4 ms·

I will never blame the non-management workers in this situation. Most of us are forced by modern society to work for someone else and there are a limited number

by dangus 5mo ago

I will never blame the non-management workers in this situation. Most of us are forced by modern society to work for someone else and there are a limited number of jobs available. Not everyone who works at Meta has a better, more ethical option. This woukd be like saying the person scanning your ticket at the concert condones Ticketmaster as a monopoly. No, they’re just trying to feed their family.

FireBeyond 5mo ago
> Not everyone who works at Meta has a better, more ethical option. Come on now. Software engineers at Meta are not trapped with Meta on their resume (whatever you may think of the company itself). Most of the FAANG, for engineering, just having that name on your resume, opens up doors. You might get less than $700K TC as an E6 but that's also not "trapped" unless you've chosen to outspend your income.
- siren2026 5mo ago
  Exactly. Working at Meta means you studied for 4 weeks for the leetcode interviews. That type of dedication means you could very easily get any job anywhere else. And please don't compare someone making 800k$ with someone scanning a ticket for Ticketmaster.
  - FireBeyond 5mo ago
    How am I doing that? I'm talking about people who have very valid options elsewhere. "I'm stuck at Meta, making $800K, I have no other options". We're talking about software engineers who created much of the things they're complaining about. I'm not talking about say, cafeteria or custodial staff. And I despise Meta, and you can say whatever you want about Leetcode (and I tend to agree) but don't pretend that there are many many rungs of "software engineering calibers" in jobs that wouldn't see Meta, or Netflix and say "we have to interview this person".
    - siren2026 5mo ago
      You misread my comment. I'm in agreement with you all the way.
    - dangus 5mo ago
      Interesting, I’ve found job postings at Meta that pay under $100k for data center jobs in Ohio. There are also network engineering jobs in South Carolina that start at $105k. Do you think people in Bowling Green, OH are flooded with employment options? They can just walk down the street to go work at Google or Apple right? If I’m in Huntsville, Alabama and I’m a mechanic should I turn down this job because Meta isn’t ethical? https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/1949481595892560 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/194948159589... And where should I go work instead in Alabama? For the super duper ethical local car dealership? I would also point out that many of Meta’s departments like hardware engineering have a much smaller US job pool than software engineering. If you’re in the US and your profession is electrical engineering you you can’t just work remote anywhere or find a bank or insurance company in practically any city in the US to get a job with. A lot of your job prospects as a hardware engineer are also with the military and defense contractors. Meta is also one of the few companies that has job postings for PhD researcher type folks that only otherwise employable as professors at universities at relatively low salaries. If you’re a scientist in certain fields it’s a similar situation: try to become a professor, work for the government, or find the rare company like Meta that performs cutting edge research.
siren2026 5mo ago
Oh I will blame them. Working at Facebook means you optimized ruthlessly for $$$$$ only, absolutely nothing else. Working at Facebook means you are a leetcode monkey and could as well pass other interviews somewhere else and get paid 10% less. But to you, destroying democracy and killing teenager was worth those extra 10% Working at Facebook means you became a millionaire, even if you joined mid-career a couple years ago because of the stock inflation. No they are not just trying to feed their family. 99% of them are ruthlessly optimizing to make the most money possible to live in the top 1%, while completely dismissing all the bad Facebook, Meta and Instagram do in the world. No sympathy. And please don't compare someone making 800k$ with someone scanning a ticket for Ticketmaster for minimum wage. At those income levels, who you work for DOES matter.
- dangus 5mo ago
  Interesting, I found Meta data center jobs in Ohio, Alabama, Illinois outside of Chicagoland, and South Carolina that pay under $100k or barely above it. I didn’t find any that pay $800k. I found one for a diesel technician in Huntsville, Alabama. How many options for ethical employment does a diesel technician in Alabama have? Do you think your local franchised truck dealership is more ethical than Meta?
  - siren2026 5mo ago
    we are obviously talking about the majority of employees that are SWE. You are very obviously nitpicking the lowest paid employees you could find. https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Meta https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Meta
darth_avocado 5mo ago
Meta employees aren’t DoorDash gig workers trying to feed families. These are well compensated workers. It’s okay to have the opinion that most white collar jobs do some harm somewhere, but pretending these are poor souls forced to work for meta because of lack of options is not a great take. Furthermore the guy scanning the tickets doesn’t work for Ticketmaster, Meta employees work for and are well compensated for that work, by Meta. Big difference. That being said, I still empathize with workers. I think people need to be treated like people and not some resource to be exploited.
- dangus 5mo ago
  There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs. Think about departments like support, graphic design, marketing, etc. Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated. Also, it’s not like you have a wildly great choice of ethical companies to work for as an employee. What percentage of corporations are truly ethical? What companies that compete with Meta are highly ethical? If I quit Meta who am I working for that has no ethical issues?
  - darth_avocado 5mo ago
    > There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs With very few exceptions, Meta employees are generally making more money within their domain as compared to what they would make working at other companies, which is always an option. > Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated It’s a false dichotomy: work for meta or be unemployed. Millions of white collar workers are doing fine not working for Meta. And questioning if any corporation is free from ethical problems does not absolve you from the responsibility of the outcomes of what you build. Some corporations are objectively worse than others. A corporation building systems to pay gig workers less than the minimum wage is going to be probably worse than a corporation that builds a design collaboration tool when it comes to ethics. You can choose to work for either and be well compensated for your work, but let’s not pretend you’re some poor soul trapped in a job that you can’t escape.
justacrow 5mo ago
Yes, all those people Meta just laid off due to whistleblowing on the Glass privacy violations, and their content moderators and data labelers and so on have my full support. No sympathies for anyone doing SW engineering or similar. Anyone working there can definitely get a different programming gig. It likely doesn't pay as much but that's how it goes when you sell your soul.
- dangus 5mo ago
  I still have sympathies for any individual contributors even if they are high paid. No, you can’t always just magically work somewhere else. Especially not in the current job market. This is especially true when Meta has a far higher employee count than most companies. If every Meta SWE decided to quit today, the market would be flooded with employees. Then you’ve got the problem of other companies being equally unethical. Where are they gonna work, TikTok? Google? Oracle? Who gets the ethics gold star here?
  - siren2026 5mo ago
    Oh come on, It is very well known that the Facebook bar to get hired is ruthless and very high, it requires studying for weeks to pass the leetcode interviews. They just decided to get the extra 20k$/year to be at Meta because this is what they wanted to optimize for. I'm sure some of them might not have options but those are very clearly a smll minority working in niche fields. You don't get to Meta when you are a struggling engineer. You get there because you want to squeeze every single $ you can.
    - dangus 5mo ago
      Here’s a data center job in Ohio that pays under $100k: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/795179610064299 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/795179610064... Another Ohio job that pays barely over $100k: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/831663409504316 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/831663409504... South Carolina job that barely pays over $100k: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/606551888496600 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/606551888496... Another of the same: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/1201679578735137 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/120167957873...

