I Was Laid Off
Paul Buckley
Unlike some other people at Meta, I was definitely having performance issues prior to the layoffs. I received a Meets Some rating (basically the lowest rating) for my last year here, and while I think that is a bit harsh, it has gotten me thinking about what the fuck happened and the broader context of the layoffs.
Background
I worked at Meta for 10.5 years, and in the 16 official review cycles before this one I had received:
12x Exceeded Expectations ratings
2x Greatly Exceeded Expectations ratings
2x Meets All expectations (1x when on parental leave for the half, the other when transitioning from manager to individual contributor)
In addition, I was promoted from E3 (noob) to E6 (level above senior engineer).
I say this not to brag but to maybe put light on the fact that it wasn't "bottom 5%" of engineers that were laid off - at least I don’t feel like my past performance indicates I’m a bottom 5% engineer.
For a lot of us, this could have been a short negative blip in a long career where the focus was on family or mental health or we delt with temporary work conflicts. We'll never know though as Meta wanted to cut and cut it did. I won't pretend to know what would have been a better move, but this certainly doesn't feel optimal.
So with that out of the way and with some introspection over the last week, what led to my shit performance last year?
Depression
First, depression. Our second daughter has had a lot of sleep issues, and it turns out that chronic lack of sleep can break your mind (this video hit me hard). Kids are fucking hard.
My dad was also diagnosed with terminal cancer last spring which I've been struggling to come to terms with (we are very close) and which has led to a lot of existential thoughts.
Coupled with two kids under 3 years old who were perpetually sick for the last 6 months, this didn't leave me much time to focus on myself and making sure my head was above water - in hindsight I should have taken some time off while we had childcare (time which I'm getting now and it feels great!).
Misalignment with Management
I want to emphasize that a lot of this was exacerbated by my depression making it difficult to cope with conflict. What follows is a take on my feelings and a heavy dose of copium. My feelings started shifting around the time of feeling depressed, so whether causal or coincidental is up for interpretation.
First in terms of me/management misalignment, there was the issue of what to work on - I can't get into details, but we did not agree on what work was valuable to work on. In hindsight, I should have just gone with what I thought was important and interesting instead of... just not really doing anything (well not anything, but focusing on more reactive work). I should have given this feedback at the time that I needed to have something else to work on or committed to sticking to what I thought was important.
Second for misalignment, was on how I worked. I am not someone who should ever work on medical equipment or aircrafts - I came of engineering age at the time where Facebook was on the "Move Fast and Break Things" train and that is how I work best (*). There were a few instances where I moved fast and indeed did break things (which were easily fixable) and received harsh, repeated negative feedback. This, coupled with the apathy of depression, made me just not want to do anything. In hindsight, I should have seeked out a different situation where my creativity and move-fast mentality (and associated lack of attention to detail) would be an asset.
(*) I hate labels, but I listened to a podcast on ADHD and the tech industry and I’ve never listened to something where I felt like “woah that’s me!” as much as that was.
Lacking Scope
When I went out on parental leave, I had to give all of my scope away - scope which was difficult to pick up the first time I went on parental leave after only being back about a year. As an E6 engineer you are expected to create your own scope which is challenging when 1) your company isn't clear on what it is working on (my main project was de- and re-prioritized multiple times) and 2) there are cancelations of programs making your team top-heavy.
In hindsight, I would have still taken my parental leave as that is my #1 priority (and I didn't get more than 3 hours of consecutive sleep for 6 months anyways) but would have just committed fully to the project which was always in limbo - I could have stepped up and moved up the stack to gain scope.
Burn Out
I do not care about VR/MR. I actively dislike video games and that is still the primary use case of it (despite hopes).
In the beginning of working on Oculus, it was extremely exciting - we were the darling of the tech community and I rode that wave of excitement for years. "Oh wow you work at Oculus?! That's so cool I wish I could work on that!" was a common refrain. While one shouldn't be externally motivated by the feelings of others, there was an excitement of working there - we were making on the next big thing!
Over the years though, the excitement waned. We fell into a niche market working on the next incremental thing. Instead of focusing on external excitement, I started focusing more on myself and my career growth. This re-lit the excitement candle for me for a period - I lusted after getting that next title and the salary that came with it... until I didn't.
My dad getting sick started shifting my perspective. We only have so much time on this earth and we can choose how we spend it. My kids will only be this age young once. My dad will be dead this year. My mom won't always be around. I won't always be around.
Why did I need the promotion? Why did I need to work on something I didn't care about? Is this how I want to spend my time? I read about the idea of "misalignment burn out", which feels pretty accurate for me. My only real alignment towards my values was that I was learning things from super fucking smart people and that I loved my coworkers after working with many of them for many years.
What now?
In one-week hindsight, I'm super happy that I was let go. This is an amazing opportunity for me for a few reasons:
There are tons of things I want to work on (I'll write up something on what excites me later)
I will be getting paid to spend time with my family
I needed a break after working on more or less the same thing for 10.5 years
And I'll be totally fine. As I joke with everyone, this leaves me time to get totally jacked and start an OnlyFans page. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but I will have lots of time to get in the best shape of my life without excuses :)