premise of welfare. Anything less or more is privilege/vice
Personally, I’ve focused on finding a place I enjoy being, rather than optimizing for income and planning to retire ASAP.
And so at the appointed time, I walked away.
(My retirement plans though also involved leaving the Bay Area—which I did not want to do while I had kids in school. Selling the Bay Area house, buying one in Nebraska paid the early retirement—why I thought it necessary to move in order to retire.)
[1] Told the wife I could get a job at Home Depot if it looked later like we needed an income injection. (Wondering if I subconsciously want to work at Home Depot.)
The more I spoke with, the more I realized that they were there entirely by choice. Most were given packages to "retire", but they were still in their 50s and their spouses hadn't retired yet, hence the job. All of them loved the physical work, interaction, and especially leaving work at work at the end of the day. They seemed relaxed and genuinely happy.
If you end up at Home Depot, chances are you'll really enjoy the work, plus I think they were still using an AS/400 the last time I peeked at their displays!
I began pursuing a biology degree on the side maybe 3 years ago so I can do that kind of work. Several of my professors are involved with projects that have recently lost funding due to NIH cuts and can't retain their engineering support. It hasn't been encouraging.
This measure would either be toothless or it would make it impossible for the most toxic (non-criminal) team members to be fired.
It consists of two broad strategies:
1. Consumer Non-Cooperation (Boycott): Boycott of stuff sold, or given by these companies, irrespective of how attractive it is.
2. The Constructive Program (Self-Reliance): Building and supporting alternatives, even if they cost you a little bit more.
All it needs is little self-discipline and a very very tiny bit of sacrifice on daily basis.
I've been contemplating the same. Saved my whole life. But I still don't feel like I have enough saved for a long retirement (i'm in US, and not planning on moving abroad for cost of living improvements, like you hear so many people around here tout).
How about quality of life improvements? Or life in general?
Hopefully in a few years I have a couple mildly profitable applications, and I can pull the rip cord on working in tech and coast while I figure out next steps for myself professionally.
There are so many small companies, research groups etc that can pay a livable wage (just not as exuberant as big tech) without the ethical scruples, while still posing challenging technical problems.
Or I’ll finally get around to obtaining an Irish passport and move to the Med.
It took me a long time to teach myself how to do this and I was making sites for family and friends (weddings, birth announcements) before finally starting to gain traction building sites for local businesses. Eventually a small marketing firm started using me for content updates and then bigger and bigger things. I build sites, created user management systems, handled databases and struggled to learn it all because my fine arts mind was chaotically bouncing all over the place with ideas and designs and finding there were a dozen different ways to do anything. After a few years of this I moved to a large consulting firm, quickly became a technical manager (mostly coding and problem solving but some people management). Then I moved to another and another. By the end I was leading small teams and working with some San Francisco based companies (as a contractor... no bonuses and I was hiring and managing people earning twice what I did). I eventually decided to move to work on a product at a single company.
Pay increased, bonuses appeared but I was now in my 50s and realizing that the corporate ladder favored me about as well as the marketing and sales part of photojournalism had. I am pretty much stalled out now. Salary is solid, bonus is great, upward trajectory has stalled and I am in my late 50's.
All of this is to say, I have given no thought to switching industries at this age. I think it would be too daunting and I am not willing to give up the higher salary that tech is providing this late in the game. I am holding tight (hopefully, lol... sigh) until 62 because my slow start in the industry and lean early years means that I will need to add social security into my income streams in order to lead the life I want to in retirement. I cannot afford the overall cost of living without that extra chunk added to my retirement drawdowns.
I can't recommend leaving tech highly enough. My cortisol levels are so much lower than they used to be. I don't have to schedule my life around EMEA and APAC meetings outside of my normal hours. I only work more than 40 hours a week if I feel like it, which I sometimes do, because I actually enjoy my work now. I make a tangible difference for people, and get to work on things I care about. Instead of pleasing investors or VCs, I focus on maximizing impact and breaking even every year.
There are some things that are worse, mostly around compensation and benefits, but I don't really care. I'm lucky to have a working spouse with decent health insurance, so we use hers. We paid off our house and put a ton into savings while I worked in tech. I didn't get rich in the sense that people who work in tech think rich means, but I could probably sell my belongings and live a very good life on a beach somewhere in Latin America at whatever point I choose and never work again. That's likely the plan after my wife's parents are gone.
My advice, actually take the time to research the number you need to quit. Mine ended up being a lot lower than I thought it would be because I had been used to six figure salaries, but never lived above a five figure lifestyle.
Reason given was it's what is expected at work everything you do in your role, you need to show above and beyond.