by dangus 5mo ago

FireBeyond 5mo ago

> Not everyone who works at Meta has a better, more ethical option. Come on now. Software engineers at Meta are not trapped with Meta on their resume (whatever you may think of the company itself). Most of the FAANG, for engineering, just having that name on your resume, opens up doors. You might get less than $700K TC as an E6 but that's also not "trapped" unless you've chosen to outspend your income.

siren2026 5mo ago
Exactly. Working at Meta means you studied for 4 weeks for the leetcode interviews. That type of dedication means you could very easily get any job anywhere else. And please don't compare someone making 800k$ with someone scanning a ticket for Ticketmaster.
- FireBeyond 5mo ago
  How am I doing that? I'm talking about people who have very valid options elsewhere. "I'm stuck at Meta, making $800K, I have no other options". We're talking about software engineers who created much of the things they're complaining about. I'm not talking about say, cafeteria or custodial staff. And I despise Meta, and you can say whatever you want about Leetcode (and I tend to agree) but don't pretend that there are many many rungs of "software engineering calibers" in jobs that wouldn't see Meta, or Netflix and say "we have to interview this person".
  - siren2026 5mo ago
    You misread my comment. I'm in agreement with you all the way.
  - dangus 5mo ago
    Interesting, I’ve found job postings at Meta that pay under $100k for data center jobs in Ohio. There are also network engineering jobs in South Carolina that start at $105k. Do you think people in Bowling Green, OH are flooded with employment options? They can just walk down the street to go work at Google or Apple right? If I’m in Huntsville, Alabama and I’m a mechanic should I turn down this job because Meta isn’t ethical? https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/1949481595892560 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/194948159589... And where should I go work instead in Alabama? For the super duper ethical local car dealership? I would also point out that many of Meta’s departments like hardware engineering have a much smaller US job pool than software engineering. If you’re in the US and your profession is electrical engineering you you can’t just work remote anywhere or find a bank or insurance company in practically any city in the US to get a job with. A lot of your job prospects as a hardware engineer are also with the military and defense contractors. Meta is also one of the few companies that has job postings for PhD researcher type folks that only otherwise employable as professors at universities at relatively low salaries. If you’re a scientist in certain fields it’s a similar situation: try to become a professor, work for the government, or find the rare company like Meta that performs cutting edge research.

