4 ms·

"Headcount was 83,553 as of June 30, 2022, an increase of 32% year-over-year." Like ... why? They hired 20 000 employees net in a year? And Zuckerberg now some

"Headcount was 83,553 as of June 30, 2022, an increase of 32% year-over-year." Like ... why? They hired 20 000 employees net in a year? And Zuckerberg now somehow says that they need to tighten the belt?

dralley 4y ago
Yeah, that casts a very different light over the suggested layoffs.
- deltree7 4y ago
  It doesn't. Lot's of tech companies over-hired, over-invested both in 1999 and 2021. Can companies be conservative? Yes, but people were also predicting a tech crash in 2010, 2011, 2012....
antoniuschan99 4y ago
Thinking they had an aggressive hiring for metaverse
- mhio 4y ago
  Had a quick check of each q2 report, no figures in 2016 2017 20,658 43% yoy 2018 30,275 47% 2019 39,651 31% 2020 52,534 32% 2021 63,404 21%
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    I wonder how hireing sprees like this effect market wages for programmers? There are about 65000 CS students getting a diploma each year in the US. I wonder how many of FB employees are SWEs.
snoopy_telex 4y ago
I have no idea what all those people are actually doing. That seems so heavy a head count for the public end result. Is there a break down somewhere of how many are SWE vs SRE vs support?
- redleader55 4y ago
  Meta doesn't use SREs. There is a position called Production Engineer[1] which has the same skills and does almost the same work as a SWE, but has different focus - scalability, reliability, security, automation. The ballpark ratio is 10 SWE to 1 PE. [1] - https://engineering.fb.com/category/production-engineering/ https://engineering.fb.com/category/production-engineering/
  - woadwarrior01 4y ago
    PE and SWE are't even remotely close in the pecking order at Meta. Also, the interview loops were slightly different for PE based on whether the candidate came from a SWE background or a systems background. I'm a former Meta PE who reinterviewed internally as a SWE and then left because I was told that I'd have to move countries to finalize the conversion (because my location was a non-SWE site).
    - kart23 4y ago
      what do you mean by pecking order? like are PEs less important than SWEs?
      - woadwarrior01 4y ago
        Yes. I was told this the almost as soon as I started as a PE, by colleagues. 2+ years later, having worked in both PE and SWE teams, I noticed first hand that PEs were consistently looked down upon by both SWEs and SWE managers.
        PossiblyKyle 4y ago
        Conversely, I was applying to Meta and have made it to the final stage. The interview was held with the head PE in the country. Both him and all preceding interviews clearly signaled PEs are 'the ones who do both' here, and their scarcity has made them quite valuable in the branch (according to them). It is also reflected by their salary here, which is 15% higher for interns and 50% higher as a FTE.
potatolicious 4y ago
I suspect a few reasons, some of which are shared by all of the tech companies that over-hired: - Prestige. There are a lot of companies (especially VC funded startups) that have massively over-hired because a large headcount of high-end engineers is a signal to the market (and importantly, VCs) as to your seriousness. - Talent denial to competitors. If you don't want anyone to catch up in a space (say, VR) you can get a long way by simply hiring the entire talent pool dry. This is however an incredibly expensive strategy that presumes you have a gargantuan amount of cashflow. I suspect this was a large part of FB's strategy, but they are no longer in a financial position to sustain it. Google has done this to a large extent for AI, and do not appear to be letting up. - Just like code, forming new teams is easier than refactoring old teams. In big companies every part of the product feels essential (until the crisis moment, where every cut is on the table and a more sober accounting occurs), and so the default inclination in good times is to keep every team but add more teams/headcount in order to take on additional work. In bad times one is much more inclined to exchange one initiative for another, rather than simply accumulating initiatives.
- redwood 4y ago
  I think another part of it is actually related to how you retain people, the more people you have the more they want to feel they can advance which is made easier by giving more and more people chances to build teams and from there to expand it to ever more specific niches
  - potatolicious 4y ago
    Agreed. I think there a few key observations I've developed working in BigTech for many years now, that I don't think are necessarily obvious from the outside: - You retain engineers by giving them money/stock, and by giving them a well-defined system towards advancing within the company. Typically in BigTech advancement into the senior ranks is defined largely by ability to lead major efforts that require significantly-sized teams to build out. You need a steady pipeline of junior engineers in order to keep more senior engineers on the advancement track. Orgs that stop growing have their engineers' career advancements slow/freeze and will eventually suffer attrition for it. If your org isn't growing, it's shrinking. - You retain management by giving them more reports. Power and influence within the company is largely correlated with the number of people you manage. This is both for stupid signaling reasons, but also for real practical reasons - the more resources a manager has the more they are able to take on initiatives that move their org (and themselves) forward. Everything from management to IC is aligned around continuously growing orgs. It takes a massive external shock to undo this dynamic.