(This is from Office Space for those who don’t know. Hilarious scene with Jennifer Aniston)
One time my manager did a hour long lecture for our team on how personal growth is important and that we all should expand our horizons and learn new stuff.
When I tried to reserve 2 hours A WEEK for studying tasks I got push back that I should do it on my own time. It was a complete joke.
(Just kidding, I know what happens... they will fire you and hire someone who doesn't have kids.)
And then the boss will blame young people for collapsing the demography and endangering the country.
You know, don't forget the details.
Anyone with access to data being processed about you may have incentives that align similarly with your employer’s use case.
Advertisers, Internet service providers, phone manufacturers, social networks, tech platform providers, schools, families, spouses, nosy neighbours, nosy governments.
The scale at which you can build a summary about someone is astonishing.
How they breach policies, how they break laws, how they mishandle sensitive data, how they materially negatively impact customers.
This whole thing is now a litigation nightmare, and frankly I can’t believe Meta is doing this so publicly. They’ve created an incredibly dangerous and lucrative lever in which vexatious and otherwise incentivised individuals and organisations can subpoena and demand evidence which, provided the ample data available, will surely produce enough evidence given the expanse of their employer base. They simply need to have a thread to pull on, so a judge doesn’t deem it a fishing expedition.
Similarly, I worry for democracies with no checks or balances to prevent ruling parties from exploiting or abusing this power. For example, in India, there’s accusations of their equivalent of the NSA being used to spy on the opposition —- under the guise of “keep them honest”. https://www.idsa.in/system/files/book/book_IntellegenceRefor...
In other Western countries whenever this type of work is conducted, it’s usually at Director or Minister-level approval. There’s lawyers involved, it’s heavily documented. What happens when systems, or products, are given the implicit approval of this same function by their very nature?
We’re in weird times.
"Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on"
I do agree, though, that for any type of surveillance, the rise of AI presents a really problematic opportunity to allow more targeted observation, since nobody has to spend their own time looking for what people are doing, they can ask an AI to keep tabs and look out for the things they care about.
On that note, I think one of the more realistic risks for an everyday person doing personal things on a work machine is probably insider threat from a rogue IT admin, whose access allows them insight into company devices without enough oversight.
I don't expect this. I know that some companies install spyware on their devices, but I don't expect it, I don't accept it, and if they did it without disclosing it I'd be furious. I understand they're allowed to do it. I'd never work anywhere that did.
It is allowed, contrary to eg the EU, where this is not allowed.
Really? Its quite obvious to me. They get astonishing resume and salary. That is until they get fired or burned.
Not sure about that one.
Make them fear for their professional and personal reputations.
Make them embarassed to show their face or state their place of employment.
We need to treat these people like Nazis.
But I do agree with the general premise. Instead of Meta being seen as a signal for being a high-quality engineer, I hope the signal being sent is more like: engineer who is so money hungry they are willing to abandon almost all sense of responsibility and reasonable character.
We need to make engineers who work in surveillance or advertising ashamed enough to avoid putting that work on their resume.
I think that's a pretty big difference.
No reason to be that sarcastic, the job market is not dead (at least not in Europe).
Despite corporate propaganda, work is not self-fulfillment, moral quest, or meaning for most people. It's money and future. When you earn $191K-$4.36M+ and don't want to move your family to some cheaper neighborhood, you put your head down and keep working.
Unless you are hardcore libertarian, these questions of workplace privacy are solved individual by individual. They are political questions. Improve labor laws, privacy laws etc.
Is it perfect? certainly not. Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line? how much are you willing to compromise given the other advantages you get? Everybody has a different answer to these questions. Some people would tell you that even working in tech is wrong due to environmental concerns.
Personally, I would happily work for Meta. Many people use their services and like them. Is it the greatest thing for society? probably not, but neither is Netflix or Amazon or Apple...
If I learn you work at Meta, I will judge you as at best lacking a moral compass and treat you appropriately.
Apple has problems, but is a lot closer to morally neutral. Ditto for Netflix.
Amazon has hollowed out local retail/is also bad for society, though not on Meta’s scale. But you sell your soul more cheaply there.
Pick your poison.
Extremely simplified example. Ignore inflation, raises, etc.
Which choice is better?
- $400k/yr for 5 years followed by a layoff, with the possibility that the thing you've helped Meta build rolls out everywhere, and there are next to no job opportunities
- $200k/yr for the rest of your career, and employment opportunities don't dry up because you didn't help build the thing meant to replace you
It's astonishing how many people value a ton of money over doing something good. Everyone who talks about setting values aside for cash is the problem. Gross.
baby_souffle•1h ago