Impressive Systems, Time Cut Short, Culture Challenges
Pros
Joining Meta was mostly as expected, especially after having worked with Meta from the outside via AdTech partnerships for years before: smart people, impressive systems, global scale products, tons of resources and fascinating projects to advance. Hiring manager seemed excellent, direct colleagues were mostly collaborative and kind. Some high quality talent, and leading research in many top fields.
Cons
Part of the November 2022 layoffs, Meta recruited me from a role I enjoyed so I was essentially "hired to fire", morale was absolutely horrendous with ample signs of project hoarding out of fear, territoriality, and overall gloominess, the number of management layers (back then) was almost comical, including Director-level middle managers of very questionable experience (e.g. Director A with background in politics and no tech experience acting like the stereotypical "I'm type A"-tough, Director B who was key for specific projects yet acted like their calendar was presidential-grade and never showed up, etc.). Very curious what the post-layoffs landscape looks like, from ex-colleagues still in-seat I heard it's still fairly dire, but maybe on the upswing in some teams.
