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She claims to be a PM, not a coder. Strictly speaking, she says she did some work "on the roof in the morning" and then doesn't mention work again at any point

She claims to be a PM, not a coder. Strictly speaking, she says she did some work "on the roof in the morning" and then doesn't mention work again at any point. In particular the video gives the strong impression that she might have simply gone home soon after lunch. Maybe not in reality, but it strongly looks and sounds that way from the vid. She says explicitly "I got lunch, I got a snack always, I then shuttled home" i.e. the phrasing means going home immediately followed lunch. You also have to wonder how hard she can be working and how well supervised she is, if she's posting videos to their primary competitor of herself dancing on the roof. There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention. At 23 how much product management knowledge or skill can you really have, or heck any form of management skill? Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic. Firms like FB used to have very strict hiring standards, but look at the employee growth in the past few years and tell us that this can still be true. Someone like that would simply never have made it through the interviews 10 years ago. They are clearly a bullshitter, look at this: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6968330387580215296/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6968330... "Prior to working at Meta (priorly Facebook), I built 3 startups and I put 2 out of the 3 startups through the UCLA Summer Accelerator program. This accelerator is founded by my good friend and mentor, Robert Jadon and accelerated my growth as an entrepreneur and woman in tech." And: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6988514457345785856/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6988514... "During her senior year at UCLA, Riley Rojas decided to pursue a career in Big Tech — and she wanted to work for the best ... This week in #KeepingtheBalance, Rojas shares how she landed her job at Meta with a political science background. Spoiler: It took a whole lot of studying and manifestation." So of course that will lead to resentment. She studied political science yet claims to have made three startups before she even graduated? The pay for these jobs is famously good. What possible value can this person be delivering to meta?

dleslie 4y ago
> There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention. I'm not going to read too much into your complaints about her priorities; but suffice to say, perhaps consider that she doesn't mention the details of her work because being a PM is generally breathtakingly dull. > Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic. And yet you then sought out her linkedin and found evidence that she has, indeed, quantifiable and valid experience. But of course, you dismiss it out of hand because she's "clearly a bullshitter". But is she, really? I've been out of school for ~20y, and even back then I knew at least five people who had successful business ventures during their tenure at post-secondary. At least two of those companies exited in rather substantial acquisitions. There was also the people who would go on to speak at TedX, who were featured on magazine covers, who... Post-secondary is already a sample of the top-tier students that there is available, it shouldn't be surprising that some of them are super achievers.
chrisseaton 4y ago
I think all that evidence you gave of her being a bullshitter is actually relevant work experience and a top-tier education. I could never pass a FAANG interview, or get into UCLA, or run a startup. She’s clearly extremely talented. Let's be honest - all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are. Good for her - I hope she keeps making them angry.
- origin_path 4y ago
  With the work you've done on TruffleRuby? You should absolutely be able to pass a FAANG interview, you'd be more like the kind of person they were hiring 10 years tbh. I did a lot of interviewing candidates when I worked at a FAANG company and if you didn't pass then you'd be a false negative, simple as that. It's amazing anyone is taking her LinkedIn postings seriously. Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once. She's claiming she did that three times whilst studying nothing more specific than political science, and then decided none of them were worth pursuing, but instead the pinnacle of ambition was low level PM at Meta? She's using the word "startup" here to trigger progressive ideologies in recruiters, not to indicate an actual serious effort to build a firm. I suspect you and dleslie are very lucky to not have encountered these sorts of #womenintech before (the hashtag is important here). The sort of people who describe themselves that way invariably have absolutely no interest in tech, let alone in founding companies - unless they get to be a #femalecofounder, which helps unlock more VC money for the male actual founder. These people get jobs by loudly deploying feminist ideology at any possible opportunity and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech. They certainly will not be found enthusing about a new product idea they had or banging out code at 3am. "all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are." Lol, no. This is HN, a lot of us here have worked for big tech firms in much better paid roles, including me. Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special. The reason we criticize her video is exactly because of that experience - because we know that such firms increasingly bloated up over time with people who were there for ideological reasons and not because they contributed anything to the team. Another poster called them "plant pots" which sounds about right. They contribute either nothing (best case) or strongly negative value (worst case) and for those of us who have had to deal with them it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. If you never did, be glad!

dleslie 4y ago

> There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention. I'm not going to read too much into your complaints about her priorities; but suffice to say, perhaps consider that she doesn't mention the details of her work because being a PM is generally breathtakingly dull. > Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic. And yet you then sought out her linkedin and found evidence that she has, indeed, quantifiable and valid experience. But of course, you dismiss it out of hand because she's "clearly a bullshitter". But is she, really? I've been out of school for ~20y, and even back then I knew at least five people who had successful business ventures during their tenure at post-secondary. At least two of those companies exited in rather substantial acquisitions. There was also the people who would go on to speak at TedX, who were featured on magazine covers, who... Post-secondary is already a sample of the top-tier students that there is available, it shouldn't be surprising that some of them are super achievers.

chrisseaton 4y ago

I think all that evidence you gave of her being a bullshitter is actually relevant work experience and a top-tier education. I could never pass a FAANG interview, or get into UCLA, or run a startup. She’s clearly extremely talented. Let's be honest - all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are. Good for her - I hope she keeps making them angry.

origin_path 4y ago
With the work you've done on TruffleRuby? You should absolutely be able to pass a FAANG interview, you'd be more like the kind of person they were hiring 10 years tbh. I did a lot of interviewing candidates when I worked at a FAANG company and if you didn't pass then you'd be a false negative, simple as that. It's amazing anyone is taking her LinkedIn postings seriously. Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once. She's claiming she did that three times whilst studying nothing more specific than political science, and then decided none of them were worth pursuing, but instead the pinnacle of ambition was low level PM at Meta? She's using the word "startup" here to trigger progressive ideologies in recruiters, not to indicate an actual serious effort to build a firm. I suspect you and dleslie are very lucky to not have encountered these sorts of #womenintech before (the hashtag is important here). The sort of people who describe themselves that way invariably have absolutely no interest in tech, let alone in founding companies - unless they get to be a #femalecofounder, which helps unlock more VC money for the male actual founder. These people get jobs by loudly deploying feminist ideology at any possible opportunity and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech. They certainly will not be found enthusing about a new product idea they had or banging out code at 3am. "all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are." Lol, no. This is HN, a lot of us here have worked for big tech firms in much better paid roles, including me. Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special. The reason we criticize her video is exactly because of that experience - because we know that such firms increasingly bloated up over time with people who were there for ideological reasons and not because they contributed anything to the team. Another poster called them "plant pots" which sounds about right. They contribute either nothing (best case) or strongly negative value (worst case) and for those of us who have had to deal with them it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. If you never did, be glad!