dralley 4y ago

Yeah, that casts a very different light over the suggested layoffs.

deltree7 4y ago
It doesn't. Lot's of tech companies over-hired, over-invested both in 1999 and 2021. Can companies be conservative? Yes, but people were also predicting a tech crash in 2010, 2011, 2012....

antoniuschan99 4y ago

Thinking they had an aggressive hiring for metaverse

mhio 4y ago
Had a quick check of each q2 report, no figures in 2016 2017 20,658 43% yoy 2018 30,275 47% 2019 39,651 31% 2020 52,534 32% 2021 63,404 21%
- rightbyte 4y ago
  I wonder how hireing sprees like this effect market wages for programmers? There are about 65000 CS students getting a diploma each year in the US. I wonder how many of FB employees are SWEs.

snoopy_telex 4y ago

I have no idea what all those people are actually doing. That seems so heavy a head count for the public end result. Is there a break down somewhere of how many are SWE vs SRE vs support?

redleader55 4y ago
Meta doesn't use SREs. There is a position called Production Engineer[1] which has the same skills and does almost the same work as a SWE, but has different focus - scalability, reliability, security, automation. The ballpark ratio is 10 SWE to 1 PE. [1] - https://engineering.fb.com/category/production-engineering/ https://engineering.fb.com/category/production-engineering/
- woadwarrior01 4y ago
  PE and SWE are't even remotely close in the pecking order at Meta. Also, the interview loops were slightly different for PE based on whether the candidate came from a SWE background or a systems background. I'm a former Meta PE who reinterviewed internally as a SWE and then left because I was told that I'd have to move countries to finalize the conversion (because my location was a non-SWE site).
  - kart23 4y ago
    what do you mean by pecking order? like are PEs less important than SWEs?
    - woadwarrior01 4y ago
      Yes. I was told this the almost as soon as I started as a PE, by colleagues. 2+ years later, having worked in both PE and SWE teams, I noticed first hand that PEs were consistently looked down upon by both SWEs and SWE managers.
      - PossiblyKyle 4y ago
        Conversely, I was applying to Meta and have made it to the final stage. The interview was held with the head PE in the country. Both him and all preceding interviews clearly signaled PEs are 'the ones who do both' here, and their scarcity has made them quite valuable in the branch (according to them). It is also reflected by their salary here, which is 15% higher for interns and 50% higher as a FTE.

potatolicious 4y ago

I suspect a few reasons, some of which are shared by all of the tech companies that over-hired: - Prestige. There are a lot of companies (especially VC funded startups) that have massively over-hired because a large headcount of high-end engineers is a signal to the market (and importantly, VCs) as to your seriousness. - Talent denial to competitors. If you don't want anyone to catch up in a space (say, VR) you can get a long way by simply hiring the entire talent pool dry. This is however an incredibly expensive strategy that presumes you have a gargantuan amount of cashflow. I suspect this was a large part of FB's strategy, but they are no longer in a financial position to sustain it. Google has done this to a large extent for AI, and do not appear to be letting up. - Just like code, forming new teams is easier than refactoring old teams. In big companies every part of the product feels essential (until the crisis moment, where every cut is on the table and a more sober accounting occurs), and so the default inclination in good times is to keep every team but add more teams/headcount in order to take on additional work. In bad times one is much more inclined to exchange one initiative for another, rather than simply accumulating initiatives.

redwood 4y ago
I think another part of it is actually related to how you retain people, the more people you have the more they want to feel they can advance which is made easier by giving more and more people chances to build teams and from there to expand it to ever more specific niches
- potatolicious 4y ago
  Agreed. I think there a few key observations I've developed working in BigTech for many years now, that I don't think are necessarily obvious from the outside: - You retain engineers by giving them money/stock, and by giving them a well-defined system towards advancing within the company. Typically in BigTech advancement into the senior ranks is defined largely by ability to lead major efforts that require significantly-sized teams to build out. You need a steady pipeline of junior engineers in order to keep more senior engineers on the advancement track. Orgs that stop growing have their engineers' career advancements slow/freeze and will eventually suffer attrition for it. If your org isn't growing, it's shrinking. - You retain management by giving them more reports. Power and influence within the company is largely correlated with the number of people you manage. This is both for stupid signaling reasons, but also for real practical reasons - the more resources a manager has the more they are able to take on initiatives that move their org (and themselves) forward. Everything from management to IC is aligned around continuously growing orgs. It takes a massive external shock to undo this dynamic.