this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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It's absolutely what they want. I think they're trying to cull their workforce, and cracking down on random policies in this way is intended to get people to leave w/o having to pay out severance packages.
I highly doubt that. People will continue to apply to Meta because it's a prestigious job and pays remarkably well. Unfortunately, Meta will get away with this, and it's honestly disgusting to me.
100% agree on your first point.
I would caution your second point. A few years ago, news articles pointed out Meta had to pay people more compared to other similar companies due to people not wanting to work there. Sadly Google search isn't showing me those older articles.
A few websites are saying Meta's ~~average~~ median pay is 379k (Zuckerberg takes a $1 so he isn't driving that number) vs Google at $315k vs Microsoft $193k vs Nvidia 267k. That's a lot of difference. So running a company like a pedant has a real dollar difference, especially for workers who can demand it. Meta lost a lot of money on the Metaverse and they are spending to catch up AI, meaning they already have to be competitive for employees compared to other companies. Add in the perks are a trap to get fired, and your costs just keep going up. Perks are typically offered in lieu of higher costs and in this case incentive people to work longer in an office. Now they leave for food or go home and you have lost those benefits.
It's probably more because they were offered a position at some other prestigious firm, like Google or Netflix. Meta doesn't need to compete with you local mom-and-pop software company, they're competing with other large tech firms, so if they want "the best," they need to pay up for it.
I think there's a lot more variety of roles in some of those companies though. Microsoft has a big hardware division (XBox, Surface, mouse/keyboard, etc), which means a lot of lower-paid support staff, logistics, etc. Meta is relatively new to that (mostly just their VR), so they probably have a lot fewer lower-paid roles. Microsoft also has a lot of campuses in lower COL areas, whereas my understanding is that Meta is almost entirely in the SF Bay area, with relatively few satellites (i.e. much higher average COL).
So just looking at average salaries doesn't tell the whole story, we'd need to look at equivalent roles. You could absolutely be right here, I'm just pointing out the metrics don't necessarily support the conclusions.
Totally fair points. Probably next to impossible. Wish I could find those articles, but oh well. I just don't see this being good for future hiring at Meta at the end of the day.
I hope you're right, because I detest Meta and refuse to use anything they touch.
Not average salary, median salary. Big difference, be careful with words, friend.
Good catch, thanks, updated
Definitely seems like they want the layoff from my position in the industry.
The tech megagiants are massively reallocating their budgets from "paying people for new product development" to datacenter build-outs, under the belief that AI will fundamentally restructure all knowledge work into property you can own and extract rent from.
Unfortunately the industry is completely non union and a good chunk of employees are on H1B or TN visas where they will get deported if they get fired. That really puts a damper on wanting to rock the boat.
Expect things to get less stable and shittier over time as this trend continues.
Yup, and when I worked w/ a team @ Facebook on a project, there were a lot of immigrants there. That really sucks, but the solution here should be to improve our immigration system so workers can more easily switch companies instead of getting deported and having to reapply.
100% agreed. The fact that it's possible to deport someone who has lived in America for decades just for getting laid off is absurdly cruel.
Yup. If you're here legally, it should be really easy to stay here (i.e. you'd have to try to get deported).