siren2026 5mo ago

Oh I will blame them. Working at Facebook means you optimized ruthlessly for $$$$$ only, absolutely nothing else. Working at Facebook means you are a leetcode monkey and could as well pass other interviews somewhere else and get paid 10% less. But to you, destroying democracy and killing teenager was worth those extra 10% Working at Facebook means you became a millionaire, even if you joined mid-career a couple years ago because of the stock inflation. No they are not just trying to feed their family. 99% of them are ruthlessly optimizing to make the most money possible to live in the top 1%, while completely dismissing all the bad Facebook, Meta and Instagram do in the world. No sympathy. And please don't compare someone making 800k$ with someone scanning a ticket for Ticketmaster for minimum wage. At those income levels, who you work for DOES matter.

dangus 5mo ago
Interesting, I found Meta data center jobs in Ohio, Alabama, Illinois outside of Chicagoland, and South Carolina that pay under $100k or barely above it. I didn’t find any that pay $800k. I found one for a diesel technician in Huntsville, Alabama. How many options for ethical employment does a diesel technician in Alabama have? Do you think your local franchised truck dealership is more ethical than Meta?
- siren2026 5mo ago
  we are obviously talking about the majority of employees that are SWE. You are very obviously nitpicking the lowest paid employees you could find. https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Meta https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Meta

darth_avocado 5mo ago

Meta employees aren’t DoorDash gig workers trying to feed families. These are well compensated workers. It’s okay to have the opinion that most white collar jobs do some harm somewhere, but pretending these are poor souls forced to work for meta because of lack of options is not a great take. Furthermore the guy scanning the tickets doesn’t work for Ticketmaster, Meta employees work for and are well compensated for that work, by Meta. Big difference. That being said, I still empathize with workers. I think people need to be treated like people and not some resource to be exploited.

dangus 5mo ago
There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs. Think about departments like support, graphic design, marketing, etc. Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated. Also, it’s not like you have a wildly great choice of ethical companies to work for as an employee. What percentage of corporations are truly ethical? What companies that compete with Meta are highly ethical? If I quit Meta who am I working for that has no ethical issues?
- darth_avocado 5mo ago
  > There are definitely Meta employees who are not making especially high salaries like SWEs With very few exceptions, Meta employees are generally making more money within their domain as compared to what they would make working at other companies, which is always an option. > Most white collar workers do not have any luxury to stop working even if they are well-compensated It’s a false dichotomy: work for meta or be unemployed. Millions of white collar workers are doing fine not working for Meta. And questioning if any corporation is free from ethical problems does not absolve you from the responsibility of the outcomes of what you build. Some corporations are objectively worse than others. A corporation building systems to pay gig workers less than the minimum wage is going to be probably worse than a corporation that builds a design collaboration tool when it comes to ethics. You can choose to work for either and be well compensated for your work, but let’s not pretend you’re some poor soul trapped in a job that you can’t escape.

justacrow 5mo ago

Yes, all those people Meta just laid off due to whistleblowing on the Glass privacy violations, and their content moderators and data labelers and so on have my full support. No sympathies for anyone doing SW engineering or similar. Anyone working there can definitely get a different programming gig. It likely doesn't pay as much but that's how it goes when you sell your soul.

dangus 5mo ago
I still have sympathies for any individual contributors even if they are high paid. No, you can’t always just magically work somewhere else. Especially not in the current job market. This is especially true when Meta has a far higher employee count than most companies. If every Meta SWE decided to quit today, the market would be flooded with employees. Then you’ve got the problem of other companies being equally unethical. Where are they gonna work, TikTok? Google? Oracle? Who gets the ethics gold star here?
- siren2026 5mo ago
  Oh come on, It is very well known that the Facebook bar to get hired is ruthless and very high, it requires studying for weeks to pass the leetcode interviews. They just decided to get the extra 20k$/year to be at Meta because this is what they wanted to optimize for. I'm sure some of them might not have options but those are very clearly a smll minority working in niche fields. You don't get to Meta when you are a struggling engineer. You get there because you want to squeeze every single $ you can.
  - dangus 5mo ago
    Here’s a data center job in Ohio that pays under $100k: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/795179610064299 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/795179610064... Another Ohio job that pays barely over $100k: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/831663409504316 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/831663409504... South Carolina job that barely pays over $100k: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/606551888496600 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/606551888496... Another of the same: https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/1201679578735137 https://www.metacareers.com/profile/job_details/120167957873...