https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/meta-layoffs/
Part of this article was originally published in The Scoop #27, for subscribers of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter last week. I decided to publish this section for everyone to read after the Business Insider article claiming that 15% of Facebook employees - 12,000 people - may lose their jobs started to spread within the media. The Business Insider article was not specific to software engineers but still spread heavily within tech circles. Before un-paywalling this section, there has not been anything publicly accessible that delivers information about the software engineering side of things.
I rarely un-paywall analysis pieces, but seeing how much fear one article can cause - even for software engineers at Meta - which article fails to mention more nuanced dynamics and does no analysis of the situation, I made an exception to making relevant parts public.
This article covers:
On Tuesday 4 October, in the article, “Facebook is conducting ‘quiet layoffs’”, reporter Kali Hays wrote in Business Insider:
“Meta (...) is undergoing ‘quiet layoffs’ through shifting performance expectations that could affect as much as 15% of the company's workforce, several employees told Insider.
The reference to 15% of staff being labeled as “needs support,” was repeated on the anonymous social network Blind. It got my attention because it would be unusual for the company to do this so abruptly – at least within engineering. So, I followed up with current engineering managers-and-above personnel within the company.
The 15% “needs support” claim is not accurate for several engineering organizations. Here is what I have confirmed, though:
1. There is a new performance review process happening. From this year, Meta is moving to a 1-year performance process, as I detail in Inside Facebook’s engineering culture:
“Performance reviews are referred to as PSC (performance summary cycle.) Starting from 2022, they run once a year. Up until 2021, performance reviews ran every 6 months.
In 2022, the first such quarterly review or touchpoint was April. There is a touch point happening right now at the beginning of October. So yes, the performance review process is new for 2022, but it’s only new because it’s different from the previous one, which was biannual (every 6 months.)
2. The “touch point” system is being ironed out. A manager I talked with confirmed the “touch point” system is being worked out on the hoof. This also explains why some engineers were surprised to learn a new “touch point” was due in a few weeks from today.
It’s normal with a new performance system for it to take some time for everyone to get all the details. I know this all too well; at Uber, changes in performance review and promotion systems were frequent. Every change led to some confusion and miscommunication between HR, managers and employees.
3. There has always been a “needs review” target for engineering organizations and this hasn’t changed. Talking with a tenured senior manager, they shared there has always been an organization-wide target for “needs review,” of around 10%. They said the target has not been moved. In their words, “performance review is business as usual.” Other engineering managers also shared that the 10% target has not changed.
Note, I have only talked within engineering. It could well be that some organizations have been set a higher target, as Business Insider reported that higher figure.
Increasing or decreasing the target for the “bottom bucket” during calibrations is one of the most common tactics for controlling attrition. As an engineering manager, I’ve observed this tool being used both to reduce attrition in a market where holding on to employees is key, and to increase it when the business wants to encourage attrition.